Suchergebnisse

Myanmar is a country in transition with great regional diversity. It is still a relatively young country with the highest share of its population at active working age. Myanmar's more pressing needs are the following: a) reducing the incidence of poverty and improving human development outcomes, with a particular emphasis on reaching the poor and vulnerable. Children from poor families fare worse when it comes to nutrition, and education outcomes; and b) addressing the insecurity of incomes and developing mechanisms to reduce exposure to risks and ability to cope with ill-health, disasters and other shocks. This suggests a critical role for social protectionpolicies and programs in Myanmar's strategy for poverty reduction and people-centered development.

Afghanistan will experience a major security and development transition over the next three years. At the Kabul and Lisbon Conferences in 2010, NATO and the Afghan government agreed that full responsibility for security would be handed over to the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) by the end of 2014. Development progress since 2001 has been mixed. Some major achievements have been recorded, such as rapid economic growth (with large fluctuations), relatively low inflation (after hyperinflation in the 1990s), better public financial management, and gains in basic health and education. Key social indicators, including life expectancy and maternal mortality, have improved markedly (admittedly from an extremely low base), and women are participating more in the economy. Yet in other respects, particularly governance and institution building, the country has fared less well, and many indicators have worsened in recent years. Afghanistan remains one of the world's least developed countries, with a per capita gross domestic product (GDP) of only $528 in 2010/11. More than a third of the population live below the poverty line, more than half are vulnerable and at serious risk of falling into poverty, and three?quarters are illiterate. This report is intended to be comprehensive, so it also discusses the broader historical and political economy context of development in the country, and how Afghanistan compares with other countries that have undergone their own transitions over the past 30 years. This report is based on data collected from various sources in 2011, and its analysis and findings therefore comprise the team's considered assessment using the best available information available by the end of that year. In addition, projections of future trends in Afghanistan inevitably are subject to uncertainty and reflect any weaknesses in the underlying data. Thus the report's projections should be seen as subject to further adjustments and improvements as better and more recent information become available. This report is presented in two volumes. Volume one is a stand?alone Overview which highlights the main findings, projections, and recommendations of the study. Volume two consists of five chapters presenting the detailed empirical background, analytical findings, projections, and recommendations of the study, along with a concluding chapter and three technical appendices.

This paper analyzes the role of the leadership in the economic growth in Rwanda, a country that was seriously affected by civil war and the 1994 genocide. It appears that the will and the clear vision of the leadership in Rwanda were one of the central pillars of the very good economic and social performances in Rwanda. This is particularly important because the country has almost no natural resources and the economy and its fundamentals were completely destroyed by the 1994 genocide. This paper thus helps enrich the various economic growth models by stressing the importance of the quality of leadership.

Issue 56.2 of the Review for Religious, March/April 1997. ; for religious C}ar~s6an Heritages and Contemporary L~v~r~g MARCH-APRIL 1997 ¯ VOLUME 56 ° NUMBER 2 Review for Relig4ous is a forum for shared reflection on the lived experience of all who 3~nd that the church's rich heritages of spffituality support their personal and apostolic Christian lives. The articles in tbe journal are meant to be informative, practical, or inspirational, written front a theological or spiritual or sometimes canonical point of view. Review for Religious (1SSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at Saint Louis Universit3., 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: I~OI~PI~MA@SLU.H)U Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Cauonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP 1150 Cedar Cove Road ¯ Henderson, NC 27536 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. ©~997 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 aud/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 per,nission 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. ligious Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming sJ Philip C. Fischer sJ Regina Siegfried ASC Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Jean Read James and Joan Felling Iris Ann Ledden SSND Joel Rippinger OSB Edmundo Rodriguez SJ David'Werthmann CSSR Patricia Wittberg SC Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living MARCH-APRIL 1997 * VoLuME56 ¯ N~3MBER2 contents 118 132 143 communion and community: a symposium Communion: Divine Life Enlarging Our Desires David L. Fleming SJ explores the implications of communion for the spirituality and mission of consecrated life. Communion in Community: Some Hopeful Understandings Theresa Galvan CND proposes some ideas about and suggestions for the enfleshing of communion in the community life of today's religious. Community and Prophetic Witness Anne Munley IHM calls the religious community to understand the world in which we live in order to challenge the status quo and imagine and announce an alternative future. 156 lenten reflections John Cassian on Asceticism Kenneth C. Russell examines Cassian's teachings on asceticism and finds a therapeutic tool to recondition, under grace, the reaction of body and mind so that all our actions will be in harmony with our intentions to love God and neighbor and ourselves. Review for Religious " 169 Contemplating the Crucified: A Woman's Reflection Laurie Cassidy makes use of one woman's experience to raise the question of how other women's experience of contemplating the Crucified can offer new ways to image God's redemptive work in Jesus. 182 The Waters of Vaucluse Dennis J. Billy CSSR relates how the pool of Vaucluse not only inspires wonder by its natural beauty, but also reminds us of the centrality of prayer and of the urgency of calming the raging passion of life's inner demons. 187 report U.S. Hispanic Catholics: Trends and Works 1996 Kenneth G. Davis OFMConv and Eduardo C. Fernfindez SJ present a panoramic of the year's events within the U.S. Hispanic Catholic community. departments 116 Prisms 207 Canonical Counsel: Apostolic Institutes 212 Book Reviews 145--- Marcb-Aln'il 1996 prisms A crucifix as a symbol of God's love speaks out a richer and deeper meaning than all the learned and devotional treatises of theologians and mys-tics. We spend the special liturgical seas6n of Lent allow-ing the crucified Jesus to touch our lives more closely and to call us to realize a similar willingness to love with all our mind, with all our heart, with all our strength, and with our whole soul. One of the great wonderments of our Christian Lenten season is the gift to see God in a wholly new way. Philip boldly proposes to Jesus: "Show us the Father and that will be enough for us." And Jesus even more boldly responds to Philip's request that "whoever has .seen me has seen the Father" (Jn 14:8-9). As we look upon the face of the crucified One, we see a face of God never imaged by philosophers. In reasoning to a God, we find ourselves caught in a morass of concepts about an all-powerful Being, an impassible Being, a Being far removed from the limitations of our time and space. Even theologians struggle to hold intact Jesus, the Word made flesh, from his conception to his death and resurrection, through all his experiences of loving, being tempted, learning, enjoying, feeling abandoned, suffer-ing, and dying. But, in looking at a crucifix, we rise above all the somersaults the human mind has to make. We look up and see simply the face of God waiting and loving us with a suffering and compassionate love. Jesus shows us God looking with love and distress upon so much.of our inhumane behavior to one another. He says, "Forgive, they do not know what they are doing." Review for Religious Through Jesus we see a God who has great desires expressed as "I thirst"--a God who hungers and thirsts for divine justice to per-meate our human dealings within families, in workplaces, between nations, so allowing God's glory to shine through. The crucified Jesus helps us to come forward fearlessly before God and plead "Remember me"--for the good that we have done or tried to do, for the pardon that we need, just for the gaze of God's attention. The crucifix allows us to glimpse the face of God's concern, try-ing to provide support and comfort to all of us Marys and Johns in the midst of our most empty and desolate moments. This is a God who empties Self in each of the gifts presented to us. As we celebrate this year of our millennium preparations with its dedication to Jesus, Lent's preparatory season for the paschal time provides us with the opportunity to grasp anew the wonder of our Christian understanding of God. Who is this God who has called us into a familial relationship, sharing the very divine life, making us truly brothers and sisters to one another? Who is this God who, waiting patiently in weakness for our love response, gives us further signs of love,~ each a plea for our attention? Who is this God who labors with us, sometimes the potter, at other times the alert assistant to our own creative actions? Perhaps we all need to be surprised again that gazing upon the crucifix gives rich insight into our God. Through Jesus, and even more particularly in his crucifixion, we come to know God in intimate ways--ways "hidden from the learned and the clever" and now revealed to us, "the merest children" (Lk 10:21). To us in our 1997 preparations Jesus says, "Blest are the eyes that see what you see. I tell you, many prophets and kings wished to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it" (Lk 10:24). David L. Fleming SJ March-Aptql 1996 communi j DAVID L. FLEMING Communion: Divine Life Enlarging Our Desires Communion, community, and common life are themes big enough to involve our whole human world, touching people in every land, in every culture. They are themes small enough to touch us in the local ~eligious community where we live and in the ministries which we do. I believe that, if we take the time to understand communion (com-munio) and make the effort consciously to li;¢e it, we will find that it will clarify and enlarge our identity (who we are as persons and as a group) and enrich our mission (what-ever our ministry in Christ's name). For communion is about life--living a life for God and sharing that life from God with others. In exploring the implications of communion, I pro-. pose these six steps: (1) to examine the word communion; (2) to consider the church context; (3) to zero in on the context of The Consecrated Life; (4) to look at some expe-riences of a communion theology; (5) to examine the meanings of a spirituality of communion; and (6) to ques, tion what it might mean to be agents of communion. The Word Communio Communio, a Latin word, bears the weight of a theo- David L. Fleming SJ, editor of this journal, first presented the content of this article as a part of a symposium on Community and Consecrated Life sponsored by the Jesuit Center for Spiritual Growth at Wernersville, Pennsylvania, in October 1996. The fol-lowing two articles complete the presentations of this symposium. Review for Religious logical emphasis, renewed in our time but ancient in its roots. When a word has an almost technical meaning, we often find it helpful to consider its etymology. Etymology gives us a kind of entrance, but still we must be careful about word derivations. Communio at first might seem to come from the Latin unio, mean-ing "union," and the Latin preposition cure, meaning "with." But etymologists--those people who study language and its develop-ments-- wouldpoint out that. we are not paying attention to the two "m's." Communio appears to derive from the Latin word munus, which means "function," "task," "office," or "duty." With the preposition cure added, we get a word meaning common task, common function, or common responsibility. Etymologically, then, communio presents us with not just togetherness (union), but rather with a stress on the activity of togetherness. Moving from linguistic roots to the history of the word, com-munio was the Latin equivalent for the Greek word koinonia. In the early church three words were descriptive of its existence: kerygma, koinonia, and diakonia. Kerygma is rendered in English as "preach-ing" or "proclamation." When we use the English equivalent, we need to remember that kerygma denotes both the act and the mes-sage- perhaps better caught in our word preaching. In a similar way, diakonia, translated as "service" or "ministry," signifies both the action itself and the kind of service rendered. As we might suspect, koinonia is meant to parallel the usage found in kerygma and diakonia. Koinonia, simply translated as "community," tended to be understood by us only in its substantive reality--an assem-bly, a congregation, a society. Communio, the Latin equivalent of koinonia, especially in its current theological usage, alerts us to focus on the dynamic action of the very forming of a group of people into a "community"as well as the formed group itself. In Latin we may make a distinction between the words communio and communitas which underlines the emphasis we are trying to grasp. Communitas is a word to apply to a certain objective or substantive reality--a group of people who are together, having something in common. Communio, for its part, emphasizes the process or the actual sharing and thus the dynamism or energy ¯ necessary for a community to become and to remain a community. I believe that we can trace back these active meanings of koinonia and communio into two images found in the New Testament. Although we have expression~ of our substantive rela-tionship to God in Christ and to one another in the metaphors of l~larch-April 1997 a building not made by human hands or "my Father's house with many mansions" or a temple built of various materials, the dynamic images of the "vine and branches" in St. John's Gospel and of the "members of the Body" in the writings of St: Paul seem truer to our active living of the Christian life. We know what it means to be growing in our relationship to Jesus and to one another; we also know its setbacks. We know the stresses of being an eye wanting to say to the hand "I do not need you," as Paul reflects in his first letter to the church at Corinth. And yet we have experience of being members of one Body. We have a sense of the here-and-now reality of our relationship to Christ and to God, and we also have the sense of being "on the way" or always "in process." That is communion. The Church Context John Paul II said to the United States bishops in 1987 that "the concept of communion lies 'at the heart of the church's self-understanding.'" The official document of the 1985 Extraordinary Synod, held on the twentieth anniversary of Vatican Council II, says, "The ecclesiology of communion is a central and fundamen-tal concept in the conciliar documents." And the 1993 Directgry for Ecumenism identifies communion as "a key concept which inspired the ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council and to which recent teaching of the magisterium has given great impor-tance." But we could also discover other opinions about the impor-tance of communion. For example, in The New Dictionary of Catholic Spirituality, under the entry "Church" by Leonard Doohan, we read: "The fact that the faithful can readily identify with People of God, while they have little understanding of~ the theological con-cept communio--even, it has been suggested, 'hidden' in Latin--has given rise to severe criticism. Communio is an important dimension of the Church and has already been used to redraft the document for the Synod on the Laity (1987) and to help in the rethinking of the roles of episcopal conferences (1989), but like the concept 'sacrament of the world' it is hardly ever to gain as widespread use as 'People of God' has and will continue to have." So what has been identified as a tfieological term--communio--has been called "central" to our understanding of church by its supporters, and it has been labeled confusing and abstract by its critics. In The Consecrated Life John Paul II challenges all consecrated Review for Religious people to become true experts of communion and t9 practice the spirituality of communion (§46). He proposes that communities of consecrated life have the particular task of spreading the spir-ituality of communion (§5 I). Both as individuals and as congre- " gations, consecrated persons are called to become "agents of communion." What is a spirituality of communion, what does it mean for us to be expert in it, and how do we go about becoming agents of communion? With such major questions, all dealing with the difficult term communio, we had better consider more closely the context of the apostolic exhortation The Consecrated Life. Communio and The Consecrated Life An important key for me in entering into The Consecrated Life is John Paul's use of the transfiguration passage from Matthew's Gospel. He presents a reading of the Gospel text, but at the same time he tells us that he wants us to use the text as an icon and so to let the visual scene draw us into its reality. The pope calls us to consider the transfiguration icon as the icon of our consecrated lives. The icon brings us Latin-rite Catholics into a world that is not very familiar to us. We are used to our statues, paintings, and stained-glass windows, but for most of us the icon remains a rather cold, stylized picture. I have heard one story about the icon which I find very helpful for giving me an appreciation of this art form. When people feel a call to become a painter of the icon, they seek out a master or mentor who will help in their training: All apprentices iare started in their training in the same way: over and over they keep painting the same subject matter until the master approves. The subject matter for every appren-tice is the gospel scene of the transfiguration. Why do they need to repeat the effort of painting this pa{ticular subject over and over again? The master is judging whether the apprentice is devel-oping "eyes of faith." "Eyes of faith" are necessary to be able to paint an icon as well as to let the icon help us see. For this r~ason, it seems to Both as individuals and as congregations, consecrated persons are called to become "agents of communion." ~Ylarch-ApHl 1997 Fleming ¯ Communion me, Pope John Paul begins our consideration of consecrated life by using the icon of the transfiguration. There is only one way to begin our consideration of consecrated life, and that is: we must begin with "eyes of faith." Icons are described as windows or doors opening out into a divine world; they allow us entrance into God's world. For the Orthodox, they are like a sacrament in that an icon is a grace, a being touched by God, a new sharing in God's life, a moment of communion. The pope d6es not suggest just any icon; he speci-fies the icon of the transfiguration. He provides a verbal content of the icon in citing Matthew 17:1-9. Our focus is on Jesus. By observ-ing the startling change in him--his face bright as the sun, and his clothes white as light--we enter into a world of God's presence shining through the surface of our ordinary everyday experience. We must pay attention to our experience. First of all, we are struck by the experience of "beauty"--the brightness almost hurts our eyes, but we do not want to stop looking. Beauty and wonder and awe--we would like the moment to never end. We are con-scious that we have touched into another world--it is a religious experi~ence. The experience of seeing and hearing and being touched are all so different from ordinary seeing and hearing and touching--and yet those words describe best what our experience is: a seeing, a hearing, and a being touched. Second, although we need a little distance from the event to say this, the experience is "of the whole." Yes, we can focus and let our glance go here or there; we can look intently, almost shut-ting everything else out; we can listen so totally that it seems we are nothing but ears. The experience seems to be so total, so much a whole--and yet in retrospect we realize that we can describe many instances, different moments, within the whole-ness of the experience. We are like the apostle companions who years later still remember so many details from this transfigura-tion experience. Finally, it is when we review and recollect these "instances" that we realize the icon is an occasion of "learning." Our focus-ing, our reflections on our seeing, on our hearing, and on our being touched provide us with insight and understanding. We see relationships, we grasp how everything fits, we feel that we have an "aha!" or a "eureka!" learning time. In such a manner, .in The Consecrated Life the pope enters us into theological reflection, but through the door which must give Review for Religious entrance to all theological development, the door of prayer. Some of our revered theologians--the ones often referred to as "Fathers of the Church"--kept repeating in the early days of the church's theological development that all theology comes from prayer and leads to prayer. John Paul II models this approach in The Consecrated Life. But now let us step away from the document and let a broader experience of our Christian living give us evidence for a communion theology. A Communion Theology Do you remember when you "made" your first Communion? How often have you heard the question or spoken it yourself: "Are you going to Communion?" Perhaps we all know some peo-ple still adjusting to Vatican II changes who find it hard to "receive" Communion from anyone but a priest. What is this Communion that we can "make" or "go to" or "receive"? From our experience we know what we mean by our various verbal ~xpressions, but it is helpful for us to reflect a lit-tle more carefully about comm~znion. Communion, as we use it in terms of "making our first .'. ," or "receiving," or "going to," means the sacrament of the Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Christ under the forms of bread and wine. We often use the fuller expression "holy Communion." We take for granted Jesus truly does give himself as the food and drink of life and that, in eating his body and drinking his blood, 'we are in communion with him in a most real and privileged way. But this food acts like no other food. In our eating the Body and drinking the Blood of Christ, the food does not become a part of us, as we understand our faith, but we are being joined into Christ's life. This is a matter, not so much of us "feeding on Christ," but rather of us (like food) being assimilated through Christ into the divine life. The Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin suggests (in his 1944."Introduction to Christian Life") that we understand our individual "receptions" of Communion not as single, discrete moments of union, but rather as a single lifelong process of our being assimilated into Christ. Our experience is that Communion is a special sacramental moment of union with Christ, of Christ's presence within us. Christ is the one who gives himself in this sacrament, and he waits upon our readiness and availability to receive him. So we cor-rectly speak of "receiving Communion," receiving a gift given. '123 - March-April 1997 Fleming ¯ Communion And in our designation of "holy Communion" we point to the inherent quality of the divine, of God being involved in this unit-ing. As we examine our experience of "going to Communion," we discover that it includes (i) a presence--Christ's "being with" us in a special (sacramental) way; (2) a gifting--the initiative com-ing from Christ or God; and (3) a holiness--the mysterious qual-ity which we identify with God and with divine life being imparted to us or shared with us. But, at the very time of God's activity, Communion demands our being present, our being available, our coming forward--caught up in our expression "making our first Communion." There is no Communion possible for us if we do not give ourselves over to its possibility. The Latin word commu-nit, perhaps more than our English Communion, lays stress on the activity, the dynamism, the energizing within our presence to one another, the uniting, the coming together. Communion in com-mon usage describes the sacrament of Christ's presence for us, but the word in its deeper reality speaks rather of Christ's "being .with" us and his "shaping" us in his image and "forming" us into his Body, the church. Communion effects, that is, causes, a new way of living. Let us enlarge our considerations from holy Communion to holy Eucharist--or what we commonly refer to as the Mass. The center and focus of Christian life is the celebration of the Eucharist. The Eucharist may appear to be a ritual that is repeated over and over again; only the liturgy of the word--prayers and readings--seems to have variation. But the Eucharist is the prayer-action in which we come to join ourselves with Jesus in his total gift of self to the Father's love. The Eucharist is ever new, not so much in the newly cycled readings as in the inclusion of this com-munity (of this very day) in Christ's offering. We pray to God: "Send your Spirit upon these gifts and make them holy. Let them become for us the Body and Blood of Christ." What we call here the Eucharistic action is again a moment of communio--bringing together a group of individuals whom Christ's Spirit overshad-ows as gifts along with the gift of Christ himself. We see how we say that the Eucharist is the continual formation of God's people into the Body of Christ and that the act of receiving Communion is the confirmation of that reality. The original use of the expres-sion "communion of the saints," found in St. Paul's letters, des-ignated that reality--the common sharing of believers in the body of Christ with one another and with God in Christ through the Review for Religious power of the Spirit. So, too, even today the communion of saints signifies the active care and concern of all church members for one another--the church militant (here on earth), the church suffer-ing (those in purgatory), and the church triumphant (those in heaven), in their continuing activity with the Lord. Our consideration of the Eucharist pushes us back one further step in our exploration of this word communio. How do we first find our identity as Christian? In baptism. We present ourselves (probably most of us were presented by our parents and godparents) to an identi-fying of ourselves with Jesus as our savior. Through the waters of baptism we sym-bolize our rebirth, our rising, that follows upon our symbolic dying with Christ. By baptism we enter into a new life, a com-munion with Christ, and we find our-selves members of his Body, the church. And so we now repeat what we talked about earlier: the reality of our new way of living in our active participation in the communion of saints. The 1985 Extraordinary Synod described baptism as the door and foundation of commu-nion. It went on to say that the Eucharist is the source and culmination of the whole Christian life. Receiving Communion, that is, the eucharis-tic Body of Christ, signifies and produces the building up of the ones called Christian into the Body of Christ which is the church. From our experience of the sacrament of the Eucharist, the Mass, and baptism, we might well say that communion--commu-nio-- is not so much an acting, a joining, as it is a person. Clearly, in the Eucharist it is Christ, but Christ actively engaging us with God and with others. In the Mass and in baptism, communion happens in and through thd Spirit. In our Trinitarian theology we say that the bonding of love between Father and Son is so perfect and full that Love is a person, the third person of our tri-une God. How do we image the Spirit? In the Old Testament a favorite image of God's Spirit is ruah, a mighty force or wind or breath. Even in the light of the New Testament, the Spirit still seems to us to .be that kind of dynamism or energy--but with a face. In Jesus and in the Spirit, com~nunio is not an abstract and airy Communio is a gifting from God, through Christ and in the Spirit, that allows us personally to share in the very communion which is God's lif~. ½25- -- March-April 1997 Fleming * Communion notion--just a kind of grouping or union--but a reality we are caught up in, which is personalizing and enlarging and engaging us all at the same time. Communio is a gifting from God, through Christ and in the Spirit, that allows us personally to share in the very communion which is God's life (or should we say "share in the very Communio who is God"?) and which joins us together as God's people and the Body of Christ. A Spirituality of Communion The transfiguration icon, the Gospel text, and our own Christian experience and prayer--all contribute to our under-standing of communio in the context of the document The Consecrated Life. Pope John Paul suggests that praying the myste~ of the transfiguration sheds light in a singularly helpful way upon the vocation of consecrated life. From ancient times we have been blessed with a spiritual tradition which sees in this icon of the transfiguration a link between .people following the call to the contemplative fife and Jesus in his prayer on the mountain. But the pope points out that the active dimension of consecrated life is also included, "for the transfiguration is not only the revelation of Christ's glory, but also a preparation for facing Christ's cross" (§14). It involves both a "going up the mountain" and a "coming down the mountain." What do we mean by the word spirituality? And what is involved in living a spirituality? We use the word spirituality fre-quently today, and I would like to touch upon its two aspects. Spirituality can be described as a Way of understanding and living out our relationship to God, to ourselves, to others, and to our world. For us Christians I would add: "in the light of our fol-lowing Jesus Christ, as revealed to us in the Scriptures and the tra-ditions of the church." That would be our Christian spirituality. Note that it is a way of understanding and living out a relation-ship. Another aspect of spirituality--a further refinement--is to define spirituality as a theological discipline in terms of its being a study of our way of understanding and living out a relationship to God, to ourselves, to others, and to our world. How might we describe a spirituality of communion' in the light of the transfiguration? The scene involves us With Jesus in prayer, transfigured before his disciples (Peter, James, and John) so that his face shone like the sun and his garments became white Review for Religious as light. Then there appeared to them Moses and Elijah talking with him. Ih the midst of Peter's response to all this happening, there came a bright and overshadowing cloud, with a voice declar-ing, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him." The Trinitarian life of Father, Son, and Spirit is made mani-fest inthe voice (the Father) and the cloud (the Spirit), all part of the glory shining forth from Jesus' humanity. Peter's response, "It is good for us to be here," contained an expression of gratitude for a gift, still barely realized. In the Father's call to listen to Jesus, to place all their trust in him, to make him the center of their lives, the disciples stood on the threshold of a door leading to a wholly new relationship with God. Through Jesus they were being invited to the intimacy of the interior life of our triune God, a life of communio. For men and women religious who still follow the call of the Father (as the icon emphasizes, the Father's call always precedes the call of Christ in our lives) and accord-ingly follow the call of Jesus, listening is still essential. A spirituality of communion begins, with listening. We listen to the word of God--first in the Scriptures and then, by this light, in all the ways God speaks to us tl]rough the entire universe around us. A spirituality of communion follows the lead of Christ, both in being with him in prayer on the mountain and in following him down the mountain and onto the road to Jerusalem. Prayer and all the other elements that make up our life called conse-crated provide the continuing moments of communio for us, just as they did for Jesus. Jesus in~augurated this new family union--all those ready to "do the will of God." This communio changes human relationships and creates a new type of union, so interac-tively close that it gets described by Jesus in family terms and by the pope in terms of a solidarity. After the gifting of the Spirit at Pentecost, the first followers of Christ, as recorded in the early chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, share in his life completely. This model of communio has inspired many founders and foundresses in their visioning of how a particular group would come together. Moved by the Spirit, Charism is our own particular ingredient effecting and affecting our communion, our personal lives and our lives together. March-April 1997 Fleming ¯ Communion we in consecrated life today find our way of sharing in common a necessary part of our spirituality of communion. Charism is our own particular ingredient effecting and affecting our communion, our personal lives and our lives together. We will be exploring this reality in the other articles of this symposium. Here it is enough to note that charism gives a unique quality or character to communion. Each of the traditional evangelical counsels--chastity, poverty, and obedience--is nuanced by our consciously living a spiritual-ity of communion. Chastity--for us, an undivided heart--is :a reflection of Jesus' choice, but even deeper down, for his life and for ours, chastity is a reflection of the infinite love which links the three Divine Persons--an undivided love. We strive to reflect such a fullness of divine love with what we call "our undivided heart." Poverty, whereby we proclaim that God is our only real treasure, reflects the "emptying" of the incarnate Son, even to death by crucifixion, to become one with us so that we can become rich with his resurrected fullness. But poverty for Jesus and so for us, too, reflects the total gift of self---holding nothing back-- which the three Divine Persons make to one another. Obedience shows the liberating beauty of a dependence modeled on Jesus, whose "meat and drink" is to do the "will of Him who sent me;" but even deeper down, for Jesus and for us, a life-dependence reflecting the loving harmony between the three Divine Persons. As an instance of this harmony, St. Ignatius Loyola in his Spiritual Exercises suggests that as we enter the m~stery of the annunciation we picture the Trinity in conference--seeing the human world as they see it, hearing its cries of joy and sorrow, hope and despair, and then noting their decision setting in motion the salvation project made visible in the obedient incarnation of the Second Person. As we grow in our love of Jesus by imitating him in our choice of the evangelical counsels, we find ourselves growing in our communion with the triune God. The Eucharist remains the central daily act for those living a spirituality of communion. It is in the celebration of the Eucharist that we understand most clearly that communion leads to mis-sion and itself becomes mission. In the transfiguration passage in Luke's Gospel, Jesus is understood to be conversing with Moses and Elijah (symbols summing up the Old Testament, both the Law and the Prophets) about the biblical passage he was to fulfill in Jerusalem. The transfiguration icon, as the pope has reminded Re~iew for Religious us, contains both the "going up the mountain" (prayer) and "com-ing down the mountain" (mission). The "Ire, missa est" (not, "go, the Mass is ended" but "go, there is a sending forth") was in the context of fragments of the consecrated host being brought around to all the churches in Rome--a sending forth to solidify again the communion among all the Christian communities. In such a context, the very Communion of the community is its mission, and in its mission is found communion. Agents of Communion For all those living the consecrated-life vocation, there is the need to explicitly foster a spirituality basic to this way of life--a spirituality of communion. Not only does such a growth begin to be exercised as one gives oneself over to a religious congrega-tion, but the congregation itself needs always to promote its own communion among all its members over cultures and geograph-ical regions and age spans. And the congregation members find themselves involved in ever widening arcs in working with others in ministry, always seeking and providing a support and union in life and in service. By their being continually configured to Christ, consecrated persons join their own prayer and action with a spe-cial intensity to Jesus' own prayer "that all may be one." What impresses me in Peter's response within the transfigu-ration icon, "It is good for us to be here," is the call for all con-secrated people to be "agents of communion." Perhaps in our own day it gives a new intensity to the famous Pauline identity of our common Christian mission as "ambassadors Of reconcilia-tion." How necessary it is to work at and enhance our spiritual-ity of communion! We are to be agents of communion, ambassadors of reconciliation, in a church often divided in strident ways between liberals and conservatives, divided by mistrust between the laity and the hierarchy, and even divided over living our life together, over our prayer and our ministry, as members of one and the same religious congregation. We are to be agents of communion in countries and societies that are torn by racial divi-sion, agents of communion in a Christian church scandalously fractured into so many denominations professing Christ that our missionary effort is weakened, agents of communion in cultures where the many belief and value systems serve only to divide peo-ple. There is only one way to become better agents of commu-l~ larclJ-April 1997 Fleming ¯ Communion nion, and that is to imbibe a spirituality of communion and put it into action. The icon brings home a togetherness in prayer and in action. "It is good for us . " "Good for us" is the attitude and mind-set of people trying to live out a spirituality of communion. Dialogue becomes a way of life for an agent of communion. And so we find ourselves by our very choice of consecrated life with a chosen responsibility to integrate a spirituality of seeking communion with the charismatic spirituality of our own conse-crated lifeform. For all of us, whatever our charism, both con-templative and actively apostolic, are being called to be agents of communion. I want to close these reflections with one striking example of being an agent of communion in dialogue. The story is that of the seven Cistercians martyred in Algeria in 1996. In this journal's November-December 1996 issue, Father Basil Pennington has published an account of these men. I present just one element of the story here. Seven Trappist monks from Our Lady of Atlas monastery in Tibhirine, Algeria, were executed by the GIA (a kind of Islamic freedom fighters group) on 21 May 1996. The prior, Dom Christian, had written a final testament and sent it to his abbot general~some months earlier, with the instruction that it be opened upon his death. The testament includes these words: This is what I shall be able to do, if God wills: immerse my gaze in that of the Father to contemplate with him his chil-dren of Islam as he sees them, all shining with the glory of Christ, fruit of his Passion, filled with the gift of the Spirit, whose secret joy will always be to establish communion and to refashion the likeness in playing with the differences. For this life lost, totally mine and totally theirs, I thank God, who seems to have wished it entirely for the sake of that joy in and in'spite of everything. In this thank-you where, once and for all, all is said about my life, I certainly include you, friends of yesterday and today, and you, 0 my friends of this place, at the side of my mother and my father, my sisters and my brothers and their families--the hundredfold as he had promised! And you, too, my last-minute friend, who would not have known what you were doing; yes, for you too I say this thank-you and this a-dieu--to commend you to the God in whose face I see yours. And may he grant to us to find each other, happy thieves, in Paradise, if it please God, the Father of us both. Amen! Review for Religious In describing the role of agents of communion, the pope's apostolic exhortation had proclaimed, only two months before this 1994 testament was opened, that consecrated persons have "the particular task of spreading the spirituality of communion first of all in their internal life and then in the ecclesial commu-nity, and even beyond its boundaries, by opening or continuing dialogue in charity, especially where today's world is torn apart by ethnic hatred or senseless violence." Consecrated persons are described as"signs that dialogue is always possible and that com-munion can bring differences into harmony." The Trappists laid down their lives in such hope. The pope began his apostolic exhortation with an icon. We have a modern-day icon here in our Trappist martyrs of Algeria. They are incarnate signs--witnesses, in their identity and in their mission--of what communion (communio) is all about. May these two icons Transfiguration and Trappists--lead us to enlarge our desires for our identity and for our mission through a spirituality of communion. Easter Service A tiny spark fumbled to an ordered flame; one candle lit, then once and twice proclaimed by solemn voice. The fire links out ~spread candle to candle widening in hearthy ripple. Expectant eyes glinting and cheeks Rembrandted the community crackles and breathes anew. The voice intones once more: Hope. Hope. Hope. Stephen Eric Smyth FMS March-April 1997 '131 . THERESA GALVAN Communion in Community: Some Hopeful Understandings My task in this symposium on religious life is to reflect on ome attitudes and mentalities, some understandings and agreements, and some practical efforts that must all be oper-ative if communion is to take flesh in a religious community of women or men. My reflections flow from my personal experi-ence, of course, but they include some of the urgency and hope I have felt during my service of province leadership within my own congregation and in my interaction with leadership of other reli-gious institutes of women and men these past eight years. Since the Second Vatican Council, much outstanding theol-ogy, sociology, psychology, philosophy, and spirituality has been made available to women and men religious. Many writers have influenced the movement of religious life in the church and in society. For their gift of clear articulation, I am very grateful; some of my words will echo their wisdom and research. I am grateful also to all the religious I consulted before writing this paper, members of my own and other religious institutes. Their faith-filled experience and insights will also be echoi.ng in my words. Beyond that, my task is quite simple: to draw from my more recent experiences some ideas about and suggestions for the enfleshing of communion in the community life of today's religious. Theresa Galvan CND has served as provincial superior of the U.S.A. province of the Congregation of Notre Dame. Her address is Congregation of Notre Dame; 391 East Marsile Street; Bourbonnais, Illinois 60914. Review for Religious Before talking about attitudes, mentalities, and practical understandings that are necessary if this is to occur, I want to reflect briefly on Jesus' intimacy with his disciples in the upper room just before his death. It could not have been an easy moment. The time of parting had come, a time redolent of both love and betrayal. But Jesus wanted them to remember why they were there, with each other and with him; why they had been called; and to what they must remain faithful. If anything was to give them courage and even joy in the days ahead, it could only be their memory of this time, calling them to the only thing, the only One, that gave meaning to their lives. Their fears, their arro-gance, their doubts were, at least for this moment, being sup-planted by the intimacy of their oneness with him. T.his fire within them would indeed ensure their ultimate fidelity to him. I have said these things to you while still with you; but the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name will teach you everything and remind you of all I have said to you . Make your home in me as I make mine in you. As a branch cannot bear fruit by itself, but must remain part of the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me . This is my commandment: love one another, as I have loved you. (Jn 14:25-26, 15:3-4, 15:12,JB) The communion of Jesus with his beloved Abba and with the Spirit of Truth, the communion of Jesus with his beloved disciples, is felt and expressed, and is sent forth beyond that uppe~" room. That communion, so fragile and yet so intense, is celebrated, is remembered; it will be tested by the fires of Calvary and all the Calvarys that the disciples and future followers of Jesus will embrace because of their oneness with him, with his mind and heart. If we seek to incarnate--in our community experience as women and men religious--our communion with God in Jesus "Christ, then our starting point must surely be this: the Christ who calls; Christ, whom we follow; Christ, with whom we have cast our lot in the company 6f others similarity called; Christ, whose intense, familiar oneness .with his Father rendered him empty of his divinity through his obedience, his hunger to do his beloved Father's desires "even ufito death"; Christ, who lived and prayed from the depths of his relationship with his Father, who went off alone at times to savor that relationship and to find light and strength for his mission; Christ, who, living always in this Presence, taught the disciples and us, by what he said and how he ~l~arch-April 1997 Galvan ¯ Communion in Community We would do well to look back to our initial commitment and remember its enthusiasm and even extravagance beyond all human reason. lived, to forgive beyond measure, to love unto death, to believe beyond failures, to serve with graciousness, to favor the poor, and to surrender all we have because of love. Before we can sort through our personal attitudes and men-talities and our corporate understandings and agreements (which could once again solidify religious communities, identifying them as models of vibrant communion), it seems to me that we would do well to look back to our initial com-mitment and remember its enthusi-asm and even extravagance beyond all human reason. We need to see, trusting the certitude of our encounters with God since that ini-tial commitment, how Christ has continued to call us. We need to see that in our many responses we have indeed experienced conversions, deepenings of commitment, expan-sions of heart; that we are carried, with no doubt quieter extravagance, to new and deeper levels of self-giving. This is the fire that must remain alive in us if com-munion is to be ignited around us. Webster defines communion as "a sharing; possession in com-mon; an intimate spiritual relationship; a group of people of the same religious faith." Such communion will necessarily spill over in some obvious and tangible ways. It was the experience of the early Christians as they came together for the Eucharist and com-mon prayers and for the purpose of caring for the poor among them. The incarnation of communion in community is indeed both witness and mission. This enfleshing of communion is also a personal need if one's personal communion with Christ and his mission is to remain alive, vibrant, and missionary. The recent apostolic exhortation Vita consecrata (§46) reminds us that "con-secrated persons are called to be true experts of communion and to practice .a 'spirituality of communion' as witnesses and.archi-tects of the plan of unity which is the crowning point of human history in God's design." It is obvious, I think, that communion and community are critically central to our call, commitment, and mission as conse-crated religious in today's world and church. Yet the meaning and Revieu, for Religious the living of community have become major areas of difference for today's religious. Community life has certainly gone through major deconstruction in the past thirty years. Some of it has been necessary, but some of it may be detrimental to our vowed iden-tity, our corporate focus and mission, and our prophetic witness. I want to mention some of the recurring difficulties in com-munity life for today's religious. (Many of them have already been highlighted in the research study by Nygren and Ukeritis on the Future of Religious Orders in the United States.I): ¯ Individualism and the absence of a clear corporate plan of action for mission in some congregations have increased the sense of isolation, of separation, and even of meaning-lessness that contrasts sharply with the members' original expectations. ¯ Some religious have taken on lifestyles of materialism, consumerism, and geographic settledness and have embraced a comfortableness which deadens the missionary spirit, that is, the unencumbered freedom to, go beyond oneself in communion with the poor Christ and'with other people. ¯ Our very ministries have become, for some, overinvolve-ment with the work force to the exclusion of sharing in community responsibilities, being accountable to others in the community, and offering the supportive presence that builds +ommunion. Consequently, personal contemplative communion with God is seriously affected; and community prayer and faith sharing, meals and celebrations together, and other rich human interactions of persons who have responded to a common call are denied the group. ¯ The breakdown of some of a congregation's legitimate leadership structures regarding mission and consecrated commitment has.led to situations of fending for oneself, ~ doing one's own thing, and losing the larger congregational vision, perhaps losing even religious obedience's interior sense of self-giving. ¯ Self-care and personal growth, necessary as these are, have led some to turn in on themselves or to set out on a futile search for the "perfect" community in which there is no room for the sick of mind, body, or spirit. ¯ The Eucharist, for some, has become aSunday-only or occasional event at best, not from legitimate inability to be present, but as a reaction to current church teaching and practice. This way of acting has seriously affected the very heart of Christian communion and religious community life. March-Ap~q11997 Galvan ¯ Communion in Community ¯ Some have simply given up and wait out their~years, claim-ing their own personal fidelity as the extent of their efforts, thus depriving the larger community of their piece of truth, their experience, their graced spiritual wisdom. I believe that there is a hunger in us for communion--with God, with one another, with the church, with our brothers and sis-ters in the wider world. What is keeping us, at least some of us, from entering and living more fully this communion? We must begin to look honestly at some necessary shifts of attitudes, and not only of internal mind-sets, but also their expres-sion in our external manner of being and acting. These shifts must occur if religious community life is to reflect the commu-nion of hearts and minds that single-hearted love of God makes possible, communion that witnesses to the mind of Christ, sup-ports commitment, gives witness to the possibility of selfless love in a hurting world, and urges religious to a greater fidelity to mission. We must not forget that attitudes--those inner dispositions which express themselves outwardly--will not change by external force or coercion. Inner movements toward something more spring generally from the knowledge of being loved and the desire to reciprocate love. Vita consecrata urges us not to lose sight of the fact that the purpose of our lives and commitment is a passionate love for God that finds its expression in communion and a mis-sionary spirit. It is in this inner fire that worthy attitudes are formed and refined. It would seem that some of that fire smolders and is in need of stoking. It seems to me, then, that we need to move: FROM a deadening satisfaction in living community life in the most minimal fashion, leaving each member undisturbed by community expectations and thus neutralizing any engaged commitment, TO living again with the fire of one's initial religious com-mitment (but as it has penetrated deeper in the ensuing years) and daring to dialogue with one another around what is most central to our consecrated, identity and mission. FROM an individualism in community which emotionally and actually isolates us from one another and renders us the sole directors of our individual lives and actions TO an interdependence whereby we are willing to assume influential responsibility for the common good and to let the course of our life be influenced by those with whom we have cast our lot. Review for Religqous FROM a privatized personal prayer that attempts to control the voice, of God, whether speaking to us directly or through events and persons, TO a contemplative prayer which, though taking place in the solitude of ourself with God, includes a desire to hear from the greater communion and by it to be moved beyond ourself. ¯ FROM a paralyzing fixation with former styles of commu-nity life (whether hankering for their seeming assurances and predictabilities or decrying some very real distortions and abuses) TO a healthy retaining of what was good and a letting go of the rest. FROM a lifestyle which reflects a consumerism and mate-rialism based on first-world influences TO an authentically simple lifestyle which mirrors both our single-hearted attachment to Christ and a desire to share both personal and community goods with the larger world. FROM an excessive professional busyness that is destructive of both our personal relationship with God and our com-munity life ¯ TO an active and growing effort to build community by living together in faith our vowed identity, our prayer, and our mission. FROM a "closed" self-righteousness that categorizes indi-viduals, groups, and institutions as unenlightened or out-dated, too liberal or too conservative, and so forth, TO a humble receptivity in dialogue, reconciliation, and bridge building. FROM a posture of strength or power (personal or insti-tutional) stemming from education, academic eminence, or religious profession TO being faith sharers, discerners, and mutually both teach-ers and learners--in solidarity rather than by privileged separateness. FROM an entrenchment in or a preference for "comforts" that are coincident with present-day chaos regarding con-secrated identity TO an acknowledgment that we resist some of the lights we have and then to a greater receptiveness regarding con-version, change, and communion.2 FROM unreflective rejection of some legitimate mediations solely because of the source (church officials, religious lead-ership, private suggestions, and so forth) '-13-7- ~lCarch-April 1997 Galvan * Communion in Community TO an informed and loving critique or reception of the mediation after we have listened and discerned carefully, willing to be moved towards God's desires for us, whatever the channel of communication. FROM a movement away from the cross and its part in the paschal journey TO an embracing of its mystery along with Christ, in the light of who we are and are called to be. FROM a temptation to discouragement in the face of the realities of membership and mission TO a deep trust in God, who has called us to this conse-crated way of life. Attitudinal shifts ordinarily do not happen abruptly. Although God's grace, as we know, sometimes moves us quicHy out of our narrow fears and selfishness, ordinarily shifts in attitudes and mentalities happen slowly, even imperceptibly. My sense is that most often we find ourselves struggling with the subtle and not-so- subtle forces at war within us as we genuinely try to remain poised, with an interior honesty and transparency, to discern God's great and holy desires for us. My experiences these past few years as provincial leave me hopeful. Although I have observed and experienced many of the negative trends cited in the study by Nygren and Ukeritis on the Future of Religious Orders in the United States, I believe that a certain reversal is occurring in some of the trends cited in that study. For example, I am hearing that a growing number of reli-gi. ous are dissatisfied with the individualism that has taken hold of too many in our communities. At more and more congregational meetings, I am hearing of deliberate movement toward a corpo-rate focus and a common vision for mission. Members are being called to participate in rec.laiming their common vision. Such chfinge will demand a letting go of one's independence. It will mean a return to communion with the larger community as the group walks in fidelity to its call and mission in the church and society. It will mean that one is ready to be sent," in the name of the community, in the vision of the community, and in the mission of the church. A call for personal responsibility is implied. The demands and risks of accountability are obvious, but for many they are welcome. Above all, an expressed desire to know and companion Christ poor, chaste, and obedient in his embrace of the mission given him by his beloved Abba continues to be a hunger Review for Religious and the great drawing force for communion in religious life; Ongoing dialogue as believers with a common commitment in the face of the mystery of this call, a dialogue of trust in our own and others' integrity, a dialogue of respect for the movements of the Spirit at work in ourselves and others, a dialogue in an atmo-sphere where one can speak one's personal truth in freedom, acceptance, and love, is of course imperative if what seem to be shifting attitudes and trends are to take root. Yet dialogue, nec-essary as it is, cannot of itself effect the desired end. Each mem-ber of the community must become engaged in what Vita consecrata refers to as a "spirituality of commu-nion" in a world looking for meaning. VChat, then, might be some basic understand-ings and some concrete things a community must agree on if communion--that union of minds and hearts around Christ and his mission--is to be enfleshed, incarnated, made visible among, in, and through them? First, I think that the community must desire to be a place where the members can continue to respond to their call to be with and follow Christ, the poor, chaste, and obedient One. From this desire in each member of the community, the basic under-standings and concrete ways of living that desire will take shape. This implies an atmosphere, the availability of unmistakable spaces where that intimate, personal solitude with God can be experi-enced and deepened. It implies an atmosphere where one's vowed life can find concrete expression and ~where the mission and charism of the larger religious congregation is a lived reality. This atmosphere, this space, this place, is where communion is inte-grated in prayer, identity, and mission. Second, the community must agree to be a place where per-sonal conversion continues. This means that all the members see themselves as still needing conversion. It demands a certain degree of healthy self-acceptance. It also means that members allow for the ongoing conversion of the other members. It anticipates moments of and times for reconciliation as one moves from shadow and darkness to light. It embraces the sinner among us, both in ourselves and in others. It welcomes the dialogue of faith where members can simply share some aspects of their unique journey with God and with their brothers and sisters. It is a place The community must agree to be a place where personal conversion continues. ~lard.,-April 1997 Galvan ¯ Communion in Community where we can be transformed by God, even radically, and find ourselves in an atmosphere of a rejoicing community. Third, the group must see itself as a community where dis-cerning hearts will continue to seek together what God desires of them. It assumes that members are in consistent, personal prayer with God, certainly sometimes struggling with God, but ultimately wanting to know and to be moved to the more of God's loving hopes for them. It will mean that the building of communion in this particular community will be done by all the members. They will feel responsible for their lives together by prayerfully sorting out how the community will grow and deepen in its commitment. A dis-cerning community is one which remains in close dialogue with its largerreligious congregation so that the mission of the reli-gious institute will not be limited in time, space, or place. It means that all the members of the community are implicitly or even explic-itly ready to be called out of the group for the sake of mission. Fourth, though conflicts and differences and misunderstand-ings are inevitable even in the best endeavors to foster commu-nion, nonviolence must be the understood atmosphere of their living and acting. This means that all members will respect the dignity of one another and of themselves as loved by God. It means that conflicts will be resolved in direct and peace-filled (even if strong) dialogue. It means that personality differences will be good-humoredly accepted, and value differences rever-ently discussed. It will be a place where visitors will instinctively feel the quieting peace of God's presence. Finally, and closely tied to the first understanding cited above, the community needs to be clear about its place in the larger reli-gious institute, that is, about its founding spirit, charism, mission orientation, and so forth. This clarity is important because com-munion and community must be lived and expressed faithfully within the boundaries, the identity, of a particular religious insti-tute and according to the specificity of one's consecrated com-mitment in it. Given these basic understandings and some of the attitudi-nal shifts necessary if consecrated religious are to move beyond individualism to a shared communion lived in community, there are, I think, some concrete things the group needs to agree on in order to become communities of real communion on mission: ¯ specific, consistent times for prayer together and simple faith-sharing and also for meals and social and celebrative Review for Retigiou.~ gatherings, keeping in mind and respecting the varying per-sonal and ministerial needs and responsibilities of the mem-bers of the community; ¯ times for dialogue about the vowed life, shared values, and other issues pertaining to our consecrated commitment and mission and also for larger congregational issues and global issues as well; ~ the centrality of the Eucharist in the life of the commu-nity; ¯ the expectations and (especially in the larger religious institutes) structures for co-responsibility and accountabil-ity in support of our vowed commitment and mission; ¯ the type of corporate lifestyle which, even in individual expressions of it, will give witness to our vowed commu-nity life; ¯ the knowledge of how to deal nonviolently with conflict and differences; ¯ a prayerful approach to community dialogue/discussion leading to corporate decisions, so that members may be mindful of working together to know God's desires for them in this; ¯ expectations regarding relaxed times together, times of enjoyment and simple togetherness, so that, even within their busy ministry schedules, members will have the time and the space to receive one another's vulnerability, to address conflicts peacefully, to offer and be offered recon-ciliation when necessary, and to support one another in their ministry. None of this is new in our experiences of religious life together. In my experience as provincial, communities which did agree to work consciously and simply at building quality community in sup-port of mission and commitment, in a communion of minds and hearts, had no trouble getting others interested in joining them. What I have outlined regarding attitudes, mentalities, under-standings necessary for the enfleshing of communion in commu-nity life may seem overwhelming if we view community as a task rather than simply as a way of sharing communion. As a provin-cial I always felt I was in a very privileged place when I was in dialogue with my sisters about our experiences of God as conse-crated vowed women in our congregation. Invariably our dia-logue would move into issues of community life and the question of the more that it could be--with our inner communion of minds and hearts becoming mole manifest, with our experiencing one another's support more dynamically, with our reaching out to oth-ers more widely. March-April 1997 Galvan ¯ Communion in Community Some have despaired that this kind of thing could happen. Some have already walked away emotionally and settled into their own world. Some are discouraged but still hopeful. Some have found and helped build such a community. Religious congregations spend much time--and often it is necessary--in meetings, gatherings, chapters where the agendas find their way even into mealtimes. Everyone complains, but the hectic pace of our gatherings continues. I think it might be good if each religious congregation would spend some extended time together with no other agenda than to share with one another, prayerfully and simply, some pieces of the story of our personal communion with God as we have experienced it in our particular religious institute. I believe that from such a gathering, from such a shared communion, a new fire--of joy in being together, of per-sonal and community energy for mission--would give witness to the presence, Within us and among us, of a God worthy of our all. I have spoken of the hope I sense as I hear religious speak of the desire for the more to which God calls us in our consecrated commitment and our mission in a hurting world. It is not a hope that is settled in false complacency and renders us stagnant, in deadening self-satisfaction. It is a fiery hope that gives us a holy sense of urgency and a willingness to be further transformed into what God desires us to be. It is a hope that has the buoyancy of love when it is founded on faith. It is a hope which gives life. Notes i David J. Nygren CM and Miriam D. Ukeritis CSJ, "Future of Religious Orders in the United States," Origins 22,.no. 15 (24 September 1992), and Review for Religious 52, no. I (January-February 1993): 6-55, esp. pp. 42-51. 2 From a presentation to our province in the summer of 1993 by Barbara Valuckas SSND, PhD (PILGRIMinistries; 9 Academy Hill Road; Watertown, Connecticut 06795): "From Chaos, Facing Resistances, Acting on the Lights." Review for Religious ANNE MUNLEY Community and Prophetic Witness Idn this reflection on the ministerial, prophetic, and witness imensi0ns of communion, community, and common life, I have drawn from Vita consecrata (25 March 1996) and from vari-ous other writings about religious life "or being prophetic in today's society. I have considered some of the critical challenges and sin-ful distortions that are rupturing right relationship~s in our coun-try and our world. I have thought about some breative efforts of United States women religious to respond to urgent needs through a wide array of ministries flowing from their charisms. And I have found that a major benefit of reading or listening to material on the Synod on Consecrated Life has been ~in increased awareness of the church's universality and of the importance of being open to insights of other cultures and other areas of the world. The Icon of the Transfiguration Vita consecrata sets consecrated life on Trinftarian and Christological foundations. The icon of,the transfigured Christ provides a theological and spiritual view of the document. It helps us see that consecrated life has its center in the mystery of God, For many of us this may be a different entry point for reflecting on Anne Munley IHM, congregational administrator for the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary of Scranton, Pennsylvania, also serves as president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. Her address is Immaculate Heart of Mary Center; 2300 Adams Avenue; Scranton, Pennsylvania 18509. March-April 1997 Munley * Community and Prophetic lVitness consecrated life, communion, community, and mission. It emphasizes the Eastern concept of love of divine beauty and a mystical, contemplative focus that ultimately gets to action. In the West we tend to emphasize transformation, incarnation, kenosis, and an image of Jesus as "the anointed one" who pours forth his life for the sake of the many. In the transfiguration story, the disciples go up the mountain with Jesus and there they experience the beauty of God in the face of Jesus. It is an experience of communion and community. The disciples stay on the mountain experiencing the transfiguration together with Jesus; then together they go down the mountain to serve. In Vita consecrata the transfiguration icon is used to express an identity for consecrated life. It reminds us that we are called to be icons of God's love and beauty in the midst of the people and that it is the experience of communion with God, one another, and the world that impels us to mission. Further on in the document, a wonderful passage ties the quest for divine beauty direcdy to the imperative of prophetic witness amid urgent needs of the times: "The quest for divine beauty impels consecrated persons to care for the deformed image of God on the faces of their brothers and sisters, faces disfigured by hunger, faces disillusioned by political promises, faces humiliated by seeing their culture despised, faces frightened by constant and indiscriminate violence, the anguished faces of minors, the hurt and humiliated faces of women, the tired faces of migrants who are not given a warm welcome, the faces of the elderly who are without even the minimum conditions for a dignified life. The consecrated life thus shows with the eloquence of works that divine charity is the foundation and stimulus of freely given and active love" (VC §75). The transfiguration story offers much to ponder in regard to communion, community, the common good, prophetic living, and witnessing to the gospel. The Value of Both Being and Doing Vita consecrata and other contemporary works about religious life remind us that there is immense value in both being and doing. Vita consecrata describes community life, "understood as a life shared in love," as "an eloquent sign of ecclesial communion" (§42), It views consecrated life itself as % mission, as was the whole of Jesus' life," and defines this mission as "making Christ present Review for Religious to the world through personal witness" (§72). In Vita consecrata, "the witness of life and the witness of works of the apostolate and human development" are seen as "equally necessary" (§72). While being and doing are both important, it is our reason for being that gives shape to our doing. What religious must be in society is a far more significant question than what religious must do in society. In The Fire in These Ashes, Joan Chittister OSB vigorously calls attention to matters of being and doing. If religious life is to fulfill its purpose, it must be the kind of contemplative presence in the world that manifests the reign of God. It is not what we religious do that makes us witnesses to a God .who loves and liberates. It is why we do what we do and how we do it that signals hope to a hurting world. At a time when we hear much about diminishing numbers and relinquishment of long-cherished works, Chittister makes an important point: "The fact is that religious life was never meant simply to be a labor force in the church; it was meant to be a searing presence, a paradigm of search, a mark oi: human soul, and a catalyst to conscience in the society in which it emerged" (p. 2). To the extent that the quality of our communal presence in society and the collective witness of our works evoke awareness of the presence of a .compassionate and loving God, to that extent is our world being brought closer to God's reign. What religious must be in society is a far more significant question than what religious must do in society. The Prophetic Role of Consecrated Life Consecrated life is a dynamic gift of God to the church and to the world. It is neither static nor ahistorical, nor is it a self-serving refuge from the critical questions and pressing problems of our times. It is a call to be life for the world. It is a call to be a spar, k of light and a force for love in a world that cries oht for healing, truth, goodness, compassion, beauty, justice, community, and the full realization of human dignity and potential. All across history, religious life has been at its best when it has engaged directly with the culture of which it is a part, raising up what is good and lamenting all that distorts God's holy purposes. March-Aptql 1997 Munley * Community and Prophetic Witness The founders and foundresses of religious congregations were acutely sensitive to gaps that existed in their day between the realities of life and the vision set forth by Jesus. With great practicality, integrity, faith, courage, and trust, they named the pain of God's people, proclaimed an alternate vision, paid ~the price for their convictions, and with incredible ingenuity and resourcefulness inspired others to join with them in an effort to bear witness to a God of love, liberation, hope, mercy, and forgiveness. Today, too, critical involvement with the culture is essential to consecrated life. We must understand the world in which we live in order to challenge the status quo and imagine and announce an alternative future. It is for us, the believing community, to be bearers of hope. Our world needs to hear the challenge of prophetic words and to be challenged by prophetic action. As religious we need to be willing and able to "tell it as it is" and as it can be. We ourselves must turn away from sinful distortions that create gaps between the is and the ought to be. We must consciously choose to pay the price that fidelity will entail. We must be men and women of courage who find our strength and hope in God. Vita consecrata recognizes the prophetic role of religious life: "The consecrated life has the prophetic task of rec~lling and serving the divine plan for humanity, as it is announced in Scripture and as it emerges from an attentive reading of the signs of God's providential action in history" (§73). It reminds us that, in order to advance the prophetic t.ask, one needs profound experience of God, awareness of the challenges of the times, and an understanding of the theological meaning of these challenges in the light of the gospel. Vita consecrata.calls us once again, in the words of Gaudium et spes, to "respond to the perennial questions which people ask about this present life and the life to come, and about the relationship of the one to the other" and challenges us "to present new answers to the new problems of today's world" (§73). Joan Chittister OSB has given similar expression to the prophetic role of consecrated life: "The purpose of religious life is not survival; it is prophecy. The role of religious life is to bring to visibility what is Good News for our time now." (p. 26). She has described the relationship of religious li'fe to culture in varioug images as "a voice, a call, a presence, and a prophet in the world" (p. 71), as "a glaring light of conscience in a world grown coarse under the weight of an amoral, if not immoral kind of capitalism" Review for Religious (p. 22), and as a "sentry on the wall," a "bugler at dawn," "a lamplighter at night," and-"a candle on a far hill" (p. 71). The prophetic witness to which religious congregations are called has a communal and corporate character. Religious institutes are made up of men and women who hive publicly committed themselves to a life of radical interdependence and commonness of purpose. Individuals join communities to do together what they cannot do alone. Just as the participation of every member is needed to carry forward the mission and corporate direction of the congregation, so too are the voices of religious needed to raise up 'critical questions for the sake of the common good. In every culture and in every era there are expressions of grace and beauty as well as elements of de-humanization. It is a central task of religious life to give spiritual energy to the culture of the .times by calling the attention of the world to the spiritual dimensions of its actions. This is a task that closely parallels that of the Hebrew prophets. In denouncing poverty and the injustice and sinfulness of what was happening, they helped the community to grieve, lament, see other possibilities, and change ways in order to become whole. In calling anew for the presence and help of God, the prophets were able to reveal something new, a path not yet seen by the people. Vita consecrata and other works appropriately highlight the prophetic role that is fundamental to the life and mission of every religious congregation. Being called to engage with others in bearing prophetic witness is both challenging and disturbing; It sets before those of us who have freely chosen to live our baptismal call as members of a religious congregation some significant questions: Are we clear enough about who we are, what we stand for, and whom we stand with to critique our culture honestly and without bias? Are we passionate enough about our convictions to mirror to our culture the radical concern for the welfare of others that is at the heart of the gospel message? Do we have the generosity of spirit, tenacity, integrity, and resolve to change what needs to be changed in ourselves if we are to be a moral voice and prophetic sign of hope to our world? The prophetic witness to which religious congregations are called has a communal and corporate character. 147 March-April 1997 Munley ¯ Community and Prophetic Witness In a world of polarizations, strife, and divisions of every kind, the witness of community and concern for the common good are needed more than ever. God's self-communication takes place in every period of history. Present realities are the locus in which we encounter God. As at every other time, the prophetic role of religious life cannot be furthered without utter reliance on God, attention to and reflection on depth levels of experience, and a commitment to justice making--all fostered by contemplative prayer. Contemplation allows us to see injustice, to confront our own need for conversion, to lament, to see through situations, and to name new possibilities as we engage with the world and attempt to live the gospel. Prophets have a quality of attentiveness that lends integrity and authenticity to their lives. Contemplative attentiveness enables the prophet to hear the cry of the poor, to read the signs of the times, to experience Jesus as liberator and healer, and to pay the price of commitment. Community as a Prophetic Reminder Prophecy is an enduring gift of the Spirit. In the Hebrew Scriptures prophecy was the realm of individuals explicitly called by God to remind those in power that preserving the status quo cannot take precedence over the good of people, especially, the frailest and most vulnerable. In the Christian Scriptures the whole believing community is called to imagine and live toward the reality of God's reign in covenant relationships not only with God but with one another. In both the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, caring for the poor and needy is an act of knowing God. A shared faith vision and unity of mind and heart ire identifying characteristics of Christian community. These are beautifully described in Acts 4:32-36: "The whole group of believers was united, heart and soul; no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, as everything they owned was held in common. The apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus with great power, and they were all accorded great respect. None of their members was ever in want, as all those who owned land or houses would sell them and bring the money from Review for Religious the sale of them to present to the aposdes; it was then distributed to any who might be in need?' This passage is a wonderful entry point for reflecting on community as a form of prophetic witness. The moral foundation for community lies in the simple fact that human beings need one another. By our vary nature we are meant for relationship. From the cradle to the grave, human beings hunger for bonds of unity, for support and connection. Jean Vanier, founder of L'Arche, knows well the power and the pull of community: We are, of course, called to grow and to grow in strength and competence, but this strength is for building up humanity in love, not for our own glory and power. We are not called to be independent islands separated from one another, closed up in self-satisfaction. We are all interconnected, interdependent, called to be one body. The weak need the strong just as the strong need the weak in order not to close up in suicidal acts of power and pride, wounding the child within. The mutual need of hearts is communion. (p. 167) Community is visible where the values of inclusion, participation, generosity, compassion, service, mutuality, shared responsibility, accountability, collective witness, and respect for diversity are put into practice. Living these values is both countercultural and transformative. For almost two thousand years, religious men and women have lived the struggle and sought the goal of community. Community life is an ideal worth keeping. It is a prophetic reminder that all human beings are called to oneness in God. In a world of polarizations, strife, and divisions of every kind, the witness of community and concern for the common good are needed more than ever. The call to unity in diversity is a centralparadox of the gospel as well as a challenge that transcends time and culture. It is a struggle of global proportions that also touches each of us very direcdy in the day-to-day circumstances of our lives in community and in mission. The struggle for unity in diversity can be painful because it involves yielding and relinquishment. Yet it also offers people of faith an opportunity to give transformative prophetic witness. !49 Marcb-Ap141 1997 Munley ¯ Community and Prophetic IVitness Issues of oneness and diversity are as old as human history. Anthropologists, historians, and sociologists have written volumes about the human consequences of "consciousness of kind" and "consciousness of difference" as they are played out in war, oppression, discrimination, and decisions about who matters and who does not matter. All of us have been affected by deeply internalized values, assumptions, opinions, stereotypes, and worldviews that consciously or unconsciously govern our behavior. We have all been affected profoundly by arbitrary lines that we humans draw to separate and fragment people and cultures. Yet, at the innermost levels of our being, we long for unity, harmony, wholeness, and a right ordering of relationships: One of the most challenging dimensions of faith is that we are called to oneness in God On 17:21). In struggling to be prophetic signs of unity inclusive of diversity, we have much to learn from a God who loves unconditionally and excludes no one. Throughout his entire life Jesus lived the principle of inclusive love to the fullest. The Gospels are rich with stories of his healing and empowering encounters with men and women of different classes, life experiences, and cultural traditions. Jes9s was a living reminder that harmony exists when wholeness incorporates diversity. In John's Gospel, during the discourse at the Last Supper, Jesus set forth his loving communion with his Father as the model for the love of disciples. The good news of the incarnation is that we are called to that same relationship with God and with one another. This call continues to be a prophetic challenge for our times. Some questions worth pondering with respect to the potential impact of the witness of religious community are: How big is our sense of community? Who is included and who is excluded? How can our modeling of community help to bridge cultural biases, ethnocentric thinking, and learned patterns of prejudice and discrimination? Some Signs of the Times Prophets and prophetic communities have the gift of. being able to read the signs of the times. What are some of the signs of our times that cry out for the healing restoration of community and the witness of prophetic action? As I reflect on .this world and on our compelling call to be prophetic signs of Gbd's all-inclusive love, I am struck by several Review for Religious ruptures in our social fabric that affect us as religious. As we stand on the threshold of the new millennium, our world is devastated by clashes that arise from hate and fear of "people who are not like us." In the cities, neighborhoods, and villages of Africa and Asia, Afghanistan, Northern Ireland, the Mideast, and North, Central, and South America, human beings are trampling on human rights and killing one another over economic, religious, political, racial, ethnic, or cultural differences. Hatred, racism, sexism, intolerance, greed, ,distorted loyalties, terrorism, and fanaticism are jeopardizing the survival of civilization. Worldwide and here in the United States, this sign of the times is challenging religious communities to show in practical ways a compassionate capacity to live together in wholeness without suppressing differences, blaming victims, or scapegoating the vulnerable. The level of violence in the world today is morally intolerable. It transcends national, cultural, and racial boundaries; it is more likely to occur in the home than on the streets; and it devastates the lives of families and children. In the United States alone, twenty-five children, the equivalent of a classroomful, are killed by guns every two days (State of America's Children). It is a national tragedy that inner-city children as young as ten tell psychiatrists and social workers that they think about death all the time. It is a national tragedy that many young black and Hispanic men have little or no hope of living beyond the age of eighteen. It is a national tragedy that one out of every five Americanochildren lives in poverty. It is a national tragedy that forty-one million uninsured lack healthcare coverage. It is a national tragedy that we have forged a culture hostile to .aliens and immigrants. Random shootings, domestic violence, and the killing of children by children are manifestations of systemic problems. Poverty, homelessness, racism, hate crimes, cheapened sexuality, materialism, ecological irresponsibility, and a devaluing of human life are all symptomatic of an erosion of compassion, community, social accountability, and spiritual values. There is something grossly out of balance in our world when the amount of money paid in one yea,r to a star athlete for endorsing a product is more than the combined wages paid to the factory workers who actually made the product (Wallis, p. 92). In the United States, income inequality continues to rise. In 1993, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the wealthiest 20 percent of Americans earned 48 percent of all household income, ~'Harcb-ApHI 1997 Munley ¯ Community and Propbetic Wifness the highest ever recorded. In terms of poverty rates, the most vulnerable segments of the U.S. population are female-headed households (35 percent), African Americans (33 percent), Hispanics (31 percent), and children (20 percent). At present more than 39 million Americans, more than 15 percent of the population, live below the poverty level (Wallis, p. 95). All this occurs while euphemisms about welfare reform threaten the most helpless women and children in our society. Predictions for the future are bleak if root causes of social breakdown remain t~naddressed. The Children's Defense League projects that if social and economic trends of the last twenty years are allowed to continue, 24 percent of all American children under 18 will be poor by the year 2001; one million babies will be born into poverty each year; 44,000 teen mothers will give birth every month; and 37,000 children will be arrested every week (State of America's Children, p. xxii). Globally we know there is a failure of community when the richest 20 percent of the world's population enjoys 85 percent of the world's income, while the poorest 20 percent struggles to survive on only two percent (1994 U.N. Human Development Report). There is a failure of community when nearly 800 million people face persistent everyday hunger and much larger numbers suffer from malnutrition and temporary hunger ("Hunger--the Facts," pp. 18-19). If the prophets of old were here today, they would have much to lament and alternative possibilities to hold up before us. Prophets have the task of keeping the vision before the people. Prophets are keenly attuned to the critical needs of their time. This is a time when the gospel mandate of love of God and love of neighbor requires much of religious communities, It is a time for us to help regenerate a sense of community from the ground up. It is a time to learn and to teach others how to communicate across boundaries. It is a time to model nonviolent ways of resolving disputes. It is a time to rekindle willingness to support and enable one another in meeting unmet needs. It is a time to raise up questions of the common good. It is a time for a spiritual transformation of attitudes, values, and behaviors, It is a time when actions of the present will profoundly impact the future. It has often been said that the best test of a nation is how it treats children, the poor, strangers, outcasts, the weak, and the vulnerable. The Hebrew prophets saw this as the truest measure of Review for Religious integrity. As religious communities we have a wonderful capacity to be forces for justice and integrity. As we look to the future, do we have the faith, courage, and commitment to be a voice for the voiceless? How strong is our corporate resolve to be creators of community, menders of broken relationships, and healers of a troubled world? The Need for Creative Response As I look back on the history of religious life in the United States, I am awed by how much has been accomplished with so little in the way of material resources. What our forbears were able to do, often in unassuming ways, is truly astounding. It was prophetic reading of the times that prompted them to create Catholic healthcare, an educational system that spans from early childhood to late life, and a bevy of catechetical, pastoral, and social services for'a nation of immigrants. They were pioneers who saw what needed to be done arid ~et about doing it togethdr. Their willingness to sacrifice for what they believed in and their passionate Commitment to God, the church, their congregations, and one another were priceless resources. They were individuals bonded by a shared sense of purpose, experience of communion, and the support of community life. They were men and women whose prophetic witness of community and ministry made significant impact on their times. Among the key findings of the 1992 LCWR Threads for the Loom study of the ministry of women religious is the fact that, even at a time of diminishment, U.S. women religious are persistent in their efforts to respond to urgent needs in a world and society characterized by shifting valties and an unprecedented rate of change. This study provides considerable evidence of concern for the common good and of ongoing responsiveness to populations at risk: children, young people, the elderly, women, families in crisis, and the urban poor. Almost ninety percent of the respondents report that their institutes have enabled uncompensated ministry with the materially poor. Eighty-five percent indicate that their institutes have sponsored works that imply attentiveness to As religious communities we have a wonderful capacity to be forces for justice and integrity. March-April 1997 Munley ¯ Community and Prophetic Witness emerging needs. Almost thirty percent say that their institutes have created new not-for-profit corporations. Of these, almost sixty percent describe the new ministry corporations as addressing various needs for housing. In terms of projections, fifty percent of the participants in this study predicted an increase in the number of their sisters who would be serving five needy population groups by 1996: the homeless, women, persons with AIDS, the elderly, and persons for whom English is a second language. Community leaders also projected increased involvement of their sisters in programs concerned with hunger, housing, unemployment, infant and child day care, latchkey children, adult day care, women's resource centers, English as a second language, ecology, and peace. In the various institutes' statements regarding future directions for ministry, five themes emerged: a preferential option f6r and solidarity with the poor; the promotion of systemic change; ministry with and empowerment of women; collaboration with other groups and other religious institutes; and ministry with children, young people, and families in distress. How accurate were these projections? Information about various collaborative ministry projects gathered by LCWR from 1994 to the present suggests that religious institutes across the country--in collaboration with one another and with dioceses and civic and social agencies--are responding to those in greatest need with creativity, ingenuity, and significant sharing of resources. Most of the projects focus on the needs of poor women or of poor women and children. Areas of ministry targeted by the projects include education on all levels, literacy, housing, domestic violence, homelessness, healthcare, crisis intervention, empowerment, after-school programs, social services, and retreat work.~Many of these ministries serve multicultural populations. None of them would have come into being without the commitment and participation of religious communities. In Vita consecrata the religious of the world are urged to respond to the needs of the times with "creative fidelity" to, their charisms. Like the prophets, of old, with an eye to the contemporary scene and an ear attuned to God, religious communities are attempting to do this. Tl~e fact that religious live a common life enables and sustains empowering ministry among God's people. At a time when many forces converge to make God less visible in society, the witness of community life is a sign of the Review for Religious beauty and power of God's love at work in our world. The reign of God is both here and not yet. Contemplative attention to the injustices, sufferings, and spiritual hungers of our day shows that much is needed for our wounded world's healing. Yet, through the goodness of God, so much has begun. Some words of the poet Denise Levertov invite further reflection: How could we tire of hope? --so much is in bud. How can desire fail? --we have only begun. Works Cited Chittister, Joan. The Fire in These Ashes. Kansas City: Sheed and Ward, 1995. "Hunger--the Facts." New Internationalist. May 1995: 18-19. Lahr, Dolores. Collaborative Ministry Projects: 1994, 199Y, and 1996 vol-umes. Silver Sj3ring, Maryland: Leadership Conference of Women Religious, 1994, 1995, and 1996. Levertov, Denise. "Beginners." In Cries of the Spirit, edited by Marilyn Sewell. Boston: Beacon Press, 1991. Munley, Anne. Threads for the Loom. Silver Spring, Maryland: Leadership Conference of Women Religious, 1992. I~94 Unite~ Nations Human Development Report. New York: United Nations, 1994. The State of America's Children: Yearbook 1994. Washington, D.C.: Children's Defense Fund, 1994. U.S, Census Bureau. The Dynamics of Economic Well-Being: Poverty 1990- 1992. Washingtonl D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1995. Va.nier, Jean. Jesus the Gift of Love. New York: Crossroad, 1994. Wallis, Jim. Who Speaks for God? New York: Delacorte Press, 1996. I55 ~larch-April 1997 KENNETH C. RUSSELL John Cassian on Asceticism lenten reflections Asceticism has not only acquired a bad reputation, it sim-ply no longer seems relevant. It does not help, of course, that for some people the very word conjures up images of hairshirts and spiked belts, of frenzied monks beating themselves black and blue with lead-studded Whips, and of hermits in narrow cells hooking their knotted hair to nails in the wall to hold themselves upright while they sleep. Even in its more prosaic forms, asceticism suggests "self-denial," the disciplining of the "sinful" body. Try as they may to justify these various practices, many people of the 1990s feel uncomfortable with the body-soul split that makes the corporeal aspect of their being the enemy to be overcome. They readily subscribe, therefore, to the view that traditional asceticism was essentially a Greek-inspired aberration that is better left behind, now that people fully appreciate the body-soul integrity of their human nature. They welcome the idea that a new, unselfish, socially-oriented asceticism, in which people expend them-selves in the service of their neighbor, has pushed aside an earlier version that was self-centered and focused on pun-ishing the body. The new asceticism, after all, is about being in the world rather than escapingfr0m it. This is all well and good, but unfortunately we of the 1990s still find ourselves drinking too much, eating too much or too little, driven by ambition, anxious, worried, Kenneth C. Russell, now retired from St. Paul University in Ottawa, lives at 1505-40 Landry Street; Vanier, Ontario; K1L 8K4 Canada. Review for Religious sad, or perhaps simply adrift. Our discomfort with the way we are forces us to seek the assistance of therapists, psychiatrists, and self-help books. The one place where we seldom go for help is tra-ditional asceticism. We may continue to pay lip service to it, but it is forever associated in our minds with an anti-body stance we find repugnant. It is no longer relevant. This point is repeated over and over again in articles and talks. But is it true? Certainly at some point something did go wrong with asceticism. At some point asceticism became a primarily puni-tive, penitential action aimed at the body. This is undeniable. But does this fact--which must, of course, be qualified far more than I have time to do here--justify the presumption that traditional asceti-cism was skewed from the very beginning? Was there perhaps something good there after all? In fact, how can we even jump to the conclusion that asceticism was one tightly unified doctrine in the early church, given the differ-ences between Basil, Augustine, Evagrius, Jerome, and many oth-ers? If the Greek attitude toward the body was indeed a virus that Cassian's keen awareness of psychology and spiritual development provides a basis for the integration of the practical wisdom of the desert and modern psychology. infected Christian thinking, would it not have infected the thought of some writers more than others? Would these ideas not be stronger in one place than in another? Scholars love to ponder the erudite works of Evagrius Ponticus, the courtier turned her-mit, but is it so certain that theory predominated over practice in the heat of the Egyptian desert, where most of the hermits were uneducated peasants? In our rush to move on, are we seeing unity where in. fact there was diversity? Have we stopped listening to the past on the issue of asceticism simply because "the anti-body, Greek aberration" label we encounter so often has led us to pre-sume that what is being said there is not worth our full attention? I want to challenge this fashionable writing off of the past by examining John Cassian's basic theories on asceticism. I have cho-sen Cassian (ca. 365-ca. 435) for several reasons. First, he was one of the major channels through which the ascetical tradition of the Egyptian desert reached Western monasticism. As everyone knows, ~S¢larch-April 1997 Russell ¯ ~obn Cassian on Asceticism St. Benedict's Rule recommends the reading of Cassian's Institutes and Conferences. Secdnd, it is my conviction that Cassian's keen awareness of psychology and spiritual development provides a basis for the integration of the practical wisdom of the desert and mod-ern psychology. In other words, I maintain that, if we hope to reconstruct a healing, reformative asceticism that respects our human nature and spiritual destiny, we must go back to Cassian and build from there. Be that as it may, my immediate purpose is merely to demonstrate that the "anti-body" label routinely attached to the teaching of the Fathers is not necessarily accurate. I want to look at three elements of John Cassian's thought. First, his anthropology. How does he understand the interaction of the body and the mind, the flesh and the spirit? What does he make of the tension between them? Second, I want to examine the goal and purpose of asceticism as they are set out in his writ-ings. Third, I want to consider his teaching on the various "pas-sions" that afflict us because, unless we accurately hear what he has to say about these compulsive patterns of behavior, we will not appreciate the therapeutic dimension of his thought. Anthropology "How authors deal 5vith the tension between flesh and spirit vividlydescribed by St. Paul (Ga 5:17 and Rm 7-8) is surely the touchstone by which their view of human nature may be assessed. Cassian discusses this issue in his fourth conference, which is sup-posedly spoken to Cassian and his traveling companion Germanus by Abba Daniel, one of the desert masters of the spiritual life. I call attention, first, to Cassian's fundamentally optimistic stance toward the way thin'gs are. He insists that the tension between flesh and spirit has been implanted in us by God. How, then, he asks, can something that God has implanted in each of us possi-bly be harmful rather than helpful? We note here something that recurs throughout Cassian's writings: the conviction that a mea-sure of struggle and stress is good for us: This conflict implanted in us by the arrangement of the Creator is in a way useful to us, and calls and urges us on to a higher state; and, if it ceased, most surely would ensue on the other hand a peace that is fraught with danger.* Cassian would rather have us involved in a moral struggle than see us calmly drifting along in what amounts to a false peace. Review for Religious The weakness of the flesh keeps the soaring spirit realistic, while the spirit keeps the flesh from reducing life to food, drink, and sex. In John Cassian's oddly existentialist view of life, there is no gain without pain. We become human by taking hold of the ele-ments of our life and dealing with them. Our identity, we might say, is not given at birth, but achieved by the effort to become an adult. Difficulties, pains, and struggles of various kinds are seen, therefore, as grace-given opportunities for advancement. Cassian teaches that we must deal with our "carnality," that we must accept the challenges it poses for us, because the peaceful alternative, which might well look appealing, is actually a descent into animality. Animals live in the given without struggle. We human beings become animal, not when we become carnal, but when we aban'don efforts to become human by effecting a peace-ful consortium of body and soul. The carnal condition of human-ity, uncomfortable as it may be at times, is therefore a great blessing. But how does Cassian interpret Paul's reference to "flesh" and "spirit"? He begins by remarking that flesh has various mean-ings in the Bible. Sometimes it refers to the whole human beirig, body and soul; at other times, to people as sinners or to the sins themselves. It can also indicate a "flesh of my flesh" closeness. But he argues that, in Paul's reference to the conflict between flesh and spirit, the two terms have an active rather than a sub-stantive meaning. They indicate the direction of the will, the ori-entation of the whole being. Flesh is an orientation toward the delights of the present life: a full stomach and a sound night's sleep. Spirit thirsts for spiritual things even to the extent of being in danger of neglecting the body's needs. We are not far here from the argument of modern exegetes who maintain that spirit is the'whole being under the influence of the Spirit and that flesh is the human being alienated from God and focused on lesser ends. We note, however, that Cassian asso-ciates "flesh" with the body inasmuch as the body is the vehicle of present delights--although this is balanced by his realization that "spirit," the basic orientation toward God and virtue, can be exces-sive and can lead us to disregard the needs of our fragile bodies. Consequently, in Cassian's view, the struggle we experience within us is between our spiritual aspirations and the basic needs of the body. We must opt for spirit, but not to such an extent that we try to bypass our human reality. 2~larch-Apri11997 Russell ¯ .~obn Cassian on Asceticism In fact, as we have seen, we achieve our full human stature precisely through t,.his flesh-spirit conflict: When, in consequence of the lukewarmness arising from this sluggish will of which we have spoken; the mind has been more easily entangled in carnal desires, it is checked by the desire of the spirit, which by no means acquiesces in~ earthly sins; and again, if through overmuch feeling our spirit has been carried in unbounded fervor towards ill-con-sidered and impossible heights, it is recalled by the weakness of the flesh to sounder considerations and, rising above the lukewarm condition of our free will with due proportion and even course, proceeds along the way of perfection? We must keep in mind that Cassian sees this tug and pull of flesh and spirit as a limitation that is a blessing from God. He puts it on a par with the fracturing of the universal language at the Tower of Babel, which, in his view, rescued humanity from its pride by reminding it of its fragility. In Cassian's opinion, the struggle between flesh and spirit keeps us conscious that we are human. Actually, the bo.dy's needs serve Cassian as the norm by which the appropriateness or excessiveness of asceticism may be mea-sured. The body's legitimate needs moderate any spiritual exces-siveness that tries to bypass or ignore our human condition: "We ought to refresh ourselves with food and sleep at the proper time even if we dislike it.''3 Indeed, Cassian insists that it would be cruel to fast when the body needs food. It would be equally wrong to deprive the body of the sleep it needs. In fact, the failure to meet the body's need of both nutrition and rest backfires because the imprudent ascetic is left feeling weak and drowsy. Excess, in other words, interferes with the alertness and strength needed to maintain a vigorous life of prayer. It is important to keep this principle of meeting the body's needs in mind because it will moderate our shock at the asceticism the Desert Fathers actually practiced. We must realize that, when Cassian's interlocutors suggest for each day two hardtack buns weighing scarcely a pound, a little water, and a few hours sleep overnight, they are conforming to their understanding of what the body's needs are. They are not out to hurt the body or even to deny it anything necessary for its well-being. They are simply attempting to pare away all excess. A softer image of Cassian's attitude toward the body is given in the last paragraphs of several conferences where we see the abba break off his talk to ensure that his listeners get the sleep they Review for Religious need. In one conference there is even a delightful account of an abba setting a mouth-watering Sunday banquet before his guests. Each monk present is served three olives, five chick-peas, two prunes, and one fig, in addition to the normal allotment of bread! Little touches such as this make the desert seem a human place despite the austerities that were practiced there. There are other stories, unfortunately, which indicate that some hermits refused to respect the body-spirit reality of the human condition, One solitary went to such extremes in fasting and solitude that he lost his mental bal-ance and became convinced that, should he fall from a great height, he would be borne up on angel wings. He died from his injuries shortly after putting his theory to the test. Cassian emphasizes that, if we avoid the flesh-spirit conflict, we turn into animals. He also emphasizes that, if we act as though we are angels without a human body, we run the risk of spiritual shipwreck. Too little food and sleep is just as bad as too much food and sleep, "for excess of fasting and gluttony come to the same thing, and an unlimited continuance of vigils is equally injurious to a monk as the torpor of deep sleep.''4 The extremes touch.In relation to the body, therefore, asceticism is about meeting needs rather than satisfying desires. The problem, obviously, is that we want more than we need. Asceticism does not ignore human needs; it refuses to cater to excessive desires. Although Cassian advocates an aus-tere ascetical regime, the theory behind it is a long way from the self-denying, penitential asceticism with which we are familiar. It has a different basis altogether. It also has a different purpose. People today often associate asceticism With the effort to gain self-control through a "mind over matter" exercise, or they think of it as penance done for sins committed. Cassian sees it, however, as a more integral part of the spiritual life. This is particularly significant for the monastic audience he addresses. In fact, in the first conference of the series, Abba Moses identifies the ascetical life with the monastic life itself. Asceticism does not ignore human needs; it refuses to cater to excessive desires. The Goal and Purpose of Asceticism Every art or discipline, Abba MoseS points out, has two goals: :lqarch-April 1997 Russell ¯ ~obn Cassian on Asceticism one immediate and the other long-range. The immediate goal serves as the means to attain the ultimate goal. A farmer, for exam-ple, works hard to have a good yield from his fields. The boun-tiful harvest constitutes his immediate goal. It is the sine qua non of the good life that is his ultimate aim. What, Abba Moses asks, is the ultimate aim of the monk, and what is the immediate goal which serves as the necessary means to that end? Cassian and Germanus answer that the final aim of the monas-tic life--its ultimate goal--is the kingdom of God. But what, they ask, is the immediate goal by which the ultimate end is attained, partially by hints here and now and completely in the life to come? Abba Moses replies: Purity of heart. We must not be too quick to write off "purity of heart" as merely a biblical expression that enables Cassian to sidestep the negative connotations the West associated with apatheia. Nor must we let our awareness of how much Cassian the practitioner owes to Evagrius the theoretician lead us to conclude that purity of heart is merely apatheia masquerading under another name. The best way to detour around our prejudices about either term is to consider what "purity of heart" actually means in Cassian's works. First of all, it is synonymous with holiness. It is sanctity achieved, if we may use such an acquisitive adjective for a grace-given condition. Cassian makes the correspondence between love and purity of heart clear when he says that the goal of asceticism is "purity of heart, which is charity." This is really the point of the ascetical practices: "that through them we may be enabled to prepare our heart and to keep it unharmed by all evil passions, and resting on these steps to mount to the perfection of charity.''5 Purity of heart is, consequently, the condition of peo-ple so possessed by love that they act spontaneously out of love rather than out of concupiscence. The Passions When Cassian talks about purity of heart or perfect love, he means more than a noble intention or act of will. He has in mind a spontaneous, unfailing readiness to act out of love. Love, in other words, must become the energy driving all our actions. We must become loving. It is easy to say we love God, but the fact of the matter is that all kinds of behavior patterns automatically spring into action Review for Religious throughout the day to contradict our words. Let someone cut us off in traffic and we respond aggressively without thinking. Let some coworker boast a bit, and we find ourselves competitively parading our own petty triumphs for applause. We say we love God above all things, but we render ourselves less fit for service by habits of eating and drinking that are detrimental to our health. Or, taking the opposite tack, we give such strict attention to what we eat and drink that we ourselves seem to assume first place in the universe. We seem, in short, to be pro-grammed by our training and habits to act in certain ways. These automatic patterns of behavior, these pressures, these compulsions, are what Cassian refers to when he speaks about "the passions." He looks at human beings from a phenomenological point of view. What he sees is that one person is prone to eat too much and another, too little; that one individual is pulled toward greed and another toward lust. He sees that this is the way things are, but, unlike ourselves, who are under the influence of Freud, he has no interest in discovering why this person feels one compulsion and that person quite another, The immediate problem itself is what holds his attention. What is evident is that, whatever our self-centered reactions may be, they interfere with our desire to love God and neighbor. We say we love, but we are not sponta-neously loving. We still act in ways that are against God, our neighbor, and our own well-being. Cassian is not really preoccupied with gluttons, sex-fiends, or proud dictators trying to dominate the world. He is concerned, not with vices, but with the traces of them in good, morally upright Christians who are striving to do their best. He is talking, therefore, not about sins, but about the moral diseases which afflict us. If these diseases go untreated, they can indeed take over our whole life; they can become vices. As the list Cassian received from Evagrius Ponticus passed through time, it became a list of vices or capital sins. But we must bear in mind that for Cassian it is a list of diseases, which call for healing. Sickness, not guilt, is the primary reality, and the issue is not how we got this way but what we are going to do about it. When Cassian talks about purity of heart or perfect love, he has in mind a spontaneous, unfailing readiness to act out of love. March-Ap~q11997 Russell * ~obn Cassian on Asceticism These pressures we experience stand in the way of purity of heart or perfect love. We are not well. Cassian, therefore, asks: How do we get better? The same question could be formulated in different terms: How do we find freedom? How can we acquire a tranquil mind and be at peace with God, neighbor, the world, and our very self?. This is a medical question, at least metaphorically. Ca~sian, therefore, takes a medical approach and offers a medical answer. His medical orientation is evident, first of all, in the diagnostic model he employs. Anyone who has read the Greek historian Thucydides' vivid description of the bubonic plague that struck Athens in 430 B.C. (History of the Peloponnesian War, Book 2) is familiar with the Greek diagnostic technique. This approach meticulously notes the symptoms of an illness, its development, and, finally, what it is like at its most virulent stage when it has, in effect, taken over a person's life. Cassian deals briefly with disordered eating, sexual tension, avarice, anger, sadness, acedia, vainglory, and pride in conference 5, but he discusses each one at length in a series of studies in his Institutions (Books 5-12). The usual procedure is for the symp-toms of the disease to be outlined and a full-blown case to be described. The case studies actually make this 5th-century work seem very contemporary, for it is precisely this approach we are used to encountering in books and articles popularizing various psychological theories. This is an important point because it reminds us that Cassian's conception of asceticism is broader than our own. Cassian is deal-ing with complex psychospiritual and social elements which press an individual in one direction or another. Asceticism, therefore, is as much about psychology as it is about spirituality. Cassian, in fact, has a holistic view of human nature. He is trying to solve human problems, and, since he does not share our piecemeal view that this is a psychological problem while that is a spiritual prob-lem, his asceticism aspires to cure the Whole person. What he communicates in his examples, therefore, is the psy-chological and spiritual wisdom of the Egyptian desert. This wis-dom can be brought into dialogue with our own knowledge of psychology so that a mutual enrichment and correction can take place. At the very least, this awareness of the psychological dimen-sion of asceticism should force us to integrate asceticism into the whole story of our life instead of letting it sit on the periphery like Review for Religious some alien technique that has little to do with our total growth. If asceticism is about punishing or disciplining the wayward body, we feel we. can live without it. But, if asceticism is about coming to grips with the psychospiritual and social pressures we experi-ence, then it may indeed have a place in our lives. Cassian uses the medical model to shape the large-scale struc-ture of his studies on the passions. It is even more significant, however, that he uses medical terminology to discuss moral issues. Such words as "illness" and "infection," "remedy" and "cure," are found throughout Cassian's works. Their recurrence reinforces the point that what is at issue is sickness and healing, not sin and punishment. When asceticism is linked to sin and punishment, it follows that, though one form of penance may be harder than another, they are all essentially the same. They differ only in how quickly or how slowly they expiate sin. Once this prin-ciple is accepted, people can balance their penitential accounts by .substituting a long penance for a shorter but harder one. In fact, all kinds of ingenious equiv-alencies become possible. For example, when King Henry II received three years on crusade as part of his. penance for the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket, he arranged to substitute the establishment of three monasteries for the period of military service. But, if asceticism is viewed as therapeutic, one ascetical strat-egy cannot be substituted for another. One ascetical effort, like some medications, may be helpful in treating more than one ill-ness, but by and large the forms of asceticism are not inter-changeable. If acedia (a sort of listless discontent with where we are and what we are doing) is the problem, "taking" the remedy for sadness is not going to help. The struggle against acedia, the infamous "noonday demon" of the desert, demands that we hold on hard to the doorposts of our cell so that nothing can pull us away from it, while the strug-gle against sadness requires us to force our way through the dark-ness to fix our eyes on our future hope. Both of these ascetical strategies are actually more psychological than physical, but this If asceticism is about coming to grip.s with the psychospiritual and social pressures we experience, then it may indeed have a place in our lives. 16Y March-April 1997 Russell ¯ ~obn Cassian on Asceticism only serves to underline that Cassian does not think of asceticism as a purely physical action to discipline the body. If our spiritual problem is in the mind, disciplining the body does not make much sense. Practicing some physical form of asceticism while ignoring the mental dimension of all we do leads to failure. Thus, although Cassian recommends fasting as an effective remedy for sexual ten-sion, he is also aware of the psychological, aspects of the prob-lem. He insists that we take care not to let ourselves become overly pressured by our work or other preoccupations. Cassian's medical bag does not contain a plethora of physical means of asceticism. There is little more than fasting and vigils or, in other words, the regulation of food and sleep. In both cases the plan is to have not less than needed, but the barebones right amount with no excess for self-indulgence. Fasting is not a mat-ter of eating less on certain days, but of eating the same amount later in the day than usual. The hungry hermit's question was not "How much will I eat today?" but "Will I eat once or twice today and when?" Fasting, however, does serve Cassian as a kind of basic rem-edy to accompany all other prescriptions. Fasting, after all, strikes at our drive to put ourselves at the center of the world, with all other things and people for our use. Nothing is more self-cen-tered, assertive, and potentially aggressive than eating. It is a miniaturization of our readiness to ingest the world. Fasting reins in this egocentricity and ensures that eating serve the needs of the body rather than the expansive claims of the imperial self. Disordered eating--overeating, undereating, eating at inap-propriate times, and so forth--stands at the head of the list of passions Cassian inherited. There was a tendency, therefore, for some of the monks in the Egyptian desert to think that, if they could stave off moral decline by remedying any tendency to dis-ordered eating by fasting, they would have nothing further to worry about. They thought, in effect, that if they stopped the moral ball from tumbling down the hill by giving all their atten-tion to disordered eating, they would not have to tackle the other passions in the list. This is naive, of course, and a misunder-standing of the moral complexity the list describes. It also makes fasting far more important than it should be. It becomes the sole and exclusive key to peace of heart and tranquillity of mind. Worst of all, since this view of asceticism separates fasting from a ther~ apeutic context, it encourages an anti-body attitude. Review for Religious Cassian considers untenable the notion that fasting is all there is to asceticism and moral reform. He has three reasbns. First, noting that some passions have a physical origin, that others have a mental one, and that still others stem from both mind and body, he shows that fasting leaves one of these groups untouched. Second, although Cassian has been accused of semi-Pelagianism for his inept opposition to Augustine's darker view of fallen human nature, he makes it clear that asceticism is merely a means to an end--no more than a tool--and that the ascetical practices of the Egyptian desert are merely one set of tools; another set includes almsgiving and social service. Third, and most important, what-ever means a person may use, the result ultimately depends on the grace of God. The tools must not become an end in them-selves, for all the fasting and sleeplessness in the world are not going to merit salvation for a monk. Two Ways of Looking at Cassian There are two ways of looking at John Cassian's work. If we make a point of standing back to get an objective view, we are likely to see a body of writings focused exclusively on a monastic, ascetical lifestyle far from the world of commerce and family life. Even admitting that Cassian must have been aware that sanctity can be attained at least occasionally along a different path, we might still find in him an obsession with monasticism that seems an implicit denigration of the other, active forms of Christian life. Moreover, the asceticism he puts forward as moderate may strike us as severe. Indeed, the whole ascetical regime of the desert hermits may suggest that the Egyptian desert was a highly com-petitive place where altogether too much attention was paid to the quest for personal sanctity. This view, I would argue, is the product of a superficial reading. In this article we have tried, on the contrary, to look at Cassian's teaching on asceticism from his own point of view. This leaves us with the idea tl~at asceticism is a therapeutic tool to recondition, under grace, the reactions of body and mind so that all our actions, even those we perform spontaneously without thought, will be in harmony with our int6ntion to love God, our neighbor, and ourselves. Cassian was in error about how much food and sleep the body needs. It is also evident that his teachings on the passions need to 2~larcb-April 1997 Russell ¯ ~obn Cassian on Asceticism be corrected in some instances and supplemented in all of them. We cannot follow him, for example, in his effort to eradicate anger because, unlike him, we appreciate that the inclination to anger plays a positive role in human life. But, by and large, Cassian's orientation is sound and wholesome. In the secular world in which we live, we realize that for many reasons we are not the free, healthy human persons we would like to be, and so we seek to be healed. In this, Cassian shares our point of view. He sees asceticism as a therapeutic program to help people .toward their ultimate goal. In addition, far from spurn-ing our bodily reality, he insists that it be recognized and respected. His teaching challenges the conviction common today that early asceticism was always a body-hating aberration of the Greek mind-set. I suggest, moreover, that Cassian's writings of sixteen hundred years ago provide healthy roots on which today's Christians might graft a hardy new synthesis of spirituality and contemporary psychology for third-millennial people on their journey to God. Notes t John Cassian, Conference 4.7, in Edgar C.S. Gibson, "The Works of John Cassian," in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fatbers, 2nd series, vol. 11, A Select Library of the Christian Church (Oxford: James Parker and Co., 1894, reprinted by William B. Eerdmans in 1964), p. 333. 2 Conference 4.12, p. 335. 3 Conference 2.17, p. 316. 4 Conference 2.16, p. 316. s Conference 1.7, p. 297. Mary's Steps Childish toes kiss temple stairs. Maiden soles take joy's fleet wing. Fleeing heels, in exile bound. Searching feet, he must be found. Weary ~steps

Issue 52.4 of the Review for Religious, July/August 1993. ; for r elig ious Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living JULY-AUGUST 1993 ¯VOLUME 52 ¯ NUMBER 4 Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-535-3048 ¯ FAX: 314-535-0601 Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ° 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP ° 5001 Eastern Avenue ° P.O. Box 29260 Washington, D.C. 20017. POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Second-class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. SUBSCRIPTION RATES Single copy $5 includes surface mailing costs. One-year subscription $15 plus mailing costs. Two-year subscription $28 plus mailing costs. See inside back cover for more subscription information and mailing costs. ©1993 Review for Religious for religious Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Assistant Editors Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Michael G. Harter SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP J~an Read Mary Ann Foppe Joann Wolski Conn PhD Mary Margaret Johanning SSND Iris Ann Ledden SSND Edmundo Rodriguez SJ Se~in Sammon FMS Suzanne Zuercher OSB Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living JULY-AUGUST 1993 ¯ VOLUME 52 ¯ NUMBER4 contents 486 feature The Most Adventurous of Nuns: Ursulines and the Future Mary.Jo Weaver gives contemporary meaning to the legacy of Angela Merici and the Ursulines. prayer 503 Hermitage, a Metaphor of Life Eileen P. O'Hea CSJ shares the struggle of a desert-day experience. 507 Christian Zen-cum-Ignatian Meditation Robert McCown SJ explains how Christian Zen, or centering prayer, as an ancillary to the Spiritual Exercises offers spiritual repose. 519 God's Human Face Revealed: A Retreat in Wales Mary Corona FMDM shares her experience of God's working in a thirty-day retreat. 532 541 548 spiritual life What Trouble Is Tad Dunne ponders how coping with trouble allows us to find energies that produce growth. Prayer, Memories, and God Theresa Mancuso suggests a fascinating relationship between recalling joyful and painful memories and praying to God. Adding Up 75 Years Vera Gallagher RGS adds up the balance sheet of God's love in her own life history. 482 Review for Religious 553 566 574 apostolate Prayer and Work, Mostly in South Africa Timothy Stanton CR believes that intercession is the main respon-sibility of the church in the painful process of bringing a new South Africa to birth. Religious Life in West Africa 1966-1990 Martin O'Reilly CFC offers an outline of the development of reli-gious life from foreign-born to local-born in West Africa. The Sanctification of Their Neighbor Thaddeus J. Kazanecki CO examines some characteristics of the Italian confraternal life within which St. Philip Neri founded the Congregation of the Oratory. 584 596 6O2 610 religious life Culture and Contemplative Community Marie Beha OSC reflects on how living the Franciscan charism in the United States can be ddngerous both for U.S. Poor Clares and U.S. culture. Canonical Room for Charisms William F. Hogan CSC emphasizes the uniqueness to be fostered by each particular religious institute for the good of the church's mission. Journal of a Novice Director Melannie Svoboda SND explores the mind and heart of a novice director through excerpts that could be found in a journal. A Family Business: Management in Religious Congregations Dennis Newton SVD spells out some practical directives for deal-ing with complications arising from interaction between religious-congregation members and nonmembers in the workplace. departments 484 Prisms 616 Canonical Counsel: The Synod on Consecrated Life 622 Book Reviews 37-uly-Aug~st 1993 483 prisms A seminarian recently told me, in a certain exasperated way, of his frustration about political label-ing in the church. Informally representing others of sim-ilar age, he pointed out that he has known no other church than the post-Vatican II church. An English-language liturgy, a catechetical training distinguished more by ques-tions than by answers, parish organizations still in devel-oping stages, a school faculty composed mostly of lay teachers, along with a few religious women and men not appearing all that different in dress or in lifestyle from their lay counterparts--these are the only memories of church that he has. He has no more nostalgia for the prac-tices of the church of earlier years than he has for the cel-ebrated golden age of radio before the advent of television. His complaint is that any expressed desires for con-nectives to a pre-Vatican II church immediately raise the likelihood of himself and other people his age being called "neoconservatives." These thirtysomething people and younger want rather to explore more fully their heritages of Catholic .faith and practice. They have no battles to fight over the rigidities and meaninglessness that were part of some Catholic devotions and regulations of the recent, past. They are gra,teful for the freedom and respon-sibility which "older" church members have not always felt comfortable with. They appreciate the maturing fits-and- starts of an American hierarchy in providing leader-ship in their letters on peace and justice and on economics and even in the failed .attempt to address the role of women in society and the church. They see as well-mean-ing but fearful the attempts at control and centralization made by what they might want to label as a "conserva- 484 Review for Religious tive" Vatican bureaucracy. But they are nevertheless looking, sometimes toward the past, for something more in their church than they have at present. They would want, in Jesus' imagery, to be like the "head of a household who can bring from his store-room both the new and the old" (Mt 13:52). If I have rather faithfully understood and presented a major concern of significant numbers of younger members in the church, I believe that their complaint is legitimate. The necessity for an in-depth contact with and study of our rich heritages has never been more apparent. We are all-too-aware of the old truism that unless we know our past we are condemned to keep repeating it. We in the church are also well aware that the danger of being prisoners of the past is all-too-real, with the embarrassing irrel-evance of various "churchy" issues in the face of modern world problems and technology. So for us to know our heritages is to have the strength of consistency with our past but also the stim-ulus to move into a creative future where our faith is a light for appropriate decision and action. Our feature article, "The Most Adventurous of Nuns: Ursulines and the Future" by Mary Jo Weaver, is one attempt to make contact with a heritage in this kind of significant way. I hope that this article will serve as a model for people to study and write engagingly about other heritages, with implications for the present and future opportunities of those very heritages. The women and men who lived our heritages before they were heritages make vivid the values necessary for today's Christian living and the courage it takes to live these values in the face of difficulties, including at times the opposition of good people. This journal has a privileged role to play in bringing people into greater contact with the good-ness within so many spiritual families that live together in our church. In coming to know more fully the relevance of our spiri-tual heritages, we dan expect that our liturgical and prayer practices will be more life-giving, our ministries inspired by gospel beati-tudes will be more clearly focused, and our lives supported in Christian community will be more vigorous. Vatican II and the subsequent years have given the church the occasion for straightening out the gospel storeroom. Now we, the church members, need to enrich our faith lives by com-ing to know and use its treasures, both new and old. David L. Fleming SJ yuly-A1lgust 1993 485 feature MARY JO WEAVER The Most Adventurous of Nuns: Ursulines and the Future I found the title of my talk in the first sentence of Agnes Repplier's biography of M~re Marie: "Of course," she says, "the Ursulines were the most adventurous of nuns." As I skimmed the book, I found phrases like "the most adven-turous of patronesses," the "robust intelligence and fear-less imagination" of the founder, and the "constitutional fearlessness and valorous spirit" of the first missionary to North America. The women most often mentioned in Ursuline history--St. Ursula, Angela Merici, and Mhre Marie--were all formidable figures, and as I read about them I was wafted back into a romantic past when pio-neering women were intrepid and when everything worked out all right in the end. Although the women associated with Ursuline history were not feminists in any modern sense of the word, I wondered what it would mean to attempt a feminist reading of their lives. I was drawn most powerfully into Angela's life, but not before the other two made me stop and take notice. The medieval legend of Ursula as a graceful, beauti-ful, wise, cultured scholar whose learning amazed the doc- Mary Jo Weaver is professor of religious studies and women's studies at Indiana University in Bloomington. Author of Springs of Water in a Dry Land: Catholic I, Vomen and Spiritual Survival (Beacon Press, 1993) and other works, she spent ten years explor-ing feminist issues in the American Catholic Church and has recently begun a long-term research project on traditionalist Catholics in the United States. Her address is 1030 S. Mitchell; Bloomington, Indiana 47401. 486 Review for Religiot~s tors of the church explains why she inspired so many paintings and poems. The bare outlines of her mythical life--martyred along with eleven .thousand virgins with whom she was wandering around barbarian Europe--are fanciful, to say the least, but I do not think it troublesome that the historical facts about her are rather dim. True or false, her legends shaped part of the Catholic tradition and tell us something about the roles women were able to play in the medieval imagination. That she was a virgin, the patron of innocent girls, and a charismatic figure and leader even though she was single--neither married nor in a convent--was obviously attractive to Angela. When I moved to the stories surrounding M~re Marie, leader of the first Ursuline mission in North America, I found genuine historical material used by her biographer in a skilled portrait. Repplier's biography can be summarized in this sentence: "She had escaped every groove in which she had been imprisoned by circumstances." It is a marvelous summary of the life of an ordi-nary woman responding to extraordinary demands, and that seems to be an Ursuline theme, at least in the North American context, where Ursulines were on the scene early and seemed to thrive in the most desperate of situations. Male historians, who typically pay little attention to women, unite in praise for the teaching charism of the Ursulines and their civilizing power on the frontier. There is more, of course, but the bottom line from the his-torians is a witness to dedicated purpose: "The development most distinctively American was the role in educating the young assumed so largely by a myriad of women's communities, begin-ning with the Ursulines in New Orleans in 1727." These same historians do not make much of the fact that the founder of the Ursulines was an independent and rather remarkable woman sur-rounded by strong, inventive women. Those attributes attracted me, however, and it became clear to me that the best way to think about Ursulines was to get to know their founder. Besides, there seemed to be excellent sources of information: well-researched critical biographies, spiritual reflections, historical notes, and modern symposium notes say something about the kind of energy Angela Merici has inspired in her followers. About Angela Merici, there seems to be solid historical ground for an interpretation, but as with the stories of other founders and other times, the pious imagination has sometimes filtered the facts. For example, Angela is remembered ih connection with the July-Aug'ust 1993 487 Weaver ¯ The Most Adventurous of Nuns education of girls and is sometimes pictured as energetically open-ing schools; but she neither spent her time founding academies, nor was she drawn primarily to an apostolate of education. Her pioneering spirit was directed towards the moral support of young girls and the regeneration of society as it could be accomplished through a formation program within family settings. Still, because she established a company of independent women at a time when things were astonishingly bad for women, Angela is an example of the "theoretical feminism" that some critics believe has always existed even though it was seldom successful. Theoretical femi-nism means the dedication of women to the abolition of hie(ar-chics, especially those that put women under the direction of men. That description appears to fit Angela's context, and the fact that she tried her experiment during the Renaissance makes her case even stronger. One of the salient points made by feminist historians for the last twenty-five years has to do with periodization. The ways we mark historical periods have been set by men and often mark the realities of women's lives. The late Joan Kelly ~nade this argu-ment with specific reference to Renaissance Italy, Angela's time and place. According to Kelly,.there were no gains for women during the Renaissance. In fact, the age was marked by a restric-tion of the scope of women's powers. Female sexuality, women's economic and political roles, their cultural power in shaping the outlook of their societies, and the ideology about women all underwent profound changes, mostly to the diminishment of women. Yet Angela acted as if the subordination of women was not an issue for her. The "new subordination of women to the inter-ests of husbands and male-dominated groups" that went hand in hand with Renaissance "progress" did not seem to touch her per-sonally though it may account for the rather quick enclosure of the women Angela hoped could live a more autonomous existence. Like fascinating women everywhere, Angela regularly over-turns predictable assmnptions about her. The woman who gath-ered the company later valorized as "the most adventurous of nuns" seems to have been the most reluctant of founders. The founder who has gone into history as one of the world's great pioneers of education seems not to have been that at all, and the visionary who heard a voice from heaven in her teens finally got around to acting on it when she was an old woman. Angela's life fits no .pattern that I can find unless it might be 488 Review for Religious that of Dorothy Day, who summarized her own life's work by say-ing that she never planned to do very much at all. "Opportunities presented themselves and we responded," she used to say, refus-ing to be relegated to the musty shelves of sainthood, out of ordi-nary reach. Dorothy Day is not a perfect parallel figure for understanding Angela, but can help us to perceive the more or less prosaic ways in which ordinary people can be propelled into extraordinary activity. Almost everything we know about Angela Merici happened in Brescia, a small but very volatile city. In 1401 it had been dubbed "the little Rome" because it had 70 churches and 50 monasteries for a population of 16,000, yet sixty years later the apocalyptic reformer Savanarola preached sermons there evoking visions of hellfire and damnation to inspire a change of heart in a morally bankrupt population. Perhaps Brescia was simply unlucky in terms of episcopal leadership. Paulo Zane, absentee bishop there for fifty years (1481-1531), seemed to be in a contest with corrupt popes, cardinals, and priests to see who could lead the most lav-ish and egocentric life. Perhaps Brescia was simply unlucky in terms of its geographical location; it was used, stomped on, and overrun by various armies during the complex territorial wars that dominated the region in the late 15th and early 16th cen-turies. When the French sacked the city in 1512, four years before Angela arrived, the torture and killing of local citizens was so ferocious that all of Europe was shocked by it. If we think of mod-ern- day Somalia, or parts of Latin America or the Middle East, we would not be far off in our analogy. The context for Angela's life, therefore, was collapse and tran-sition. The medieval models for politics and religion were not working, but nothing better was yet in place--a time, in other words, not entirely unlike our own. It was also a time of rampant corruption and moral gridlock, in which those "in charge" appeared uninterested in the daily spiritual li;¢es of ordinary peo-ple. Outside of the 10th century, it is hard to imagine a worse set of popes, one after another, than those who occupied the Holy See then; nearly half of the men who~e stories make up Chamberlain's The Bad Popes ruled during Angela's lifetime. Religious life, although abundantly present, was scandalous rather than edifying, creating a kind of spiritual vacuum for a scream of protest to fill. And, of course, someone did produce such a scream. A young Augustinian monk teaching Scripture at Wittenberg protested .~uly-Aug'ust 1993 4.89 Weaver ¯ The Most Adventurous of Nuns Charlotte Lichtblau vehemently, but that is a different story. It is not clear how sharply the Lutheran remonstrances touched Angela herself. Many of the reformers of the 16th century--Teresa of Avila, for example-- were so taken up with their own missions that they appear to belong to a climate of religious reform that has very little to do with the great Protestant revolt that began a year after Angela arrived in her new home. Still, ten years later, in 1527, a major anti-Catholic demonstration in Brescia signified, among other things, that people there were in a state of spiritual uproar. 490 Review for Religious To understand Angela's context, therefore, we have to imag-ine a situation that felt generally hopeless and beyond control. The northern Italian borders were not secure, and towns like Brescia were a kind of permanent war zone, not always the scene of bloodshed, but sufficiently precarious to raise the disease rate, encourage prostitution, destabilize families, and generally scuttle normal life. Religious leaders were nowhere to be seen unless one happened to be in Rome attending the theater. The streets of Brescia in 1532 probably resembled Times Square in 1993. They were full of con men sensing opportunities, young women selling themselves for their next meal, old men with diseases or old war wounds and no place to go, and ragged children darting from one bad situation to the next. Acting courageously in this little scene were some dedicated young men operating hospitals for "incur-ables" and a steadfast group of young women whose desire to help young girls led them to imagine themselves working together in a new way. What did these young idealists have in common besides a lively conscience and a desire for spirituality in action? They were all friends of or drawn to Angela Merici, an efficient, maternal woman who, by all accounts, had a magnetic personal-ity shaped by personal sanctity. She had even, so it was said, once had some kind of "vision." As I noted earlier, whatever the facts of her life, Angela Merici is not typical in any way. The outline of her visionary experience-- adolescent orphan girl sees something and claims to be instructed by it--is a standard story; but what Angela did with it is not. Her modesty in claiming very little for herself because of her experi-ence reminds me of Dame Julian of Norwich, who after a series of remarkable visions went on with a modest, reclusive life, recounting them to a scribe only much later. As an adolescent, Angela apparently had a profound religious experience--a dream or a vision--which she believed gave shape and direction to her life; but she did not immediately run to a bishop to disclose its contents, nor did she speculate about the concrete terms into which it might eventually be cast. She simply went about her life as a third-order Franciscan, te.aching catechism in her own village and willing to go wherever she was needed--to Brescia, as it turns out, when she was in her forties. Unless we count a pious life as extraordinary, she did not do anything out of the ordinary there. Perhaps the very routineness of her life calmed people: At the same time, the little things she .~uly-August 1993 491 Weaver ¯ The Most Adventurous of Nuns Like any normal prophet, she was reluctant to believe that God was directly calling her. did made an impressibn on those around her. She lived a selfless life in the company of rich people and brought the attractive wis-dom of common sense to a besieged.situation. She apparently felt secure enough to pursue her lifestyle choice of virginity in the home of a wealthy young merchant, living in his house for more than a dozen years. She was an ascetic who was surrounded by friends, many of them men. She was a good organizer and pitched in to do what needed to be done--nursing, counseling, pro-tecting children, consoling the bereaved--but also apparently felt free enough to go galli-vanting off to Jerusalem, to Rome, and to Varolla, a kind of Holy Land theme park in the Alps. How it became clear to her that it was time to act upon her early vision and gather "a company of consecrated virgins" around her is not Clear to me, especially since I see her vari-ous trips as flights from that call. Every time someone called a meeting, she disappeared! In 1522, when she was in her early fifties, Angela went on a pilgrimage to Mantua, to the tomb of Blessed Osanna Andreasi, a third-order Dominican. Why? Did she simply want to honor this holy woman, or was she begin-ning to suspect that she herself was gifted beyond what she had up to now felt to be ordinary abilities? Did she hope by honoring Osanna, a new and popular cult figure, that she could elude her own fate, like Moses telling God that, in comparison with the articulate Aaron, he was simply not the man for the job? It seems reasonable to assume that she experienced some kind of inner turmoil and was seeking refuge from it. In that way--like any normal prophet, with the exception of Isaiah--she was reluctant to believe that God was directly calling bet. Whether at Mantua she was seeking refuge or confirmation, however, she did not quit running away. Her next pilgrimage, in 1524 to Jerusalem, is what we might expect from such a woman in those times, and having an on-site episode of hysterical illness was not untypical. People in the highly charged atmosphere of a major place of pilgrimage often have unex-pected or frightening physical experiences, but let us examine this moment more closely. She did not, like Margery Kempe, faint or have visions of herself assisting at the birth of Jesus; she did not, like 492 Review for Religious Felix Fabri, feel as if her whole life had been turned upside down. She went blind and so could not see some of the holy places. When I read that story, I wonder what she did not want to see. On her way back from Jerusalem, she stopped awhile in Venice, where city officials begged her to stay and administer a hospital for incurables there, an honor and a challenge to which she responded by fleeing quickly and returning to Brescia. Running away from this opportunity would have made sense if she returned to Brescia to take on similar responsibilities there, but she did not. She was scarcely unpacked when she booked pas-sage on another pilgrimage, this time to Rome and the celebration of the jubilee year (1525). I read this activity as a voyage of internal discovery. Those attuned to their inner voices know that "you can run, but you can-not hide," something An\gela was trying to do in ever more press- xng ways. Whatever her reasons for going to Rome, once there she managed to get an audience with Pope Clement VII. It is hard to imagine this event without the kind of bribery required by most Renaissance popes, so if she managed to see the pope without such machinations, I daresay he already knew about her and saw how she might be useful to him. In any case, if she wanted the solace of a papal blessing, she received another scare instead: he begged her to stay in Rome and administer a hospital there. Here the story gets even more dramatic because, in the face of a papal request, Angela fled lest she be compelled by obedience. Other popes might have pursued her, but Clement was not a man of swift decision. His nickname--"I will and I won't"--was given to him because be was a notorious temporizer, agonizingly slow to make any decision. His disadvantage was her victory. She got herself back to Brescia and away from Rome. Perhaps she imagined she was now safe and sound. ¯ What can one make of all this flight? I see a woman who probably knew she had led a useful life, who was self-assured and willing to help out where she was needed, but not eager to fit into a role she could not yet imagine for herself. The idea that she might be more than a reasonably pious and useful woman and the fact that young people involved in arduous and creative cor-poral works of mercy gathered around her as if around a mother hen may have strained her .self-understanding. Maybe she was just tired--she was in her late fifties--maybe she was just stub-born. I find her self-possessed, unwilling to act until she herself j~uly-August 1993 493 Weaver ¯ The Most Adventurous of Nuns was clear about what she might do and how she might act to con-trol her own future. In "running away" she found the time and space to begin to come to terms with it. It is fascinating to see this middle-aged woman struggle with the logical implications of her own life. She had been in Brescia for nearly fifteen years, living a prayerful life and doing good works. People thought her so wise and caring that they called her madre (a tide reserved for holy women and nuns), and from morn-ing to night she was called on by people seeking her advice or drawn to her sensible simplicity, A group of courageous young people who had their own ideas about how to live the gospel in a forlorn world were drawn to her spiritual power. And an increas-ingly clear apostolate, dedicated to the care and protection of young women, had been staring beseechingly at her since Elizabeth Prato, a friend young enough and devoted enough to be her daughter, started working with lost girls in 1522. Vv'hy, then, the reluctance? And why do I find it comforting? Without intending to be cryptic, I think it is middle age, Angela's and my own. Had she been in her twenties, perhaps she would have dived right into the creative community she founded, as many of today's middle-aged sisters, in their youth, were drawn into the irresistible energy of religious life with its sacrifices and promises. But, like many of us today, she was in her fifties, not so quick to act, distracted by alternatives and the cautions that come with age. Maybe she just wanted to live out her days in the mod-est way she had been doing. After all, it is reasonable at this age to be tending the gardens of one's own soul and unreasonable to be launching a major life project. Maybe the call which had come with such clarity many years earlier now seemed distant or unreal, impractical in the present situation. VVhen we are young, the idea that God wants us for something specific seems only natural. All the scary choices--marriage, motherhood, convent life, profes-sional training--are made with the blessed ignorance of youth. But when we are older, the same idea can make us wonder if we are imagining things; we see all the reasons not to believe what we are hearing. In such cases the mysterious ways that God is famous for often manifest themselves in some dramatic way. For Angela, not unlike many of the saints, illness was a factor. Fleeing again in 1529 to Cremona in order to get away from political intrigue and an active war zone, she became gravely ill. And here, I think, she 494 Review for Religio~ts encountered an interesting temptation that may have looked like the answer to her problems. Illness and death beckoned as an option, the last flight, the final escape. She apparently thought that she might really die there and--whether with drama or res-ignation I cannot say--took to her deathbed. Yet, when one of her young supporters composed her epi-taph and read it to her, she bounced back, not as ready to go to heaven as she imagined. Again, I think, she shows the wisdom of age, for it is only when we are very young that we find a "longing for death" something to nurture in our-selves. Angela, hearing her epitaph, dis-covered new energy in herself. She still may not have been ready to lead a new movement, but neither was she ready to be led into eternity to the strains of In Paradisum. Whatever happened to her during those days in Cremona, she was resolved, at the end of this exile, to put down her traveling staff and follow the spirit she had been running from. She made one more short trip to Varolla that winter, to renew her memories of the Holy Land-- a symbol for her sense of purpose--then returned to Brescia and moved into a small room in Elizabeth Prato's house near the church of St. Afra. Now nearly sixty, Angela tucked into this new stage of her life with determination. She lived even more austerely, spent more time in prayer, and began to instruct her spiritual daughters. It is probably only a geographical coincidence that Prato's house was near the church of St. Afra, a 4th-century prostitute who achieved sainthood through martyrdom; but it is interesting that the early work of Angela's group was partly directed at.opening possibili-ties for "penitent women," a euphemism .for prostitutes. By 1532 Angela had gathered a small group around her and developed a rather extraordinary and yet quite simple idea: all the women would engage in an exterior apostolate and lead vir-ginal and virtuous lives, but would take no vows. In its broad out-lines this plan is reminiscent of the Beguines, religious associations of women begun in the 12th century in Belgium and the All the scary choices-- marriage, motherhood, convent life, professional training-- are made with the blessed ignorance of youth. July-Augt~t 1993 495 Weaver ¯ The Most Adventurous of Nuns Netherlands. Their success in the 14th century did not impress itself upon the clerical mind so much as the fact that they took no vows and were not subject to the rules of any order. Did Angela know about them? Was she attracted by their relative autonomy? Did she think their exp+riment was worth another try? Her idea was so simple and so revolutionary that it boggled the minds of the authorities: women would commit themselves to an apostolate--the care, protection, and education of girls--and they would promise lifelong fidelity to consecrated virginity. We may consider how her plan might have threatened men. Pious men would see women able to lead useful virtuous lives without their advice, and "men of the world," accustomed to pursuing an occasional dalliance, might now have to sneak into the house late at night, only to be met with the soulful glances of an at-home daughter vowed to virginity. Angela's notion of governance was also disturbing. However much she said about obedience to authorities, the Holy Spirit was her real teacher, and so she stipulated for her daughters. Her desire to trust the activity of the Holy Spirit in the individual heart, however, did not appeal to male authorities. On the con-trary, it frightened them profoundly. Charles Borromeo--still in diapers when Angela died--found the idea of an unmediated Holy Spirit speaking directly to the heart and conscience of individual women wildly dangerous. The changes made by this young arch-bishop of Milan in Angela's Rule are not surprising to anyone with even a minimalist feminist consciousness. Borromeo was a man of his times; Angela was a woman ahead of hers. I find it fascinating that, unlike some other reformers and founders such as Teresa of Avila, Angela did not invoke the com-mands of Christ to carry out her purpose or to solidify her sense of authority. She was sure that what she was doing was made pos-sible by and would be sustained by God, but she exhibited no need to couch her ideas in the language of mystical certainty. Perhaps because she was single and surrounded by eager disci-ples she had no need to talk about divine directives. Perhaps she did not have any. Her ideas about community seem to follow directly from her own experience, an extension of her practical holiness. The memory of her vision--by now no more than a vague request to a bereaved girl--and a st.eady relationship with God were enough for her. The practicality and ordinariness of her plans made her an 496 Review for Religious inspired leader with amazing insight into the needs of women. The frescoes she commissioned for her oratory--the meeting space and prayer room for her young group--constitute a kind of "womanspace" in which her young followers could imagine new possibilities for themselves. Angela's frescoes gave her fol-lowers examples of spiritual heroism. Looking around in that room, young women saw Angela's models. Ursula, Elizabeth, Paula, Eustochium, and, by some accounts, Catherine of Alexandria make exquisite sense and testify to the power of Angela's self-concept. She did not choose prepubescent martyrs or women noted for fasting and silence; she selected strong, bright, self-confident women. It is worth lingering on this point. Although the Catholic tra-dition has a long list of impressive women saints, women whose sanctity rests on suffering, self-effacement, and masochistic penances often predominate. That Angela did not choose such models for her girls speaks eloquently, not only to Angela's time, but also to our own. The women in her murals are all.mature, educated, learned, single, undaunted by male threats or violence, and autonomous in their fashion. Like Angela herself, these women exhibit an inner certainty and independence, making no great claims for themselves, but creating atmospheres of respect by their clearheaded, fearless lives. Even if we look at the under-side of their stories--Elizabeth's sick relationship with her spiri-tual director, for example--the last line of the story is one of strength rather than brokenness. All these women are virgins-- some belatedly, some, like Ursula, spectacularly--and all com-bine devotion to learning with lives of Christlike action. Within two years of the setting up of the oratory, Angela and twenty-eight of the young women who regularly visited that col-orful space signed a book promising to serve faithfully as members of the company of St. Ursula. Within five years that number more than quintupled, and Angela died, leaving behind a growing group, three small documents, and a legacy of self-reliance. How does one survive in a world where, in Yeats's descrip-tion, "the centre cannot hold"? Angela's writings suggest that she endured by reliance on the Holy Spirit, self-confidence, adapt-ability, and kindness. She assumed that her daughters would sur-vive and that God would somehow take care of them, but I see no evidence that she had much stake in gathering a group that would last forever. She does not appear to have been much of a worrier, 3%dy-~lugust 1993 497 Weaver ¯ The Most Adventurous of Nuns perhaps because she thought of herself as a mother and had such a fearless concept of motherhood. Angela's model of mothering was dominated neither by the medieval bias that considered women to be morally and intellec-tually inferior nor by Renaissance romanticizing. In her reckon-ing, a mother is loving, but also demanding; tough as well as flexible; able to embody both divine mercy and divine judgment. As CarolynWalker Bynum has shown, these qualities are partic-ularly important in contrast to concepts of divine motherhood that we find in the writings of medieval monks. For them, moth-ers are eternally nurturing, never critical, always available, in other words, stereotypical in the worst ways. Angela's concept of motherhood is the best indicator of her independent spirit. Like the great female mystics of Helfta-- Gertrude the Great, Mechtild--she was able to look into the mir-ror and see herself and her daughters as powerful even as they committed themselves to lives of service. She managed for much of her life to be what many of us hope eventually to become, self-accepting, aware of life's bleak realities without being defeated by them, and so quietly self-confident that it seems not to have occurred to her that she would not be able to do what needed to be done. In managing to live without marrying or entering a convent, and seeing no reason why other women could not do the same, she may have failed to recognize the extraordinary qualities of her own personality, but in that, too, I see modest ambitions con-cealing a powerful sense of purpose. If I can do this, she seems to say, so can you. Little Wonder that young women were attracted to her. She looks out from the past, not with directives, but with encouragement. "Take heart," she says, "I have confidence in you." The word that dominates her writings is kindness, the notion that people can teach more effectively, pray more openly, and act in the world more compellingly insofar as they remember to be tender, encouraging, loving. The ability of hers to enable her fol-lowers by encouraging them to trust themselves is no small thing to emulate in these times of confusion and anxiety about the future of religious life. Because I find Angela's life a statement about women's oppor-tunities, I think she is something of a feminist hero. Among other things, feminism is a countercultural movement related to the ways women are taught to act and to imagine themselves. As 498 Review for Religiozts someone deeply committed to women in an age that was deter-mined to keep women in lives of subservience, Angela was coun-tercultural. Her relationships, attitudes, and actions did not fit the norm for Renaissance women, nor did they fit into the accepted molds for "pious" laywomen. She did not take up residence with a man in order to have an overseer, for example, nor did she count it a danger to faith to be living outside the control of a husband or a bishop. When she says, in Counsel number 7, to follow the old Law but lead a new Life, she makes a countercultural statement. In the ways she used her own expe-rience to make her life and the lives of other women better, she did then what feminists urge women to do now. Like women in most times, she knew that she could not operate as men do, by domi-nating a situation, and so learned to lead by other means. She was a madre, a mother and leader whose "gov-ernance" was more by example than by decree. At the same time, she was not afraid of provocative images of power, urging her fol-lowers to be "like Judith," the Israelite woman who saved her peo-ple by beheading the enemy leader, Holofernes. In her Counsels Angela suggests that her followers serve oth-ers; practice gentleness; not be anxious if they do their best; build community anywhere; teach by example; find refuge in Jesus; nur-ture those entrusted to them; honor authority in the community; and live in harmony. People can, of course, read those bits of guidance in profoundly conservative ways to suggest that Ursuline women simply comply with rightful authority and define them-selves in terms of old-fashioned virtues of maternal charity. Compassion, prayer, solidarity, and a creative imagination, they might say, have been the tools women have used for centuries to shape life toward their purposes, find they work well in traditional models. But I think it is also possible to read them as directions from a self-possessed, powerful woman to those she expected to follow her lead. The bottom line is Angela herself: she trusted her friends and counted on them to be able to make use of their own experience as she had done. As I see her legacy, she was more Because I find Angela's life a statement about women's opportunities, I think she is something of a feminist hero. Weaver ¯ The Most Adventurous of Nuns interested in encouraging women to trust themselves than she was in providing them with a set of rules and regulations. However one interprets her life, the things Angela did can still be done. Women today--laywomen and religious women--have moved beyond passivity and found new ways to make innovations and to ameliorate social ills, as she did. She knew how to read and respond to the sigris of the times in creative ways and assumed that her followers would, too. She was able to read the gospel in prag-matic terms, as a demand to respond to the human demands of everyday life, and left that as part of her legacy. She looked for a new form of religiou~ life within her own experience and com-bined it with the tried-and-true formulae of work and prayer and fasting to come up with something so ahead of its time that it scared the men in charge of things. That can still be done, too. Whatever happens to "religious life" over the next few years-- and there is no end of controversy about it--I believe that at least three things need to be combined with your own reading of Angela's life. These general recommendations apply to all of us. First, we need to know the Catholic tradition: to be literate about revelation, creation, redemption, Christology, grace, and the rest, not in order to hold on in an obdurate or triumphal way, but to have a solid appreciation of what Catholicism is and is not. With Angela as a model, be assured that I am not talking about the truncated tradition handed on by men, the one that excluded women. I am talking about the full, richly embodied, woman-rich tradition of Roman Catholicism. Those who teach young people know that we now stand in a stream of Catholic tradition that very few people really know or understand. Those whose lives are focused on education might be both scandalized and galva-nized by that fact. Second, we need to have a firm grasp of the sacramentality of Catholicism since it both strengthens the spirit and informs the imagination. If we understand that the things of the world are sacred, that God is often present in the most unlikely of places, then we might see new possibilities in the universe. We need, in other words, as Angela did, to cultivate our religious sensibili-ties: to paint frescoes, create new holy cards, celebrate life. Finally, I think we should read Scripture and its commentaries and make that a part of our prayer. Angela may have done good works and taught her "daughters". all afternoon, but only, I think, because she spent the mornings in St. Afra's in front of the altar, sometimes 500 Review for Religious deeply connected, sometimes wildly distracted, but always, rou-tinely, there. I was attracted to Angela Merici originally because she was a powerful woman and, in my reading, a reluctant founder. As I read and thought more about her, I was drawn to her sense of adventure, her willingness' to risk what may have looked like an idiotic experiment at a time when she may have been mostly tempted to retire. So how can Ursulines combine their founding charism--tied to Angela Merici--with tradition, sacramentality, and Scripture? The hard part of that question for me has to do with the Ursuline charism. What is it? Education? Virginity? Working with young women? The possible answers sometimes seem as multivalent as the life of the founder and perhaps, like all life forms, reflect some facet of divinity back to God in their par-ticularities. Ursulines together embody the varieties of Ursuline life in a way that highlights the many aspects of Angela that are worth emulating. The bottom line for me is confident innovation. I do not know if that constitutes a "charism," but it seems to me that it could. Seeing what needs to be done and doing it with an embracing charity, while refusing to capitulate to fears about the future, is a rather astounding legacy, as useful today as it was then. Bibliographical Notes Many of the ideas for a feminist reading come from the work I have done over the last decade on women in the Catholic Church. My New Catholic Women: A Contemporary Challenge to Traditional Religious Authority (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1985) is the best state-ment of that interest (see especially chapters 1 and 3). Joan Kelly's Women, History and Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984) is still the best place to start when considering the problems raised by feminist historiography. Because Kelly's work is often set within the context of Renaissance history, her essays were particu-larly useful in interpreting the context for Angela. Also, Carolyn Walker Bynum's books, especially Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982) are outstanding resources for thinking about the ways late medieval women actually thought and acted in the face of various religious and social changes. To learn about Ursulines, I began with Agnes Repplier's Mbre Marie of the Ursulines: A Study in Adventure (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1932), which gave me some amusing and provocative insights into Angela and Ursula along with the f~scinating story of M~re Marie herself. I am most indebted, however, to Teresa. Led6chowska's marvelous two- .l~uly-Augus* 1993 501 Weaver ¯ The Most Adventurous of Nuns volume critical biography, Angela Merici and the Company of St. Ursula: According to the Historical Documents (translated from the French by Teresa Nylan and published in Rome: Ancora, 1969). I used this amaz-ing resource to reconstruct the events of Angela's life. The interpre-tation of Angela as "fleeing" from the voice of God and as a "reluctant" founder are my own. I was also instructed by various works of Ursuline historian Irene Mahoney, whose Portraits of Angela (privately printed, 1985) and St. Angela Merici: Foundress of the Ursulines (privately printed, 1985) are excellent books, full of detail and insight. Martha Bucer's Also in Your Midst: Reflections on the Spirituality of St. Angela Merici (Green Bay, Wisconsin: Alt Publishing Co., 1990) was also helpful. Friends provided me with various notes from Ursuline conferences, especially with a very large set of materials from an international conference in Rome in 1991. I read them with great appreciation and have bor-rowed from them here. Other books cited or alluded to in this paper include E.R. Chamberlain, The Bad Popes (New York: New American Library, 1969); Louise Collins, Memoirs of a Medieval Woman: The Life and Times of Margery Kempe (New York: Thomas Crowell, 1964); Dorothy Day, Loaves and Fishes (New York: Curtis Books, 1963); James Hennesey, American Catholicism: A Histo~bv of the Catholic Community in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981); H.EM. Prescott, Friar Felix at Large: A 15th-Century Pilgrimage to the Holy Land (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1950); William Butler Yeats, "The Second Coming," in The Collected Poems of W.B~ Yeats (New York: Macmillan, 1959); and the Penguin Dictionary of the Saints (London: Penguin Books, 1965). Progeny Imagination gives birth to a new offspring with its own world of wonder. From a procreator's seed comes a poem or a painting, a sonata Or a cathedral. each pulsing with th~ heartbeat of Progenitor-God, Giver of beauty to beauty's ministers anointed with the rite of co-creation. Anna Marie Mack SSJ 502 Review for Religious EILEEN P. O'HEA Hermitage, a Metaphor of Life I am in a hermitage. It is, again, not what I expected. The brochure made it seem inviting, a way to satisfy the desire of my heart. I wanted a place to be--to just be, be an empty vessel in God's presence. I wanted to symbolize my response to God at this point in my life and to make sure I am open, attentive to any desire or whisper of the Divine. This hermitage looks out on woods that are covered with ten inches of pure white snow. As one walks, there is no sound but the crunch of rubber boots on a would-be path and the rusde of some frozen leaves that still hang on to bare branches like icicles. To be empty before the Beloved is my desire. And so I sit cross-legged on my saffron pillow before a large wooden cross, flanked by two small icons, and a vigil light. At last, I think, desire meets fulfillment in this quiet, undistracted place. But I am distracted; I am cold. I push the thermostat knob on the small gas heater behind me to its highest set-ring. The heater begins to ci'ackle and bang continuously and make little explosive noises every six minutes or so. It robs me of silence. As darkness absorbs the light of day, I get colder and colder. I have already layered myself in all the clothes I brought with me, and I have squeezed my Eileen P. O'Hea CSJ is a psychotherapist and spiritual director. Her address is 2311 Woodbridge Street; Suite 210; St. Paul, Minnesota 55113. prayer 1993 503 O'Hea ¯ Hermitage, a Metaphor of Life I want God's truth to be straightforward-- no glitches. ice-cold feet with their two pair of socks into my new "Thinsulate" mittens. As my feet flop around on the cold wood floor, I remind myself of Emmett Kelly, the circus clown. It is not quite funny, however. I force myself to persevere for one half hour of quiet prayer, but the clanging radiator, my clanging mind, and my freez-ing body do not lead me to a place of rest. I decide it is time for the bread and cheese, the orange, and the cup of tea that are to be my supper. I watch the night as I eat. Each piece of food, each sip of tea, carries its own taste when one is so concentrated. The orange is succulent and sweet, the cheese substantial and rich, the bread mealy and nourishing, the tea satisfying. I am grateful for each. Fortified, I read the Scripture that lies open as if ready for me. I read Psalm 139 out loud and slowly, wondering as I do so if this is the place God will choose to cast some direct light and move my spirit to new understanding. I want to be awake. If I am supposed to be getting a message, if that is why I am here, I do not want to miss it. Toward the end of the psalm my spirit is thwarted by the words: "Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?" I cannot say these words; I check my own revised version of the text. It is the same. I close the book, wanting to feel glad that God knit me in my mother's womb, but put off by the dualistic image. This glitch prevents me from totally giving myself to this experience. I want God's truth to be straightforward--no glitches. After wrestling around a litde, I decide to again attempt some contemplative sitting. I drape the blanket around my head, shoul-ders, and feet. I set the timer for thirty minutes and wonder if I should. Perhaps this will be the time when I will just want to linger in God's presence unrestricted. So often when I experi-ence this desire some duty calls me away. This is partly why I am here in this hermitage--so I can linger in the sweet and loving presence of God or be carried beyond my own self-consciousness to a very deep and still place. I do not set the timer. I do not rest. I am very cold. I stay in this prayer position, waiting for the time to be over. I want to be comfortable. I am not. After twenty minutes I give up. I think of going to bed. I am tired and everything has taken too much 504 Review for Religious energy. The outhouse is the least of inconveniences, I think, as I stare blankly toward a small wooden washstand. Eight plastic gal-lon containers of water, icy cold, flank it. They are for washing, cleaning, and drinking. I do not like them. I decide it is too early to go to bed. It is only 6:45. I sit in the rocker, my glasses and I peeking out through the draped blan-kets, and begin to read about "unity." The cynical part of me wonders if Ruusbroec (or Ruysbroeck) could have written or known these things if he were as cold as I am. Another level of me intuits the abiding truth he is trying to articulate. I want to sip his words like fine wine and, like the effect of wine, feel them in all the cells of my body. But the resistance of my body and psyche to the frigid Minnesota weather that is penetrating this north-woods hermitage will not forsake its stance. Although I have only one page left to end the chapter, I do not continue. My heart is moved again by Ruusbroec's words when he writes about Christ's prayer for unity (Jn 17:21-23) and says it is the most loving prayer which Christ ever prayed for our salva-tion. I am touched that Christ was praying, that Christ too was filled with desire. Stay with this, I think; do not read further. I close the book. I go to bed. I am warmer. My mind goes back to Ruusbroec's words. I wonder: Is this the truth I am meant to penetrate? It has not quite caught hold of me deeply enough, I ruminate, but perhaps during the night my enlightenment will come. My mind casts about as my body begins to settle into the comfort of warmth. Perhaps Sharon, the woman running this retreat house, is a mystic who can read my soul and tell me things that God wants me to know. I fall asleep. I dream of Sharon. Morning comes. I hesitate to get up, to begin the ordeal of being cold again. I pray, eat breakfast (I do not have to dress because I am already wearing all my clothes), and go for a walk. The atmo-sphere is frigid; the sky is gray" and overcast. Ithink of leaving early. I do not need bodily hardship, I muse; things have been phys-ically hard enough this past year. I need solace and nurturing. However, I counter this thought by reminding myself that I am old enough in hermitage experiences to know one must let them be what they are, not impose oneself or one's desires on them. Let God be God, I remind myself, and you be an open space. As I reenter the hermitage, I realize I dreamt of Sharon, but can only remember her saying it is about change. I wonder if this 3~uly-A~t 1993 505 O'Hea ¯ Hermitage, a Metaphor of Life My time here has taught me how hard it is to contemplate when one is reduced to survival. is significant and a message from God or if it is a matter of my own projections and happenstance. Rather than get caught in this distraction, I reassert the pact I have secretly made with Divine Love and say: "You know my great love for you, you know I desire only you and your will; then, if you want me to move in a certain direction or to know something about you or me, you must let me know it in a way that is not obscure and leaves me free of doubt. I am open to you, but you must remove the obstacles that prevent me from knowing or seeing your will clearly. I am totally dependent on you for this and feel it is not too much to ask of one who is in a relationship of mutual love. In a word, do your stuff and I'll do mine." Inside I sit in the rocker that I have moved as close to the gas heater as possible. I pick up my pen and yellow pad and begin to write: My time here has taught me how hard it is to con-template when one is reduced to survival. Survival sets one's consciousness at the level of basic and immediate, human needs and so occupies it with food, clothing, and shelter that it gives no attention to deeper lev-els of reality. Consequently, these deeper levels of consciousness-- places where intimacy with Divine Being is realized and expressed--are, practically speaking, obliterated. The heinousness of human sin, its death-dealing power, is many-leveled. Starving peoples in Africa and war-torn countries come to mind. I put my pen down and pray: Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison. It is afternoon.I am still cold. In a few hours my time here will be over. I do not want to leave. As I begin to gather my things I think: This hermitage time was neither "lights on" or "lights off," as Ruth Burrows describes moments of the spiritual journey. I console myself with the thought that I came to be an empty ves-sel before God. Before leaving I sit one last time on my saffron pillow to pray. As I do so, I see outside my window a brown oak leaf surrender to a current of air, then glide gently down to the waiting snow. It is sitting there now, very still, ready in due season to become one with the earth. I sit too, quietly waiting, attentive, attuned to Love. ~06 Review for Religious ROBERT MCCOWN Christian Zen-cum-Ignatian Meditation Or What You Always Wanted to Know About Being a Mystic But Were Afraid to Ask pmeople of the ancient world strove in many ways to com-unicate with whoever they believed to be out there, with whoeveg made the world and somehow controlled their lives and destinies. They offered in sacrifice choice things: grain or wine poured out, sheep or oxen slaughtered then immolated with fire. The smoke, they thought, would rise before the gods with a pleas-ing odor. Th.ey played flutes, used prayer wheels, painted their bodies, stamped their feet, and babbled. They hoped to get the gods' attention, to bring down favors from them. Human nature has not changed with the New Dispensation, nor have the ways men and women try to pray, except these are now purified and made gentle by revelation. Christ invited us to intimacy with his Father, and we respond by lifting our hearts to him: in the Eucharist (above ~11, the true and ultimate sacrifice), in vocal prayer (such as the Rosary), and in private prayer. We address God with words often chosen from the Psalms or given us by Christ himself or by his saints. These same words, as we use them, enrich our hearts and minds with wisdom. Robert McCown SJ has traveled widely in Japan, Thailand, India, and China. He has for the past two years been teaching literature in the University of Hangzhou, on China's eastern coast. His current address is: The Shrine of the Holy Cross; EO. Box 1497; Daphne, Alabama 36526. aTuly-dugust 1993 507 McCown ¯ Christian Zen-cum-Ignatian Meditation Zen has been used for decades by Christian contemplatives who came under the influence of ascetics of the East. But there are problems with using words in prayer--even God's words. Over time we tend to multiply them and to load onto them our own intellectual and emotional baggage, allowing our selfishness to co-opt their meaning. So in some prayers we might even want to dispense with words, to use body language only, which can sometimes be for us clearer, deeper, more pow-erful than spoken words. This, I think, is the prayer Christ meant when he said, "When you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret." In such private and largely nonvocal prayer we offer God ourselves in our silent presence, and God responds to us, creatively, in our lives. This kind of prayer goes under a variety of descriptive names: meditation, contem-plation, and mental prayer. There is a long history of it in the church, going back to her earliest years, but it flourished especially in Europe in the fourteenth through the six-teenth centuries with a succession of great spiritual directors. St. Ignatius Loyola taught his followers in his Spiritual Exercises to meditate upon structured concepts and upon chiseled images--both anchored in powerful words--to explore the destructiveness of their sins, to accept forgiveness for them, and then, centering their lives in Christ, to redirect them to God in service of the church. But he reserved a choice place at the end of these Exercises for his largely wordless, though still rich in imagery, Contemplation for Obtaining Divine Love. Others led their fol-lowers to shun in their meditations activities of both the intelli-gence and the imagination and, instead, to go beneath these, down to the marrow of the soul, to encounter the Father in that secret "room" they felt Jesus was speaking of. Zen as practiced by Christians is, in many ways, like this lat-ter form of prayer. It is not new, for it has been used for decades by Christian contemplatives who came under the influence of ascetics of the East. Although in recent years Zen has experienced in the West a growth in popularity, many devout people, unfor-tunately, have misconceptions of it, bringing mistrust. 508 Review for Religious Zen masters themselves often give little help in understand-ing their elusive discipline. When one puts questions to them about it, they often smile and remain silent. I believe this is because they see Zen not as a doctrine but as an activity--and thus an experience--so simple and immediate that, when one attempts to conceptualize it, he only obscures it, as when one tries to define the experience of love or of life. But I feel once people see what Zen is not--certainly not a rival to Christian spirituality--they may wish to try to do Zen themselves and thus to experience the extraordinary benefits claimed to derive from it. Let us consider first--lacking a better term--traditional Zen. Rather than enter the question of the historical origins of it, let it suffice to say it has been practiced for more than 1400 years. Concerning the question of its place of origin--whether India, Tibet, China, or Japan--let us concede simply that it developed in the East, probably in a pantheistic culture. But this should not influence Zen's practical value to us as a mode of meditation any more than the lack of faith of a philosopher should keep us from benefiting from his thinking. After all, a key foundation of scholas-tic philosophy and theology is a series of clear concepts St. Thomas found in the writings of the pagan Aristotle that first came to Europe through the works of Islamic thinkers. Of grea~er importance for our purpose are the reasons Zen developed into the form it ultimately took. These we hope we can intuit as we consider the practice of Zen itself; from these, perhaps, we can gain an insight into why Zen has been found by Christian con-templatives of former times and today to be useful in their prayer life. To do Zen one follows a series of seven conventions. So that our efforts remain not an exercise in looking only but translate into a creative experience, let the gentle reader observe successively these conven-tions as we set them forth: 1. Having chosen carefully the place for our meditation--as free as possible from distrac-tions, harsh lights, sounds, and drafts--we assume the Zen position, as shown in the illus-tration on this page. In this position we join our hands and bow from the waist in the tra-ditional oriental gesture of courtesy which here means, "Now I begin my meditation." A July-Aug~wt 1993 509 McCown ¯ Christian Zen-cum-Ignatian Meditation similar bow at the end will mean, "Now I end my meditation." If we must stand to attend to something--best disconnect the tele-phone beforehand--or we have an itch or a cramp we simply can-not ignore, we bow as we break off meditating, then again as we resume it. This puts parentheses around each session of our med-itation, separating it from interruptions coming from us and from our world around us. 2. We try to keep our backs as erect as comfortably possible: the base of the spine is the key. We do not worry if at first it tires quickly. After a couple of weeks of daily meditation, it will surprise us by its new toughness, even during longer sessions of Zen. 3. Our legs should be crossed as well as possible, but com-fortably, making allowances for bad knees and general decrepi-tude. We strive to keep faithful to the time we agree with ourselves to meditate daily. Twenty-minute sessions are good to begin with. As we go longer, circulato .ry pain in our legs can force us to take a break. For this, we bow, stand, join hands before us, pace the room for two minutes; then, taking again the Zen position, we bow, and resume meditating. 4. Our hands and wrists should rest comfortably on the insides of our thighs--left four fingers on top of right four fingers, the fingers underneath press up dynamically against those above, while the tips of the thumbs touch together ever so lighdy and del-icately. Here we aim to combine a relaxed and stable dynamism of our fingers with an alert delicacy in the touch of our thumbs. 5. Our head should be erect, tilted slightly forwar.d comfort-ably, and with chin in. Our tongue should rest relaxed in the base of our mouth, and we avoid all nervous movement of tongue and jaw. Lips should be relaxed and slighdy parted to permit exhaling through the mouth. 6. Our eyes should remain half closed and out of focus. If we close our eyes, we will go to sleep;, if we focus them on anything, that thing will become a distraction. 7. Our breathing should be not from the chest but from the diaphragm. We loosen our belts, allowing our lower abdomen full freedom to expand and contract. We inhale, knowing the air we take in through our nostrils will heal and give peace, and the air we exhale through our mouth will carry out those things that rob us of peace. This breathing is indeed the key to both tradi-tional and Christian Zen because, once we are in observance of these conventions, the conscious listening to the sound of our 510 Review for Religious breathing becomes the central continuous deliberate activity dur-ing the entire time we are meditating. W.e strive to make this breathing more and more regular, more deeply from the diaphragm. We seek to become increasingly absorbed in repose-fully listening to and centering ourselves in its sound. As we descend deeper into this centering, the thoughts, desires, and images that our mind naturally gener-ates will diminish to nil. If some persist, we do not fight against them, but, by continuously renewing this reposeful centering, we ignore them. If they con-tinue aggressively, it is probably because we are not observing certain of the conventions above. Perhaps our hands have slipped away from the position of dynamism and delicacy, or we are permitting nervous activity in our mouth. But most often the reason will be found in our breathing being not from the diaphragm, or our not centering ourselves in its sound. Striving meticulously to maintain these conventions, in spite of the turmoil our daily lives may be subjected to at the time, and striving, as well, to pass the whole period with a mini-mum of surrenders to needs to scratch or to shift our body's mem-bers, make for steady progress over the months, over the years. Indeed this striving for perfection in every detail--in posture and in centering in our breathing--becomes the daily bread and but-ter of Zen meditation. Even the pain we will feel in our legs after thirty or so min-utes of continuous meditation can be turned to our advantage. As this pain grows, we seek to enter it, to center within it, and, as it were, to find in it a certain rest. Thus our concentration upon our breathing will become more complete and more central, and foreign thoughts will be more completely excluded. The above conventions are, curiously, the essentials of Zen as it has developed over the past millefinium. Being in essence non-verbal, nonconceptual, and nonimaginative, Zen does not lend itself to being systematized. To those practicing Zen, it is the experience that matters, whereas the conflicting ways one tries to describe or analyze this experience are to them secondary at best. But for us Westerners, who look for reasons to be persuaded, let us ask what we are doing when we do Zen, and why. Simply stated, following these conventions meticulously permits us a Zen does not lend itself to being systematized. j~ldy-August 1993 511 McCown ¯ Christian Zen-cum-Ignatian Meditation maximum control of both our physical and mental activities, and from this we are able to suspend them partially. Thus, during meditation, the Zen position encompasses and brings under con-trol in appropriate ways every member and organ of our body-- even our heart--which, we will find, will beat slower as we descend deeper into the centering. While consciously listening to the sound of our breathing itself, we can make it more regular, more from the diaphragm, and it will further become the key to controlling and emptying the activities of our mind: memory, intelligence, will, and imagination, including especially emotions. Thus, in doing Zen we strive to make each session of medi-tation both as dynamic and as empty as possible. As far as I know there is no better way than this to disengage our physical and mental powers over an extended period of time while still con-tinuing awake and alert. Anyone attempting to observe self-imposed silence and recollection during a conventional retreat knows how recalcitrant our bodies and our minds are to this kind of discipline. Not even in sleep itself, which we now know is filled with both physical and mental .activity, is there such a diminish-ment of these as there is in Zen meditation. This partial suspension of our bodily and mental activities for a set period of time daily is the objective of Zen, and from this derive its singular benefits. As we strive for this disengage-ment, and achieve it in a growing degree, we are actually induc-ing our physical and mental powers into a daily, deep repose. Not only are each member of our bodies, but also the thoughts of our hearts, put to rest during our meditation: our conflicting values competing for dominance; our desires, inordinate or not; our ambitions and passionate longings; and our memories, both joy-ful and painful, with ruminations of past grievances. Thus we turn over, to our own mysterious powers of healing within us, our bodies, minds, and hearts; and from this daily repose and renewing of the whole person, a peace is given. We speak, of course, of daily meditation-Z-not over weeks, but over months, over years. If we do Zen faithfully, we will become aware of certain gifts that mysteriously enter our lives. We are surprised by new insights that fall out of nowhere into our minds, perhaps not during the time of meditation, but at other times dur-ing the day or night. We acquire a deeper understanding of our own best values, of how to bring to bear our nobler motivations. We acquire a deeper understanding of our own weaknesses, and we 512 Review for Religious see ways which perhaps we did not see before to put to rest inor-dinate desires. We become less afflicted by painful images of griefs or disappointments; and we are less obsessed by regrets, by per-sonal defeats and shames. Even memories of hurts from deep in our childhood, of which we are perhaps only barely aware but which still send poisonous tentacles up into our present relationships, can be uncovered and healed. We are mystified by how our own recuperative powers can now work within us. Just as, for exam-ple, when one morning we awake and realize happily that at last we are he~iled of a drawn-out bout with the flu, so in practicing Zen we might one day realize that now--but not before--we are able to turn with sincere affection toward a friend who has deeply hurt us. In short, what we experience in ourselves is a self-rehabilitat-ing human being, perhaps with long-immobilized personal gifts now renewed. From this, then, our own creative energies can emerge unencumbered, with a new freedom. This healing will often spread to others around us in our family, in our community and work place, even when they are not aware we meditate. As described thus far, traditional Zen is not intrinsically a religious action; it is, thus, neither theistic nor atheistic. Hence the curious smiles coming from Zen masters when one asks if, as practitioners of Zen, they believe in God. Somewhere further on in this direction lies the experience of enlightenment. Zen masters describe enlightenment as a percep-tion totally beyond reason, beyond imagining; intuitive, yet at the core of our life itself. All of Zen teaching, they add, is but an effort to take the disciple beyond concepts and images that stand for reality, and put him or her in intimate contact with that real-ity itself. It is in vain, they maintain, to pursue intellectually this stage, since all ratiocination on this point is useless, futile, and confusing. Thomas Merton calls this "the Zen fact" and com, pares it to an alarm clock. When it goes off, the sleeper 1) does not hear and just keeps on sleeping; or 2) making a misguided response, in effect turns the alarm off, permitting him to go back to sleep; or 3) he jumps out of bed with a shout of astonishment that it is so late. Zen is the alarm clock, it merely enables us to wake up and become aware. It teaches nothing. It points. Merton continues: "But we in the West, in ego-centered practicality and ¯ . . manipulation of everything, always pass from one thing to another, from cause to effect, from the first to the next to the last and then back to the first. Everything always points to something 3~dy-August 1993 513 McCown ¯ Christian Zen-cum-Ignatian Meditation else and hence we never stop anywhere because we cannot; as soon as we pause, the escalator reaches the end of the ride and we have to get off and find another one. Nothing is allowed just to be and to mean itself; everything has to signify something else. Zen is designed to frustrate the mind thinking in such terms. 'The Zen fact,' whatever it may be, always lands across our road like a fallen tree beyond which we cannot pass. Nor are such 'facts' lacking in Christianity--the Cross for example . . . which gives Christians a radically new consciousness." The way some Zen masters describe enlightenment, as an experience of the unity of all being, reflects the monistic, cos-motheistic, philosophical climate of Zen's origins; and it can be disconcerting to a Christian. Yet, if one takes seriously one of the central teachings of Zen itself~namely, that it is the experience and not the concept of it that matters--then one may judge pan-theistic doctrine as the above to be not central to Zen. Indeed such might be for us the "misguidance" that prompts us to turn off the alarm clock, to go back to sleep and miss the experience. The "fact" of Zen is simply the experience that puts us in touch with this ultimate personal reality itself, and that, I believe, must at last come down to be our own individual living soul--the con-crete reality, not a concept of it. We cannot think our way to our soul's living presence, or analyze or visualize it; but in doing Zen we are brought to the experience .of the soul's availing itself of space to renew itself, and then of its mysterious healing powers in renewing our body, mind, and heart. Being in Zen an apprentice of only some twenty-five years, a full-blown experience of enlightenment, with 'its sudden flash of intuition, is still unknown to me. Nor do I seek it as such; as Christian, I try to keep my heart open to whatever grace the Lord sends and to whatever form he wants it to take. But before we dismiss Zen and turn off the alarm clock, I suggest we take seriously stated opinions of respected specialists, not only of such as Thomas Merton or Dom Aelred Graham, but also of Dr. John C. H, Wu, an eminent jurist and diplomat, a Chinese convert to Catholicism, and a scholar, who is able to write of Zen not from hearsay or study alone, but from within. He is not afraid to write that he brought Zen and Confucianism with him into Christianity. Looking further back, I have been assured by Carmelites who are specialists in both their tradition of con-templation and in Christian Zen that these two traditions are 514 Review for Religious essentially the same: what Teresa of Avila, in her own inimitable way, and what John of the Cross--and what Meister Eckhart 200 years before them--practiced, perhaps unknown to them, was essentially Christian Zen. But what is Christian Zen, which we will now call centering prayer, and how is it prayer if traditional Zen is not? Will an attempt to use Zen in prayer, contrary to what Zen masters main-rain-- that one cannot accommodate true Zen to any ulterior pur-pose- render it ineffectual? To answer, let me offer an analogy. Consider a ballet apprentice who works daily on her technique. She may give little thought to what ballet grammar--the body language she is learning--might be saying or to whom; she metic-ulously strives only to perfect every move, every step of it. For the present, the immediate benefits of her efforts--pride in pleasing a respected teacher, satisfaction in mastering an art--are suffi-cient reasons for striving for self-discipline; and she grows daily in poise and beauty. But one day a certain impresario discovers her and offers her a part in a new production. Now she has two things she lacked before: a role, a dramatispersona to live within, and an envisioned audience. These give form and finality to her efforts. Just as this ballerina can adapt her previously acquired skills to this new orientation, so also, as many Christian contemplatives have found, the skills and the strengths of traditional Zen, with little change in its dynamics, can be fitted into the larger synthesis of Christian prayer. Neither our ballerina above, nor a person doing Zen medi-tations daily, acts without a certain basic desire, or even a pas-sion, which drives their actions, enabling them to keep a daily commitment. One must first wish to do what is necessary to become, to be--whether in ballet, in Zen, or in Christian prayer. Satisfaction found therein will, in turn, sustain and nourish the motivation. When the prophet Samuel was a small boy sleeping in the temple, he was awakened repeatedly by a voice calling, "Samuel, Samuel!" Each time he got up and went to his master, the elderly priest Eli, and asked what he wanted. Each time Eli replied, "I didn't call, my son; go and lie down again." Again Samuel heard the voice calling, and again he went to the old priest. But this time Eli, perceiving it was thd Lord calling, instructed him, "The next time he calls, you must respond, 'Speak, Lord, for your ser-vant is listening.'" Whether that night Samuel really heard the 3~uly-August 1993 515 McCown ¯ Christian Zen-cum-Ignatian Meditation voice of God, or whether he heard only, as he had many times before, the wind blowing through the porticos of the temple, his listening and then giving response is the same. It is the reality from which the call came that makes the difference between an obedient child and the prophet-to-be. We must listen continu-ously to the voice of the Lord who speaks to us when and how he chooses. If we find traditional Zen apt for putting us in contact with the healing and peace-giving powers of our human spirit within, how much more will we find centering prayer apt for opening our beings to the Spirit of God within us, to surrendering ourselves to this Healer, this Comforter? It will be this Spirit's voice we listen for within the sound of our breathing, as she leads us into that silence within, where, using utterances beyond human words, with ineffable groaning, she cries, "Abba, Father!" Far from taking from Zen its dignity, thi~ carries it to its fulfillment. What a grace it is that Christian contemplatives discovered Zen and were able to enrich Christian asdeticism with it. The Christ-centered dynamics of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises, especially when renewed yearly, give peace and build motivations to service, but they were not meant to be used daily over a long period of time when they can become exhausting. Centering prayer, on the other hand, not in contrast to the Exercises but ancillary to them, offers spiritual repose. Many of Ignatius's instructions can be applied with profit to Zen.medita-tion: making preparation before meditation by spiritual reading and acts of self-denial; cultivating honesty and sincerity in eval-uating our efforts at praying; making from time to time reviews of moments of joy or of sadness; and, with the retreat master's help, using carefully Ignatius's instructions on the discernment of spirits. In sessions of centering prayer, unlike in other forms of med-itation, one does not pray the words of any pious text, nor even of Holy Scripture. Words, whether we want them to or not, will bloom into images, and images invite concepts which multiply, and thus we are on the way to taking our bodies and minds out of that total surrender to the Spirit, the true mode of centering prayer. Rather, we should see each session of this prayer as that time when the Bridegroom is present before us, looking into our eyes, speaking into our hearts, so we put aside during this qual-ity time his love-letters from times past, no matter how treasured 516 Review for Religious they are. With no more than a bow of adoration and a word to greet him by name, such as, "Jesus, have mercy on me, a sinner," we surrender ourselves with total passivity to his Spirit within us, who will shape our minds and hearts according to his holy will. In this action of the Spirit, one is reminded of a great, silent, mov-ing body of water, imperceptibly and with ease, carrying all obstacles before it. We will look forward to this daily prayer as the best moment of our day, and find in it an anchor for the rest of our lives. Let me mention now one special blessing I have received through centering prayer. When I was a very small child, I once heard my older brothers, one six, the other seven years old, talking about how hell is "for ever and ever--for eternity, which never, ever ends." My mind became beset with fearful images of this eternity, like "the void of infin-ity" that so terrified Pascal. These were most acute when I was ill, which I often was, with high fever, and with accompanying nightmares. During these I often dreamed I was looking up and saw the ceiling above me (and all reality with it) recede up and up and up, for ever and ever. My sight was forced to go with it, on and on, and I could never, ever make it stop; and that was eternity. And I felt desperately alone and forsaken. I could not turn off the nightmare, until my screams brought my father or mother who would awake me and comfort me. This terror remained with me even into later life. When I discovered Zen meditation, which then became for me centering prayer, I took up the custom, after meditating and during the brief prickly feeling as my legs recovered circulation, of lying back on the rug and looking straight up at the ceiling, never forgetting that this was the way I had so fearfully felt I was look-ing into the face of eternity. But over the years, gradually, imper-ceptibly, the terror departed. In its place has grown a trust in God's mercy and, even, flashes--ever so brief and fleeting--of joy in looking forward to my death, which now is approaching apace. These graces I consider among the most precious of my life. Remembering how the ancients strove to get the gods' atten-tion, we know we have already the Father's attention in his son, Jesus, who taught us to pray to his father by offering, not per- We must listen continuously to the voice of the Lord who speaks to us when and how he chooses. 3~ly-Aug'ust 1993 517 McCown ¯ Christian Zen-cum-Ignatian Meditation ishable gifts of animals slaughtered or wine or grain poured out, but one infinitely more desirable: our total selves. This same Jesus promised, moreover, "whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give it to you." Jesus must have meant precisely that, unless we ask for something that is not good for us, then he will give us something else--something far better for us. Centering prayer, as an ancilla to the Spiritual Exercises, more than any other prayer method I know, enables us to put ourselves into this total trust-ing frame of mind, not stating what we think we want, or need, or when, but silently taking Jesus at his word and waiting. The Father, who knows our needs far better than we do, will respond; and why wouldn't he, since Jesus said he would? Night Prayer The saints have left for the day, their stained-glass coves Are dark. The night, that deep iconoclast, Obscures the panes with his breath, as a prayer revolves Inside me, calling to the blackened east. I close my eyes and linger there, in the glow Of a bleak and fallen image of the outcast world, And wander through remembered brambles that grow Where squandered immortalities should. When young I crossed an ocean. Nearing land Candescent seeds arose from the water's rim As if sown in the sky by a hopeful, graceful hand To mingle with a tide of stars, to bloom unseen. From the altar candles' final gasp of light Two tendrils of smoke vanish into night. Kevin McCaffrey OP 518 Revie~v for Religious MARY CORONA God's Human Face Revealed: A Retreat in Wales Iyhad been living and working in Amman, Jordan, for eight ears when in 1989 I began reading The Journeying Self, by Diarmuid McGann. Becoming deeply involved with it, I came across these words: "The journey of faith begins at the Lord's invitation. He finds us in our places of marginal existence, where we hunger for liberation." I did not go further than that for sev-eral months, but those lines I read over and over again. I could wrest no personal meaning from them, and yet somehow they riveted me. At the same time I was picking my way through a book by Karl Rahner. Being no scholar, "picking" is how I cope with Rahner, and yet I am hugely attracted by him. Of the many sentences I jotted down knowing that I would return to them, here are a few: In contemplation the pray-er is intent on hearing an utter-ance of God never given before . We need the courage to believe that God will say some-thing permanent. It will happen when God is ready. God places me in complete freedom. He deals with me leaving intact my autonomy and self-direction. God is Love and in the face of that--I decide. There were many more, and while I went about my life in community and my teaching duties, these thoughts floated in and out of my mind whenever my interior screen was empty, setting up such a longing that I knew I would need to respond sooner or later. Mary Corona FMDM lives at 6, St. Anthony's Road; Forest Gate; London E7 9QA; England. .~uly-Auguxt 1993 519 Corona ¯ God's Human Face Revealed Remote PreparationmI Go to Anjara The time to plan my annual retreat came round. I thought of Jerusalem, where I had made retreats before, but I had little heart for going there because of the heavy military presence at the time. Though Jordan itself has no retreat facilities, I knew that Father Joseph Na'maat, a diocesan priest in the north of Jordan, had spare rooms in a separate building which anyone was welcome to use on a self-catering basis. He said if I came during July I would have the entire building to myself. With typical Jordanian courtesy he also told me that his house and his table would be mine anytime I felt lonely. Josephine, his housekeeper, would, he assured me, keep an eye on things and make sure I was all right. The fee was so small it was a joke. So eight days on my own loomed. How would I work it out? I went along the shelves of our library and found Rahner's Eight Day Retreat and a paperback copy of the Ignatian Exercises. From my room I picked up my Bible and missal and that was all. I think the journey of faith McGann discusses began for me that day. I felt quite naked going off with what seemed so little in the way of resources. Anjara is a village in the northern Jordanian countryside. Feeling at home in the Arab world and having enough Arabic to do my own shopping, talk with people, and get by generally, I had no fears along those lines. On my arrival I was given a warm welcome by Father Joseph and the redoubtable Josephine. Then, after being shown "my" building and handed the keys, I heard the oft-repeated words "If it gets too lonely, you know where we are!" That first evening I worked out a program for the eight days, allotting time for the breviary, rosary, and Scripture reading. I then marked out three separate hours daily for prayer, leaving time for rest and recreation which, during the eight days, would take the form of walks, sitting on the roof in the sun absorbing the view, and wandering in my host's extensive orchard followed by his floppy old dog. Knowing nothing previously about the Exercises, I soon aban-doned the paperback because it made no sense to me.I stuck to the Bible and the missal and continued to read over the sentences from McGann and Rahner which had so affected me. For the full eight days I spoke to no one, except the dog. I waved to Father Joseph each morning after Mass and that was the excitement over 520 Review for Religious for the day. Through the grace of God, I remained faithful to all to which I had committed myself. On my final evening Josephine came to bring me over to sup-per and, like the hedgerow and byways folk of the gospel, I was compelled to attend. If you have never experienced an Arab sup-per or indeed Arab hospitality, you have missed one of life's love-lier moments. We sat on the verandah eating, talking, and--I must admit--drinking slightly too much of Father Joseph's homemade wine. The sun slowly sank behind the brown hills. Lamps were lit, creating a soft pool of light in the velvet darkness, and the night insects began their con-cert. We sat on. Eventually, however, and with real reluctance I rose, to a duet from Father Joseph and Josephine of "So soon?" I went to bed that night heavy with good food and wine and quite drunk--no, not from wine, but from the heady smell of honeysuckle and jasmine coupled with the heart-swell that comes from having spent a long summer evening with friends. The following day I returned to Amman knowing that I must do the long retreat. This is where the invitation mentioned by McGann and previously so dimly perceived was pointing. What a Franciscan was doing being so convinced that a Jesuit approach to life and prayer was the right one, I cannot say. But convinced I was. I waved to Father Joseph each morning after Mass and that was the excitement over for the day. To Wales I set about obtaining permissions for the following year and began to look for a place. Almost everyone I spoke to suggested looking for a Jesuit-run center, saying this w6uld be right for what I had in mind. But I prefer retreat houses run by women: they are cozier, and I like my creature comforts. After a few blanks I got a positive answer from a small guest-cum-retreat house, Coleg y Groes, in North Wales. Yes, they could take me. Yes, one of them could direct me. Yes, they were in the heart of the coun-try, and to all my other questions yes . . . yes . . . yes. I booked, hesitant to share with some of my more conservative friends that all was not as they might expect. I would be alone without the support of a group; I would be directed by a deacon, not a priest; 3~uly-Aug~tst 199.t 521 Corona ¯ God's Human Face Revealed worse still, an Anglican deacon; worse again, a woman Anglican deacon! What would Ignatius have said? In August 1990 I returned to England, and in July 1991 I traveled to Wales. Arriving in time for supper, I found the small 18th-century house nestled behind the Anglican parish church in the village of Corwen. My room was very nice, with the promise of quiet. My quick eye noticed the electric kettle, tea bags, and coffee. It all augured well. I began to get the sinking feeling that comes from having made a big decision and then eeing the signs going wrong. I Meet My Directress Margaret, who was to direct me, suggested I join the other guests for supper that first evening; after that I would dine alone. Supper was served in a delightful low-beamed room with a huge fireplace cut from Welsh stone. Flowers were in the deeply set window alcoves, and the whole place exuded security and good living. I began, however, to get the sinking feeling that comes from having made a big decision and then seeing the signs going wrong. To my Roman mind the conversation became so Anglican, cen-tered on the ordination of women. Most of the women present, and indeed Margaret her-self, were ordained deacons. It was the last thing I wanted to get involved in. Intermingled with that were fairly long dis-sertations on the three resident cats. I drained my coffee cup as I tried to quell the rising panic within me. Relief came when Margaret suggested we go to my room for a first talk. In five minutes my fears evaporated. I knew instinctively that in her I was on to a winner. That night I slept well, waking totally refreshed. I made coffee, and one glance at the Welsh weather put me into warm trousers and a thick sweater. In the still sleeping village I found the small Catholic church. Inside, in a back pew, was a very still figure. I knelt down near the door, ready to escape if this man were not the sort I ought to seek out for company. After some minutes he looked up and said "Welcome." This was Father Joseph (I seemed destined to be mixed up with Josephs and 522 Revie'w for Religious Josephines). In answer to my question he said that so seldom did anyone come for daily Mass that we could arrange it any time suited to the two of us. Father became a true friend to me during my thirty days. He watched over me with such care and was always available for counsel or confession. That first morning he arranged for me to have a key to the church so that I could come and go at will. He knew Margaret and felt I was safe in her hands. The Thirty Days Begin And so the routine for the thirty days began. Margaret sug-gested that for the first three days I just browse over my own favorite passages of Scripture, go for walks, and take on an atmo-sphere of quiet. That first morning I took my Bible and went out. I sat overlooking a sweeping green valley and read slowly through some of my favorites: "Widen the spaces of your tent." (Is 55:2); "Behold the Bridegroom is coming." (Mt 25:7); "May He give you the power., to grow strong . " (Ep 3:16-21). And through it all I wondered just what I was doing, alone in Wales, on the threshold of this experience. Those first three days went in very gently. Sleep, walks, quiet reading, and three one-hour prayer periods a day. The kettle, tea, and coffee played their part. On the fourth day we started in earnest into the pattern of the retreat. We moved into four one hour periods of prayer a day. Each "day" would begin at 5 p.m. The four "weeks" were to be flexible as regards length. Margaret spent considerable time giving me the background to the Exercises. As she spoke, words from Robert Gleeson's intro-duction to Anthony Mottola's translation of the Exercises came back to me: "Ignatius intended to stay in Manresa for a few days. These days stretched into ten months with results that are still reverberating around the world." Yes, I thought, even to Corwen. Something of Margaret's own love for Ignatius overflowed into me. Here was no mere competent guide, but rather one who was imbued with the spirit of Ignatius. I felt very secure, but real-ized Margaret was no soft touch as she explained the conditions: no reading, other than that prescribed; no music, news, corre-spondence, conversation, and so forth. She spoke of the neces-sity of being utterly faithful to the full one-hour prayer periods, and she warned me off interior conversation which could easily become the little foxes destroying the vineyard. When she had July-Auffust 1993 523 Corona ¯ God's Human Face Revealed finished, my snug feeling of security had drastically slipped, to he replaced by a sense of vulnerable nakedness. Thus stripped I entered the first "week" of the retreat. The First Week (Seven Days) Sin, in its hideousness, was the focus of this first week. Powerful meditations on words previously heard but never fully absorbed came back to influence my prayer. The First Principle and Foundation offered at the beginning of this week presented such a challenge thai it almost unseated me. Could I, in complete sincerity, make such a prayer? Part of my background reading said, "This law which I enjoin on you this day is not beyond your strength" (Dr 30:11-14). These words stood, like a kind mother, beside the demands of the First Principle and Foundation, urging me to compliance. Yet I hesitated. I moved on into the sin of Adam and Eve; the Angels; the Prodigal Son--all meditated on against a background of Philippians 2:1-11, Baruch 1:13-22 and 63, and Ephesians 1:13- 14 and all deepening in me an appreciation of the heinousness of sin. Karl Rahner says (I quote from memory), "I need to see sin, not so much as an offence against God, but rather as a rebuff against Jesus personally," and "I see him wasting there on the cross--for us--and ~eeing him in such plight, I make my deci-sion." It is difficult to take a detached view of sin with words like that running round one's mind. As the first week was coming to a close, the next commit-ment point was drawing near, the Kingdom meditation with its inbuilt self-offering; and yet I had still not made the First Principle and Foundation my own. I felt discouraged. If I could not per-sonalize the sentiments of the First Principle and Foundation, was there any point in going on? I told Margaret of my difficulty. She suggested rewriting it in language I would feel at home with. And that proved to be the answer. It was the stiff, masculine lan-guage that was getting in the way. After rewriting it in my own words, I could accept what Deuteronomy had been trying to tell me. On the seventh evening Margaret said that tomorrow would be a repose day. She explained what this meant: one prayer period this evening, a good night's sleep, then, after morning Mass, out for the day; on my return in the evening, one more prayer period 524 Review for Religious before she came to see me. She gave me a few ideas as to where I could go. I chose Llangollen: it seemed a place where I could continue to be quiet while doing something different. The Kingdom Meditation-- and Some Sort of Disturbance The meditation given me for the eve of the repose day was the Kingdom, so after supper, and with my inner eye on my day out, I settled down to this period of reflective prayer--and it all went wrong. The whole hour tumbled around in a confusion of despon-dency and misery. I saw myself as a hypocrite and a fool and felt sick with disappointment and embar-rassment. I was not being called as Rahner sug-gested; this was all totally beyond me regardless of Deuteronomy; there was nothing here for me. Some of us are destined for mediocrity; I was obviously one such. Illusion would get me nowhere, and get-ting nowhere was costing a lot of money and time. Leaving my room, I went out into the garden. The moon was riding high, swiftly brushing aside the small clouds which, busy about their own affairs, were trotting along in the opposite direc-tion. Shadows flitted about the garden, and some-where nearby an owl hooted. Further away a dog was barking, but it soon trailed off into a lazy yawn--his heart just was not in it. And here, under the canopy of deep sky, my thought slowly came together and clarified; I began to see what was going on. I returned to my room and found my crucifix and holding it firmly commanded, in the name and power of the crucified and resur-rected Christ, everything not of God to depart. I repeated the command twice. The result: "The storm abated and there was a great calm" (Mk 4:39). Without further ado I made my Kingdom offering as given by Ignatius, went to bed, and slept. Some of US are destined for mediocrity; I was obviously one such. The First Repose Day A glorious day of sunshine and Welsh mountains. A ride on the Railway Enthusiasts' railway from Llangollen along the moun-tainside to Deeside Halt; a leisurely walk by the canal where later I sat and ate my sandwiches while watching boys--up to the age ~uly-Aug'ust 1993 525 Corona ¯ God's Human Face Revealed of forty plus--playing with their boats. Full of fresh air and peace, I returned to Corwen on an early evening bus. Each turn in the road presented a different scene to delight the heart, and I found myself silently singing the word of St. Francis's Canticle of the Sun: "All praise be yours, my Lord, through all that you have made., and first for Brother Sun. how beautiful he is! How radiant!., and Brothers Wind and Air. and all the weathers' moods . " It seemed so appropriate. (Something I discovered during these thirty days was that Francis and Ignatius have much in common.) After supper Margaret came, and I told her of the previous night's upset. She said it was to be expected and then referred me to the description of discernment of spirits in the Exercises, where it was all clearly set out. The important thing, she said, was that I had made the Kingdom offering. Much was gained and nothing at all lost. The Second Week (Eleven Days) And so into the second week. I traveled far in that week. Journeying with Jesus through his life in the given meditations, I became aware of another journey I was making, toward a deeper commitment--and yet my previous fear of.fidl commitment reared up again and again. The demand was too clear, too total, too final. There was no space for maneuver. I stalled badly and frequently during that week. Margaret advised me to use the First Principle and Foundation offering and also the Kingdom offering as ways into the given meditations. She also gave me some salutary advice: "Don't try to give today what properly belongs to tomorrow." "The grace for the future is not yet being offered." I remembered similar advice given me in the past. As a young sister I had made a group retreat under a Carmelite friar. In one of his talks he said that many people fail to advance because they quail before what they fear may be asked of them if they say an unreserved yes. They forget that God is totally to be trusted and would never take unfair advantage of a generous yes. A superior, at a later date, took up the same theme with me (it seems I have had this lack-of-trust problem forever!) and said: "The Lord is total courtesy. He doesn't grab. He looks at what you have and asks 'May I take this?' If you refuse, he will not insist--for the time being any-way." Urn--for the time being. 526 Review for Religious The Two Standards and the Three Classes of Men These meditations caused the same problem that the First Principle and Foundation and the Kingdom had caused; as I saw it, all called for total and irrevocable commitment. Again I had to remind myself of what Margaret had said and what the Carmelite friar and my own superior had said when I was just knee high in my religious life. I spent long hours beg-ging the grace of trust. I tried to reset my focus and not waste precious time looking at abstract problems and missing the grace of reality. I turned to St. Francis at this stage and found his presence a great comfort. On the twentieth day, after lots of struggle but also tremendous peaks of joy and achievement, Margaret suggested I spend one day drawing the experience of the entire two weeks together and then summarize it in a truth-ful prayer of offering. As I set about doing this, I found it amaz-ing how I could look back along the road I had traveled and see so clearly the efforts, frustrations, joys, hopes, gains, losses, and desires and the loneliness and--running in and out of it all like a flame in dry grass--the'fear. And yet ~omehow it all came together with a marvelous coherence: everything fitted. I could see, with a rare clarity, that God was with me. I had moved. I had definitely moved. I had moved light years from where I had been two weeks previously. For better or for worse, I had moved. The agonizing lack of trust, the fears, the anxieties were all part of this pattern of walking. The Lord had supplied where I had been weak. Together we had made it through these two weeks. He had blessed me beyond all imagining and had accepted my desire as though it were something of substance. I was content. On the twenty-second day, a repose day, I went to Ruthin and presume I had a relaxed day, but I have no memory of it. Without the brief note in my journal saying I had been there, I would not know I had. What that says about me I have no idea. I could see, with a rare clarity, that God was with me. I had moved. The Third Week (Five Days) Margaret moved me into the last earthly days of Jesus. Over the next days, spread over five one-hour meditation periods, which j~¢O-dugust1993 527 Corona ¯ God's Human Face Revealed included a midnight hour, I contemplated the Lord at the Last Supper, Gethsemane, and Calvary and right through to the postresurrecfion period. Having visited the Holy Land many times while living in the Middle East, I found it very easy to situate these meditations, but somehow the depths eluded me. On the twenty-fourth day Margaret suggested that I spend four of my five one-hour prayer periods reading through the four different accounts of the Passion. Anyone who has done this in one day will know it does not come easy. Physically it is draining to read something of that nature and length with concentration. By the evening it had quite taken me over, and after supper I went for a long walk, but somehow I could not shake off (was I even meant to?) the felt heaviness of trudging the Calvary road four times. Another Disturbance It is not easy to stay with someone in agony while knowing you are part responsible. During the night I woke in the grip of a strange tension, feel-ing physically cold and frightened. I have never been especially brave, but I am not given to irrational fear, and this sense of men-ace was wholly irrational; yet it made me feel that, if I did not give up this retreat, it would break me. For several minutes I did nothing beyond switching on the light and allowing the fear to swamp me. Fear of what? I could put no name to it. Then I remembered Margaret's words, based on those of Ignatius: "It is common for the evil spirit to cause sad-ness, fear, discouragement, and acute anxiety and to place all sorts of obstacles in the way of right reason. The good spirit gives courage, strength, inspiration, light, and peace so that right reason will prevail. Learn to distin-guish." Once again I reached for my crucifix and holy water and followed my previous routine. All returned to normal, but it took some time. The twenty-sixth day I spent quietly looking back over the entire Passion. It proved to be a very hard day. It is not easy to stay with someone in agony while knowing you are part responsible. On the twenty-seventh day, another repose day, I went to Lake Bala. It was a beautiful day, but too hot. Tourists and pic-nickers were all over the place--not helpful. I found the Catholic 528 Review for Religious church, a small converted stable. It was very peaceful, and I stayed quietly there for some time before boarding the bus for the ride home through heart-lifting scenery. The Fourth Week--Coming to the End I was now coming to the end of this whole experience, and Margaret suggested moving back from five to four periods of prayer, 6mitring the night one. She also brought me a tape recorder and some classical-music tapes. Winning some grand prize could not have brought me more joy. I was ecstatic. On the twenty-eighth day I meditated on John 20:11-18, Mary Magdalen's encounter with Jesus in the garden, with Isaiah 30:18- 26 and 35:1-10 as background. I also used Luke 24:13-35, the Emmaus story, with Psalm 62 as background. I became quite filled with the quiet. Jesus' sufferings were over. His pain was finished. I was able to walk calmly in the garden with Mary Magdalen--you see, I knew the answer to her question. The Emmaus road also was peaceful. Again I had the advantage: I knew who he was. All this was leading me quite naturally into the Contemplation to Attain Divine Love. From the twenty-ninth day onward I used this con-templation for one period each day, the other three periods cov-ering postresurrection Scripture. I continued my daily walks in the serene countryside, which for me became Galilee, where Jesus said he wo~ld meet his friends again and where I myself have walked many times. A Final Disturbance One meditation, on the thirtieth day, was given over to the events that include Jesus cooking breakfast for his hungry disci-ples. As I moved further into the scene, it all changed and became blasphemous; but I did not recognize it as such. My discerning powers were, it seemed, in suspension. During Mass the follow-ing morning I became aware that something had been very wrong with that meditation. I looked back at it and saw immediately the gross irreverence of the scenes which had been presented to my view. I was aghast and marveled that I had not realized at the time what was going on. I went hotfoot to Father Joseph after Mass and poured out my sorry story. He took it all very calmly--as con-fessors are apt to do--and explained how the devil will use every July-August 1993 529 Corona ¯ God's Human Face Revealed possible means to stop a person pursuing a course that has as its aim a closer union with God. Margaret, of course, said the same thing. The experience left me with a profound disgust of the one who works such evil things. The Final Days The thirty-first and final day arrived. I drew together the ele-ments of the four key meditations--the Kingdom, the Two Standards, the Three Classes of Men, the Three Modes of Humility. I then moved them into a prayer of offering that I tried to make utterly truthful and realistic for me. Later that day I had a final few words with Father Joseph and returned the keys of the church. Back at the house I had a last talk with Margaret and my retreat was over. The following day I left Corwen and--via Wrexham, Chester, Crewe, Euston, and Plaistow, changing train or bus at each one--I arrived home in London. Eighteen Months Later Days have built on days, and a year and a half has passed since my long retreat. By now it should have gone the way of all the others. It has not done so. Father Joseph's words during our final talk, "You will never be the same again, this experience has changed you," have stayed with me; I know them to be true. That retreat has changed many things. It has set sin in its right context, one which makes scant distinction between small and big offenses. It has cleared away any number of secondary purposes and under-lined the one purpose for which I was born. It has filled my store-rooms with kindling, that I may not perish when my winter fires burn low. It has increased my recovery rate, so that sin and repen-tance are almost simultaneous. It has brought a staying power I never thought to possess; a strength to stay with prayer even when, apparently, there is nothing in it to stay for. It has brought an acceptance that I am as I am and, as far as performance goes, the future will not be much different; progress will still be wob-bly, with backward steps, with fears and sin. But this acceptance of my situation has brought a new dependence; I know I will make it through to the end if I cling like a limpet to Christ. There is, quite simply, no other way. 530 ' Re~ie~ for Religious The Human Face of God But overriding and underpinning all this is the greatest change of all. I am aware that, through all the contemplations of that month, even those during which I was distracted, irritated, fidgety, or just plain bored, God was working. He was working as one whose work it is to take an old manuscript, mosaic, or fresco and restore it to its original beauty; he was etching and bringing into relief, for me personally, the lines of his own human face. I can no longer think of God without, at the same time, seeing Christ; I see him, in some small measure, as Francis of Assisi saw him in great, in the people, however seemingly insignificant, and in the events, however trivial, that form th~ fabric of my everyday life. This new vision is the greatest grace to accompany me into these, the afterdays. The word "Wales" will never again mean for me just a geo-graphical place, hut rather will set a pause for remembering: remembering that revelation did not end with the Apocalypse; remembering how God revealed his face to me in Wales; remem-bering how something of beauty was planted within me and has, in spite of me, continued to grow. My life has become perma-nently divided into "before Wales" and "after Wales." And it all started way back in Jordan, where I "hungered for liberation" and knew myself "intent on hearing an utterance of God never given before" (in the words of McGann and Rahner) and felt strongly impelled, Franciscan and all that I am, to take up the invitation to an Ignatian experience. That, and so much more, is what my long retreat was all about. 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 distri-bution, advertising, or institutional promotion or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will be consid-ered only on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. July-August 1993 531 TAD DUNNE What Trouble Is spiritual life Most of us, at some lull in the cacophony of life, think to ourselves, "I really should be a person who . " And we take some stand on avoiding trouble. Of course, trouble wears many hats. There is the regular trouble of having to learn through our mistakes. There is our unwitting igno-rance of the times when our behavior makes others roll their eyes. Or maybe the trouble is our own doing, like the lies we lay on others and the follow-up work we lay on ourselves just to keep our stories straight. Or like the legacy of emotional trouble callous parents bequeath to their children that continues long after they have died and the children have grown up. The stand we take to avoid trouble is usually rather elemental. We hope a simple strategy can meet every kind of trouble coming our way. Not that we succeed. Indeed, the reason we do not succeed may well be that the way we defined our troubles was a big mistake. This is why, for many of us, our images of God are shaped less by our experience of divine help or by the Scriptures and more by how we conceptualized our getting into trouble in the first place. When people describe their spiritual journeys to me, they usually divide the chapters according to this or that difficulty from which God delivered them, but the difficulties were defined very often by simple earthly sym-bols, not by any measures drawn from revelation. Tad Dunne writes on contemporary spirituality. His address is 2923 Woodslee; Royal Oak, Michigan 48073. 532 Review for Religious We get most of the symbols of our troubles from the drama of everyday life--a vacillating boss, a domineering spouse, hard work with no reward, bad weather, and so on. But where people draw the line on what is unacceptable to them will vary nation to nation, old to young, woman to man, race to race. So, before we assume that our view of trouble is totally objective, we need to look instead at the experiences of trouble common to everyone. Then we can look at what the gospel says about trouble and make comparisons about what we have observed. Our universally common experiences of trouble lie not in the dramatic but in the practical patterns in our experiences--expe-riences like carrying burdens, feeling slowed down, running into roadblocks, taking chances and missing, setting schedules and failing to meet them, planting seeds that produce puny fruit, arranging our surroundings carefully and finding that the sur-roundings have trapped us. Everyone, in any culture, grows up with these practical troubles and looks for ways to overcome them. The Example of Physics For the sake of talking about these analogs of our miseries, it will help to classify them. One simple way follows the example of physics. In physics we expect events to occur either in a natural relationship to other events or just coincidentally. While physicists talk about the naturally related events by using terms like elec-tromagnetism, gravity, or inertia, children simply notice that when A happens, then B usually happens. Behind the merely coinci-dental events lie no laws at all, so physicists talk about probabil-ities and norms while ordinary people talk about taking chances and seizing once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. Each of these two kinds of expectations, of regularity and of chance, gets frustrated in its own way. Regularity is frustrated when a routine is broken or a law is not followed. Chance is frus-trated when overcontrol eliminates the lucky chance or when exceptions to the rule are somehow ruled out of court. But each kind excludes the other, and so, pressured as we ar.e by this intrin-sic antinomy to Choose only one as our fundamental code for translating experience into meaning, some of us worship a God of Law and others a God of Freedom. The Broken Routine. The God of Law is incarnated in our ear- 3~uly-August 1993 533 Dunne ¯ What Trouble Is God brings salvation by giving laws to maintain order and by raising up saints to serve as our examples. liest teacher of regularity: the sun. It gives us as children a sym-bol of what it means to be faithful, kindly, and dependable. We learn at an early age what our race took eons to formulate in a principle: that bodies in motion keep going and bodies at rest stay where they are. If only people could be that orderly! So we experience the trouble of broken routine. Things are going smoothly and something interrupts. Interruptions and contradictions are our enemies, though we can never fully avoid them. Better calm down and do what God expects and all shall be well. Pity those who live in chaos, who seem never to settle down, who spend their lives searching for they know not what. They could well learn a lesson from nature that life lies in regu-larity and dependability. This elemental experience of day alter-nating with night has a remarkable influence on the loftiest and most religious levels of our psyches. We imagine the kingdom of God as a smooth meshing of generation upon generation of peo-ple, as if the oiling of divine grace was meant to eliminate all fric-tion between people. God is an implacable and consistent Trinity, a perfect community, an example which every human family and nation is called to imitate as far as possible. God brings salvation by giving laws to maintain order and by raising up saints to serve as our examples. Life is essentially a struggle of law and order over anarchy and extreme independence. OvercontroL The second kind of trouble is practically the oppo-site of the first. As the first kind loves controls, the second hates them. At some time in our growing up, when we discover that we have taken too many of our parents' controls to heart, we start to wriggle free of them. We take a chance. When governments lay such heavy controls on people that hardly anything is left to chance, we condemn them. The worst kind of control, of course, is self-imposed--when I make more resolutions than I could pos-sibly keep or when I forbid myself to ever try anything daring or maturing. Trouble is anything that impedes probabilities. These elemental experiences tell us that God is a God of free-dom, calling us to a radical trust in all we do. The voice is per- 534 Review for Religious vasive: Let go of trying to control everything and everyone; you are ruining yourself in the process and will never succeed in any case. God will never lay a load on your back without also giving you a strohg back with which to carry it. "Look at the birds of the air . " Human planning is largely a waste of time. The goals of our endeavors so seldom match their outcomes that it is a won-der we keep on setting goals. God will intervene at the oppor-tune moment; divinity cannot be pinned down to laws and predictability. And so on. The Example of Biology Notice how these first two kinds of order and trouble are dis-tinguished by whether or not individual events are either part of some repeating cycle or the result of mere chance. We can also look at sequences of events or stages in something undergoing development. Again, to keep this simple, we can distinguish two fundamental kinds of development, those driven by a single law or principle and those driven by forces only coincidentally related to each other. The single-law kind can be illustrated by seeds. Tulip bulbs develop tulips, not dandelions, and, within quite narrow ranges of development, tulips everywhere look alike. Multiple-principle development can be represented by human relation-ships. People's values differ from each other across the face of the earth far more than tulips do. The reason is that the genetic coding in the fertilized egg that each of us once was does not confine the range of our potential development anywhere near as tightly as the tulip's coding does. Growing up, we continually "recode" ourselves by our choices. By interacting with others we develop in dialectical fashion, making something unrepeatable of both ourselves and our surroundings. If both the genetic (single-law) and the dialectical (multiple-principle) kinds of development are elemental,-then we can expect them to precondition what we mean by trouble and, by exten-sion, what we mean by God's saving grace. Again, the dichotomy between these two kinds of development tends to force a reli-gious choice between a God of Success and what I shall call a God of Exchange. The Weeds among the Wheat. One kind of trouble is caused by bad beginnings. It concerns anyone anxious to make continual July-August 1993 535 Dunne ¯ 14/-bat Trouble Is growth and progress, anyone who worships the God of Success. Long before people study genetics in biology, they experience built-in potentials and patterns of growth everywhere, in flow-ers, birds, and house pets. But some elements interfere with nat-ural fulfillment and choke the natural process of growth. These elements may be people, who themselves have been affected by their own upbringing. The notion here is that people are basi-cally good and that, given rich soil and hearty fertilizer, every person and every project will turn out a success. The worst form of this kind of trouble shows when a person feels predestined to fail because of some original and irreparable personality flaw. If we develop sheerly by genetic laws, then it would follow that God calls us to be creators, to overcome obstacles, and to keep a positive spirit. There is no doubt that the kingdom will come; the inner workings of grace in history guarantee it, sure as an acorn will become an oak. Our job is simply to help it come more quickly. It will be a kingdom of exciting new discoveries, increasing cooperation among all people, and continual improve-ment in people's health and happiness. The Good News is simply the announcement that Jesus loves you and that you have the germ of grace within you. Sin is ignorance, not malice. Evangelization is chiefly education; moral reform will follow auto-matically. In the meantime, we are called to grow in holiness, to grow closer and closer to God like a blossoming flower. Hoarding Energy. This fourth kind of trouble is also about growth, but the pattern of development is determined by a series of events related to each other only by chance. We notice how living things are determined not only by origins or seeds but through a continual exchange with their environments. Here biol-ogy studies how living things give and take within their ,sur-roundings. Flowers give honey to bees while the bees ensure progeny for the flowers. While genetic coding strictly limits any one bee's behavior, the location of beehives and the proliferation of flowers are interdependent. Should a storm wipe out one, the other soon disappears. So nature's contentious personality gives us a symbol of a God of give-and-take, a historical God, an engaged God. Farmers plow their fields and their fields return corn. The better the plowing the better the corn and the better the farmer. The quality of the exchange has a dialectical effect on both sides. 536 Revieva for Religious The same goes for the growth and decay of our friendships. Eventually the friendship is either good for both of us or good for neither one. Trouble comes when things cost more than they return. If a boy exasperates his friends by compulsive chatter, he does not feel energized. He wears everyone out, including himself. Then there is the trouble we cause when we take more from the phys-ical environment than we contribute to it, as is evident in oil spills, acid rains, and fluorocarbon-charged spray cans. Whatever the case, there is trouble eithe

Issue 48.1 of the Review for Religious, January/February 1989. ; R F.vu-'.w FOR RF.uG~OUS (ISSN O034-639X) is published bi-monthly at St. l_x~uis University by thc Mis-souri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus: Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Blvd., Rm. 428: St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Second-class postage paid at St. Louis MO. Single copies $3.00. Subscriptions: $12.00 per year: $22.00 for two years. Other countries: for surface mail. add U.S. $5.00 per year: for airmail, add U.S. $20.00 per year. For subscription orders or change of address, write: REviEw FO~ REt.~GOUS; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to REVtEW ~'oa RE~ol~;totJS; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. David L. Fleming, S.J. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Richard A. Hill, S.J. Jean Read Mary Ann Foppe Editor Associate Editor Contributing Editor Assistant Editors Jan./Feb. 1989 Volume 48 Number I Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to REVIEW FOR REI.IGIOUS; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the department "Canonical Counsel" should be addressed to Rich-ard A. Hill, S.J.; J.S.T.B.; 1735 LeRoy Ave.; Berkeley, CA 94709-1193. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from R~:vtEw r'oa REU~aOUS; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. "Out of print" issues are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, M! 48106. A major portion of each issue is also available on cassette recordings as a service for the visually impaired. Write to the Xavier Society for the Blind; 154 East 23rd Street; New York, NY 10010. Review for Religious Volume 48, 1989 Editorial Offices 3601 Lindeil Boulevard, Room 428 Saint Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 David L. Fleming, S.J. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Richard A. Hill, S.J. Jean Read Mary Ann Foppe Editor Associate Editor Contributing Editor Assistant Editors R~:vIEw FOR RELIGIOUS is published in January, March, May, July, Sep-tember, and November on the twentieth of the month. It is indexed in the Catholic Periodical and Literature Index and in Book t~e te~I Index. A microfilm edition of R~:v~Ew FOR RELIGOUS is available from University~ Microfilms International; Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. Copyrighl© 1989 by R~vmw FOR RELiGiOUS. A major portion of each issue of REvmw FOR RgL~G~OUS is als~o regu-larly available on cassette recordings as a service for the visuallyl' im-paired. Write to the Xavier Society for the Blind; 154 East 23rd Street; New York, NY 1 O010. PRISMS . Religious life today presents a varied landscape of images. Some would see the landscape more in the fading light of autumn colors or, perhaps, far more somberly in the gray bleakness of a barren wintertime. Others look out and observe a springtime of new growth, with tender fresh green shoots and small delicate blossoms just visible above the ground level. All the various ways we have of picturing religious life have some basis in reality. For there are various prisms through which we view all life, including religious life. Prisms are very important because they do provide a way for us to see, to highlight and to emphasize, to reject and to ignore. As others share their prisms of vision with us, we gain en-trance to worlds of different colors and new life. Of course, if we main-tain our vision only through our own prism, our world begins to take on a singleness of color and a frozen artificiality of life. REVIEW FOR REL~C~OUS, from its first January issue in 1942, has tried to provide various prisms through which we might view the whole worldscape which must be a part of a vibrant Christian spiritual life and so necessarily a part of religious life. As newly appointed editor of this journal, I intend the variety of insights into the consecrated lifeform, tra-ditionally called religious life, to remain an essential contribution of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. This contribution seems all the more necessary at our particular moment in the Church when often more time is spent in defining and establishing one's own position than in listening or learn-ing of another's. I do not want to wear out an image, but there is another important pointer for us in the kaleidos6ope. The prisms of a kaleidoscope only pro-duce their beauty because of their relationships, one to another. I find that the prisms through which we view life only present us with adequate truth, new life, and fresh ways ofacting if we maintain the relationship of various viewpoints. That is the great strength of the Church who pos-sesses various pictures of Jesus in her gospels, who allows differing phi-losophies and theologies to provide understanding to her faith, and who approves the charisms of vastly differing forms of religious life to be le-gitimate icons of Christ for all the Christian faithful and for the world. It is in the maintenance of relationship that we possess the criteria of le-gitimacy, continuity, and true creativity. 4 / Review for Religious, January-February 1989 In our current issue, the usual variety of articles gives indication of the richness of interests which help form the context of religious life. In subsequent numbers I intend to take the opportunity to highlight one or other article because of the importance of its issue or the insight or un-derstanding it provides. Sometimes I would like to reflect more broadly about certain key concerns of religious life as it is being lived in our Churc,h and world today. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS in this way will continue to provide prisms as well perspectives on the relationships of the many prisms that make up our religious lives. David L. Fleming, S.J. What Do You Want?m The Role of Desires in Prayer William A. Barry, S.J. A frequent contributor, Father Barry wrote "God's Love Is Not Utilitarian" for our issue of November/December 1987. His address is Jesuit Community: Boston Col-lege; Chestnut Hill, MA 02167. know: you're going to ask what I want. "As I was driving up to the retreat house, I thought of your perennial question: 'What do you want?' and here's what l~came up with." I have often noticed that peo-ple who see me for some time for spiritual direction or directed retreats say things like this. It even becomes a bit of humorous byplay, as though they want to beat me to the punch. Clearly, one of my favorite questions for directees is the one Jesus put to the two disciples who began to fol-low him: "What do you want?" (Jn 1:38). If directees pick up on this predilection and start asking themselves the question, then, I believe, a good deal of my work as spiritual director is done. If we know what we want in prayer, we are going to find our way. After a practical belief that God wants an intimate relationship with each one of us and that God is directly encountered in our experience, nothing is more important for the development of our relationship with God-~-for our prayer, in other words--than knowledge of what we want and of what God wants. In this article I want to discuss the role of desires in prayer. Anyone familiar with the Spiritual Exercises knows that among the preludes to every meditation or contemplation is: "I will ask God our Lord for what I want and desire." In the various stages or weeks of the Exercises, Ignatius states what the desire is in each case. For example, in the First Week I "ask for a growing and intense sorrow and tears for my sins," and in the Second Week I "ask .for an intimate knowledge 5 Review for Religious, January-February 1989 of our Lord, who has .become man for me, that I may love him more and follow him more closely." In an earlier article in the R~v~Ew, l tried to show that each of the desires of the Exercises is a desire for some par-ticular revelation by the Lord. ~ On the face of it, it looks as though Ignatius is saying: "Here is what you should desire at each stage of the Spiritual Exercises." One conclu-sion might be to take a person through the four Weeks and just put be-fore him or her what Ignatius gives as the desire. In fact, this has been the procedure in preached retreats, including the preached thirty-day re-treats we older Jesuits and other religious made in novitiate and tertian-ship. But what happened if, as a matter of fact, I did not really desire to know Jesus more intimately when the Second Week was presented to me. Suppose, for example, I was still too afraid of what he thinks of me. In most instan(es, I would guess, we just presumed that we had the de-sire if it was Second Week time. But I would contend that without the real desire we never got very intimate with Jesus. Indeed, I believe that "what we really desire" is diagnostic of the stage of the Exercises we are actually in. To demonstrate this thesis we need to look at the role of desires in any relationship. If you get a call from someone asking for a.meeting, is not your first question, at least to yourself, "What does she or he want?" In fact, many meetings between people come off badly because the individuals involved have mistaken ideas of what each other wants. For example, I want to become your friend, and you believe that I want help with home-work; you want to help me, but are not even thinking of a deeper friend-ship. At the end of the meeting both of us are going to be pretty frus-trated unless we talk about our different desires and come to some understanding. Often enough, too, relationships become frustrating be-cause of ambivalent or incompatible desires in one or both parties. For example, I want to get closer to you, but I am also afraid of you. Or I want a friendship with you (a happily married woman), but I also want to goto bed with you. Every intended encounter with another person is accompanied by a"desire or desires'. We are not always aware of our de-sires, but they are present, and they condition our behavior in the encoun-ter. Now suppose that I want to befriend you and you do not want my: friendship. Will my efforts :at befriending get me or you anywhere? Only to frustration and resentment, probably. But let us say that I persist in trying to do nice things for you. What will happen? You will probably get more and more irritated and thus less and less likely to become my Role of Desires in Prayer friend. And like many a "do-gooder" whose good deeds are rejected, I may eventually wash my hands of you and call you an ingrate who de-serves his fate. Friendship is possible only when the desires are mutual, when you freely desire my friendship and I freely desire yours. Friend-ship cannot be coerced. "But," someone may object, "we often do things that we don't want to do. Because of my friendship for you, for example, I will go to a movie I don't like." But what do you want? If it is because of friend-ship with me that you go to the movie, is not your deepest desire to please me or to be with me? The friendship is more important than the movie. I believe that the centrality of desire for the developing of a rela-tionship cannot be denied. Now let us look at the importance of desires for the relationship with the Lord. In the first chapter of John's gospel, the two disciples of John are intrigued by this Jesus whom John has just pointed out as the lamb of God. So they start following Jesus. When Jesus asks them what they want, they say, "Rabbi, where are you staying?" They do not yet have strong desires, it seems; curiosity seems to be the desire. Jesus does not disdain this desire. "Come," he replies, "and you will see." Unless we have some attraction toward God, some curiosity or hope or desire, we will not take the time to begin our side of the relationship. If I be-lieve in my heart and feelings that God is an ogre, ready to pounce on any infraction, then I may try to placate him, but I will never want to get close to him. And God, as it were, does handstands.to convince us that he really is benign, that he is, as Jesus asserted, Abba. The p.rofli-gate wonders of nature, our own creation and life, the words of Old and New Testaments, Jesus himself, and other loving, caring people in our lives--these are all signg of God's desire that we find him attractive and let him come close. But he cannot force himself on us, or will not. We must have some desire to get to know him better. Sebastian Moore af-firms that God's creative touch which desires us into being arouses in us a desire for "I know what," that is, a desire for the Mystery we call God.2 This experience (understood as the experience of one's creation and continued creation) can be seen as the affective principle and foun-dation for the development ofone's relationship with God. The desire for "I know what" is what makes' our hearts restless until they rest in God. Many people need help to recognize that they have such a desire. Be-cause of life's hurts they may not recognize any other desire but to be left alone, or not to be hurt any more. Telling such people that God is Review for Religious, January-February 1989 love has little or no effect. They may need help to admit to God that they are afraid of, him and desire to be less afraid. Indeed, they may need help to voice some of their anger at life's hurts which seem to them to have come from the Author of life. The fact that they have not completely turned away from religion indicates that they may still want something from God, even if only an acknowledgment that he knows what hap-pened to them in life. Like Job some may cry out: "Then know that God has wronged me and drawn his net around me. Though I c~'y, 'I've been wronged!' I get no response; though I call for help, there is no justice." Only after he has poured out his sorrows, seemingly, can he say: "I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth" (Jb ! 9:6-7.25). In other words, it may take a great deal of pas-toral care and patient spiritual direction for some people to come to the point where they can trust life and the Author of life enough to let into their consciousness the desire for "'I know what.'" Job's friends have tried to derail him from expressing his desires to God: In his misery he wants God to speak to him. He will not lie and say, as his friends insinuate,, that he deserves his calamities because of his sins. Hewill not accept the just-world hypothesis proposed by his friends according to which anyone's sufferings must be deserved. No, he knows~that he does not deserve the awful fate that has befallen him and desires to speak directly .to God and to hear God's answer. Often enough we Christians are like the friends of Job. To a mother who has just.lost her only child we might say, "God knows best." and thus make it difficult for her to voice her outrage at God and her need for God's own answer to this awful loss. Sometimes we feel that we have to de-fend God against the anger directed at him by people in pain. Yet the anger may be the most authentic way for a person to relate ~o God and to ex.press a desire to know God's response. Finally in chapters 38 through 41 God does answer Job out of the whirlwind. The response may not sound very comforting or apologetic to _us, but apparently Job is satisfied, for he says: "My ears had heard of you but.now, my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in ~du.s.t and ashes." Moreover, then God speaks to Job's friends, "I am angry with you and your two friends, because yQu have not spo-ken of me what is~right, as my servant Job has" (Jb 42:5-7). Whatever else God's speech from the whirlwind means, it certainly does not mean that Jg~bohas lost God's friendship by voicing so strongly his desire to have God answer him. Another biblical instance of an attempt to derail a desire directed to- Role of Desires in Prayer ward God comes in the first chapter of the First Book of Samuel. Han-nah, one of the two wives of Elkanah, is barren and miserable. She wants a son. Her husband, seeing her weeping and fasting, says to her, "Han-nah, why are you weeping? Why don't you eat? Why are you down-hearted? Don't I mean more to you than ten sons?" In other words, Elka-nah wants Hannah to forget her desire and be satisfied with what she has. In the story we do not hear Hannah's reply, but her actions tell us that she is not put off by Elkanah's entreaties. She goes to the temple and "in bitterness of soul., wept much and prayed to the Lord." Indeed, when accused of drunkenness by Eli, the priest, she says, "Not so, my lord, I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I was pouring out my soul to the Lord." Hannah knows what she wants and is not afraid to tell God over and over what it is (I S 1:8, 10, 15). Often we tell ourselves or are told to quell our desires, to look at all the good we already have. We can be made to feel guilty and ungrateful for desiring what we want. But if we do suppress our desires without be-ing satisfied that God has heard us, then, in effect, we pull back from honesty with God. The result for our relationship with God often is po-lite distance or cool civility. Perhaps God cannot or will not grant what we want, but for the sake of the continued development of the relation-ship we need to keep letting him know our real desires until we are sat-isfi~ d or have heard or felt some response. In 2 Cbrinthians Paul says, "There was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to tor-ment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' " Now Paul could stop making known his desire because now he knew God's answer. "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. :For when I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Co 12:7-10). Convictions such as Paul's come not from theological or spiritual nos-trums, but from the experienc~ of growing transparency between a Paul and the Lord. Too often we use the hard-won wisdom of a Paul to short-circuit a similar transparency in our own relationship with the Lord. A woman may, for example, be experiencing the "dark night of the soul" and not like it at all. Her desire may be for it to be removed. She may be helped by the knowledge that others have experienced the same thing before her and been the better for it, but such knowledge does not have to satisfy her desire to be rid of the "dark night." A short circuit in the Review for Religious, January-February 1989 relationship might occur if she is told by her spiritual director or tells her-self to squelch her desire "because the experience is good for you." What she needs to experience is God's response, not a theorem of spiri-tual theology. She needs to know (really, not notionally) that God does want this darkness for the good of their relationship. Such real knowl-edge comes only through mutual transparency. Most of the healing miracles of the New Testament depend on the desire of the recipient for healing.The example of the blind beggar Bar-timaeus (Mk 10:46-52) stands out, but is not unusual. "When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, 'Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.' Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, 'Son of David, have mercy on me.' " Obviously Bartimaeus will not be hindered from expressing his desire by any num-ber of voices trying to quiet him. These "voices" can come from within us as well as from without, by the way. "Jesus won't have time for the likes of me; other people have more important problems; things aren't so bad." These interior voices may be expressing our ambivalence about being healed. Just as Bartimaeus had made a way of life out of his blindness, so too we may have made our own physical or psychological or sPiritual limitations a way of life and be afraid of what a future without them might be. One person on a retreat thought that he desired healing from a kind of dark-ness that seemed to rule his life. But then he heard the Lord ask, "Do you want me to heal you of this?" and he had to admit that he was not sure. Interestingly, he felt that God approved the honesty of his response. The inner voices may also express our fear of arousing strong desires for healing only to have them dashed. "Suppose I really want to be healed and I hear the answer Paul got? What a disappointment!''3 Desires are complex and often contradictory. However, once we have allowed the ambivalence and complexity of our desires to surface, we have some-thing else to ask the Lord about. In the Bartimaeus story Jesus calls him over and asks, "What do you want me to do for you?" Bartimaeus is quite clear and unambi-valent, "Rabbi, I want to see." "Go," says Jesus, "your faith has healed you." I have italicized Jesus' words. Without the faith of Barti-maeus, apparently, this miracle could not have occurred. The miracle re-quires a. partnership between Jesus' healing power and desire to heal and Bartimaeus' faith and desire to be healed. Indeed, Bartimaeus' desire is his faith in action. An example may help to illustrate this point. Once I was filled with Role of Desires in Prayer anger and self-pity about the turn a friendship had taken and thought that I was praying for healing. I was contemplating the story of the two blind men in Matthew 9:27-30. When Jesus asked them, "Do you believe that I am able to do this?" I knew immediately that I was not ready to give up my self-pity and anger. If I did desire healing, it was with the same "but not yet" desire with which Augustine at one time desired chastity. I did not have the "faith" found in the two blind men and in Barti-maeus, a faith that showed itself in unambivalent desire. Another exam-ple that shows how desire is faith in action is provided by the father of the boy with the evil spirit reported in Mark 9: 14-29. Instead of asking directly for a healing, the father said to Jesus, "But if you can do any-thing, take pity on us and help us." Because he did not believe in Jesus' power to heal, he could not desire the hea!ing directly. "If you can?" said Jesus. "Everything is possible for him who believes." To which the father replied, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief." In effect the man is saying, "Help me to desire healing." This last example brings us close to the hub of why desires are the raw material out of which relationships are made. In order for the heal-ing to occur, there must be a meshing of desires. Bartimaeus's desire for healing meets Jesus' desire to heal; without both desires there is no rela-tionship, at least no mutual relationship. This point is beautifully illus-trated in the story of the leper. "A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, 'If you are. willing, you can make me clean.' Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. 'I am willing,' he said. 'Be clean!' Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured" (Mk 1:40-42). Clearly desire meets desire. The kind of relationship Jesus desires is a mutual one', where desire meets desire. The need for a partnership of.desires becomes even clearer when we look at friendship. In John 15:15 Jesus says, "I have called you friends," and then goes on to indicate what that means from his side, "for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you." From his side the desire has been to be fully transparent, to com-municate to them all that he is. His desire meets their desire to know him as fully as possible. Of course, full mutuality of friendship means that they desire to be fully transparent before him and he desires to know them fully. Take away one side of these desires and there no longer is a mutual relationship. Of course, on the apostles' part (and on ours) the mere desire for mu-tual transparency does not carry it off. "Between the cup and the lip . " Our desires are ambivalent and complex; we are fearful crea- 12 / Review for Religious, January-February 1989 tures, as well, and our fears get in the way of what we most deeply want. We need help and healing to grow toward mutual transparency with the Lord. But that help is available if we want it. If we notice, for example,, that we want to know Jesus better, but are afraid of the consequences, we can ask Jesus for help to overcome our fears. But again we notice that desire is the key to developing the relationship. The retreatant mentioned earlier who told God that he was not sure that he wanted healing of the darkness that ruled his life provides another example of the reciprocity of relationships. Later in the same day he be-came more sure that he wanted healing and asked the Lord to heal him. The Lord's response was perplexing; "I can't," he seemed to say. The retreatant was enraged at such a response when his own reluctance had been overcome, and he let God know in no uncertain terms. Yet still later in the day, out of the blue, as it were~ he heard the Lord say, "But we can." He knew immediately that the Lord meant that he could live more out of joy than sadness if he kept desiring the Lord's helpful presence rather 'than withdrawing into himself. "We can" meant partnership. At the beginning of this article, I stated that the real desires a person has are diagnostic of where the person is in terms of the four Weeks of the Exercises. Let me now return to that point. If retreatants do not have a real trust in God's loving care and providence, they will not desire that God reveal to them their sinfulness. Without an experienced-based be-lief in God's goodness and 16ve, without, in other words, what I have called earlier an affective principle and foundation, people are too fright-ened of God to be able to say and mean the last words of Psalm 139: "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" (23-24). If there is no such real desire, then the First Week of the Exercises is not on. And, it seems, at this point God's desire is not so much to reveal sinfulness as to convince the person that he is "Abba." Similarly, if a retreatant voices the desire to know Jesus in or-der love him more and to follow him more closely, yet in his prayer con-tinually identifies with those who need healing, perhaps his real desire is to be healed. The desire of the Second Week to know Jesus shows it-self in an interest in Jesus himself, his values, his emotions, his dreams, his apostolate. If the retreatant is not really interested in these matters, but continually focuses on his own needs and weaknesses, then the Sec-ond Week is not. really in progress. Jesus himself may at this time desire more to heal than to call to companionship. The difference between the First and Third Weeks also comes down to a difference in desire. In the Role of Desires in Prayer First Week I desire to know that Jesus forgives me (and us), that he died for my (and our) sins; the focus is on desiring to have a deep experience of how much Jesus loved us even though he knew how sinful we were. The desire of the Third Week is more to share the passion with Jesus in-sofar as this is possible. The focus is on what Jesus felt and suffered, and the desire is that he reveal that to me. Retreat directors, I believe, do their most important work when they help their directees to discover what they do in reality want. And so every retreat could begin with a con-templation of Jesus as he turns and says, "What do you want?" As re-treatants hear these words and let them penetrate their hearts, they will come to know better what they desire; in other words, they will know better who they are at this time in their relationship with the Lord. NOTES ~ "On Asking God to Reveal Himself in Retreat," REVIEW FOR REI.IOWOUS 37 (1978): 171-176; reprinted in David L. Fleming (ed.), Notes on the Spiritual Exercises of St. ignatius of Loyola (St. Louis: REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, 1983), pp. 72-77. 2 Sebastian Moore, Let This Mind Be in You: The Quest for Identity Through Oedi-pus to Christ (Minneapolis: Winston-Seabury, 1985). 3 In another context I have discussed the courage of Bartimaeus. See "Surrender: Key To Wholeness," REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 46 1987): 49-53. Perspectives on Parables and Prayer Donald Macdonald, S.M.M. Father Macdonald's most recent contribution to our journal was "A Pathway to God" (May/June 1988). His address continues to be: St. Joseph's; Wellington Road; Todmorden, Lancashire; 0L14 5HP England. A sister said that her annual retreat was less than satisfying because "the priest, who shall be nameless, seemed to spend a fair bit of time telling us how good he was. I nearly offered him a trumpet." My response was and is to wish that he could come for my annual retreat, if only to exer-cise my sense of humor, even though, as I suspect, he may be speaking tongue in cheek. If not, so much the better! This is not meant to be flip-pant, for it seems to me in recent years that retreats and such like are becoming more technical, esoteric, and managed. So often there has to be a title with content specified, ra~nging from privately directed to Bet- .ter World and charismatic, by way of the Spiritual Exercises, Inigo, Sadhana, Progoff, Zen, Yoga, and so much else; it seems a prudent step, therefore, to first inquire before one enters. The seeker for silence and stillness, for example, is likely to find an all-action organized retreat not a little off-putting. But it all seems so terribly earnest, with little humor. A retreat is undeniably important when seen as a chance for inspira-tion, encouragement, and vision, particularly if the opportunity comes only once a year. It is important that the Gospel is preached; arguably, over the years, some vocations may have gone by default, even among those who die as religious, inasmuch as the Good News, as the New Tes-tament would understand it, might not have been heard. It is sometimes asking much of a preacher during a retreat to try and shore up a creaking building on the verge of collapse when the day-by-day support has not been given. But what seems to happen today is a grasping for technique 14 On Parables and Prayer which is expected to provide the key to the Gospel. The search for the philosopher's stone is endemic. This, of course, may not be quite fair to someone who senses per-haps that "Thou [God] hast made us for thyself and our hearts are rest-less till they rest in thee" (Confessions 1:1).~ But expectation is not God, nor is disappointment nor, indeed, sat-isfaction. To set one's all on technique or the competence of the preacher or the receptivity of the audience is to risk losing everything. Humor will spare us that and much else. The late John Main, O.S.B., told a friend, a Ramakrishnan monk, who had asked him how he proposed to teach meditation, "Sit down, sit erect, say the mantra, and that's it.''2 His friend said that such an approach would never work with Westerners. It is so simple they will not believe you. His advice was to deliberately com-plicate it, saying you have esoteric knowledge which you can give only after they have been coming for at least ten weeks. Only then can t.hey be initiated. Throw in the name John Cassian for good measure. That should attract them. This raises a smile, as it is so close to reality as some of us observe it. A Greek Orthodox priest spoke similarly of students coming to his monastery asking to be initiated into the Jesus Prayer. "Say it." "But. ? . No, just say it." As you advance you need guidance. It is all rather deflating, for someone seeking the heights, to be told to begin at the beginning. It will be recalled that Peter L. Berger identified humor as one of his "signals of transcendence," a marvelous way out from all which might tend to dominate and frighten us in a seemingly locked-in world. It is crucial for perspective. "Laughter can show that power is ultimately' an illusion because it canno( transcend the limits of the empirical world. Laughter can--and does every time it relativizes the seemingly rocklike necessities of this world.''3 There is such a thing as gallows humor. Laughter can be a link with the divine and all that is, not just all that is here. How could a preacher or a community ever take themselves wholly seriously again after hearing this little story about a retreat director? He impressed a community as an obviously saintly man. His reputation grew as the week progressed--until he asked for meat on Friday. No saint would ever do that! On such are reputations built and lost. Favorite humorous authors such as P. G. Wodehouse or James Thurber can provide permanent links to God and reality. Once in their friendly and familiar company, we find space to simply relax and enjoy ourselves. We smile at Walter Mitty as we see ourselves in him. Our prob- 16 / Review for Religious,'January-February 1989 lems lessen in the face of what some of the Wodehouse characters have to meet. A Sergeant Bilko on black-and-white television can do as much. Holding on to the relative like this may help us see that there is always another chance--and if the Go.spei is to be believed, the time is now. I am far from underplaying the need for a properly prepared retreat or suggesting that one can laugh off whatever happens. Nor would I dis-count the value of any particular technique or approach. I would but say that everything here is relative and humor can help us see it. Father Enomiya-Lassalle once gave a day's Zen retreat to forty Korean novices, whose reaction was that "Up to now we used to have a scriptural text in our daily meditation to meditate on. Today for the first time we have felt that to meditate is to pray."4 One is grateful;for the sisters' experi. ence, but even if the priest had neve.r set foot in Korea, the providence of God would not have neglected them. Everything then can help, but nothing is essential. When the retreat .disappoints, all need not be lost. This is particularly so for those who know how to interpret their life in terms of Scripture. A fairly comprehensive experience convinces me that few can. If there is one cause of failure both in preacher and audience, it lies in the inability to do that. I would be astonished if novices knew how to do it, and very surprised to find it in the great majority of their senior brothers and sisters. One simple test is to listen for the Gospel when religious speak of what is happening to them and how they see it. The Gospel is the common coin of the Catholic Church, but many use it gingerly like a foreign currency. They do not know its value, or what to do with it. Authentic Sources 'Religious have been authoritatively urged that to genuinely live their calling they should draw "on the authentic sources of Christian spiritu-ality., in the first place they should take the Sacred Scriptures in hand each day" (Perfectae Caritatis, no. 6). Here faith and life are meshed as one. What a Jewish commentator, W. G. Plaut, said of the Torah, the Christian can wholeheartedly endorse for Scripture in its.entirety. "We hold that the Torah is a record of Israel's striving to meet God and un-derstand his will. In centuries of search, of finding and forgetting, of in-spiration and desperation, God touched the soul of his people and the sparks of these meetings burn in the pages of the Torah.' ,5 The "sparks of these meetings" are found in the pages of Scripture, and once prop-erly kindled they produce an enduring, not fitful, flame. In each meet-ing with God, which really means now, the religious by profession would wish his or her mind to be at one with the will of God, faith and life re- On Parables and Prayer flecting the one reality: "That man is Your best servant who is not so much concerned to hear from You what he wills as to will what he hears from You"(Confessions 10:26). That distinction is crucial, and none knew better than Augustine how hard it was to really make the transi-tion. All of us are innately self-centered, easily deceived. It is, then, prac-tical to go to the authentic sources of the Church's tradition, where "in the centuries of search, of finding and forgetting. God touched the soul of his people." Even Augustine intuitively seems to have felt this in his search for God. "I absolutely refused to entrust the care of my sick soul to the philosophers, because they were without the saving name of Christ. and whatever lacked that name, no matter how learned and excellently written and true, could not win me wholly" (Confessions 5: 14; 3:4). So while the attraction for God in Christ and authenticity was there, Augustine could not at first bring himself to find this, least of all in Scripture. He tells us honestly why: "So I resolved to make some study of the Sacred Scriptures and find what kind of books they were . My conceit was repelled by their simplicity, and I had not the mind to penetrate into their depths" (Confessions 3:5). He lacked "sincerity, openness of mind and that fundamental rev-erence which is a willingness to be commanded" which one who went deeper than most saw as minimum requirements before the Bible can do anything for a person.6 It is so hard to change one's mind radically, and that lovely quality of fundamental reverence before Scripture Js rarely found, especially in those who like to do things their own way--which means all of us, but for the grace of God. ~ Augustine was later to envy the Church's faithful whom he had once patronized as ignorant and unlettered. Once he himself had discovered the treasure which they so nonchalantly possessed, how his perspective changed: "Of what great harm to Your little ones was their far slower intelligence: since they strayed not far from You and so could fledge their wings in safety in the nest of Your Church, and nourish the wings of char-ity with the food of solid faith?" (Confessions 4:16). In thus moving from inauthentic to authentic existence as he saw it, he now realized that his "superior" stance was only that of the man with the empty stomach who does not know where to find food, in his case, "the food of solid faith." The search, tension, and struggle are perhaps heroic and the stakes are life or death, but nothing is gained by patronizing those who sit down each day at a full table. He finally knocked at their door and asked to come in and share what they had. Again his perspective changed: "It is with utter certainty that I love You. You have stricken Review for Religious, January-February 1989 my heart with Your word and I have loved You" (Confessions 10:6). It is well known that an appar.ently chance reading of Romans 13 and 14 finally enabled Augustine to see. Now from within the heart of the Church he is convinced that "Thou [God] didn't touch me, and I have burned for thy peace" (Confessions 10:27). This is not notional knowl-edge enabling him to speak to his intellectual peers, but the real insight given him by the word of God from within the Church enabling him to see faith and life as one. The sparks of the earlier meetings with God are now aflame in re-sponse to his word. His life and perspective are transfigured. It is per-haps not without its underlying humor to see this gifted man, with many of the gli~tering prizes within his grasp, now held enthralled by the faith of his mother and her nurse (see Confessions 9:8). He had traveled for miles and years searching for what he had left at home. If religious had this innate feeling of fundamental reverence before Scripture, always subordinating themselves to the word, never dominat-ing it, they might more easily warm to the sparks of the meetings with God in their own daily life, and so find a flame which they could never leave. Even among the trumpet calls of a preacher's self-proclaimed ex-cellence, the word of God isthere if one knows how to listen, but it is unlikely to be heard unless one is habitually doing this. That perspec-tive is all-important. A practical illustration may perhaps make the point. A Treasure Found Parables form much of the Gospel, and few strike a cord with the religious vocation more than "the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field" (Mt 13:44). Taken from life, it is meant to make us think. What is being said here? We under-stand what is being said, of course, but we are meant to assimilate its implications. Its dynamic is as powerful as Christ is real. Insofar as I be-lieve that God in Christ is here speaking to me, I shall respond and so attempt to make the Gospel my own. In fact, that parable, for many, is little more than an interesting analogy. It is a helpful example, an exter-nal, verbal, and indeed visual aid, as useful in the junior school as in the religious community. Precisely because that may not unfairly be de-scribed as the most usual understanding of the parable, the true perspec-tive is little known, and so those words scarcely ever spark into a flame. If that is compared with the approach to parables of T. W. Manson in a fine book first published over fifty years ago and often reprinted, we will find ourselves in another world where the sparks of the meeting On Parables and Prayer between Christ and ourselves can really catch fire. He says: Jesus is not concerned to demonstrate that God exists but rather to show the nature of the God whose existence is common ground for him and his audience. His aim is not to make God an article of faith but the ob-ject of faith. We are often concerned to make God probable to man; .he set out to make God real to them. It is this fact which makes parable the inevitable form in which the teaching of Jesus on the nature and ways of God should be delivered . The true parable., is not an illus-tration to help one through a theological discussion. It belongs to the same order of things as altar and sacrifice and prayer, the prophetic vi-sion and the like . It is a way in which religious faith is attained, and, as far as it can be, transmitted from one person to another. It is not a crutch for limping intellects but a spur to religious insight. Its object is not to provide simple theological instruction but to produce living re-ligious faith.7 This is Scripture seen from the inside. How many readers of this page honestly think like that? If religious habitually think in those terms, it seems to me that they keep it well hidden. Could the average reader echo, from experience, all that Manson sees--parable, the obvious teach-ing medium to make God real . . . a mode of religious experience on the same plane as altar, sacrifice, prayer, and insight., a way in which faith is attained, not a crutch for limping intellects., producing living religious faith? The easiest way to answer such questions is to ask: What did we feel when the parable was first quoted--' 'the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field."? If Manson was articulating what we have long known and felt, the resonances first produced by the par-able will still be there on the level of faith, not necessarily feeling. His comment would then simply buttress what we know to be true. Is our faith like a treasure found? Is this what has brought us to religious life? Is it a superb insight into reality? Is any sacrifice worthwhile to really possess it? What do we give in view of what we ~et? Can this treasure in any sense be found through the medium of an imperfect preacher? Do these words hold us up as they obviously show us up? One has to ask questions and link details together for the purposes of writing, but if the parable is properly assimilated to any degree, it is better to be silent and still and let the image absorb us and lead us where it will. We are then on the level of altar, sacrifice, prayer, and insight, willingly or even grudgingly, in view of the demands, letting ourselves be drawn into God through his Word. Perspectives that we perhaps know notionally are opened up to limitless horizons. Faith, not feeling, is seek- 20 / Review for Religious, January-February 1989 ing to really understand. For years we have known the parable by heart. Have our hearts ever got the point and made it our own? Only silence and wonder stemming from fundamental reverence will do that. Fundamental Reverence For some years now virtually all religious communities have the for-mal daily prayer of the Church as their morning and evening prayer. In-variably, individuals or groups are given charge of liturgy and prayer, which generally means that coming to daily prayer one has to first find out what has been rearranged. Pages have to be marked, hymns noted, and alternative readings attended to. The pattern is rarely predictable. All this is done, one hears, because the community wants it, for the ordi-nary daily office is boring and repetitive. This constant adaptation is then seen as a practical attempt to engage the community in really meaning-ful prayer. In view of what has already been said, much of this suggests that those who foster or want this, apart from the risk of choosing only what-ever has personal appeal, may have no real feeling for Scripture, which may be why continual rearrangement is felt to be necessary to hold at-tention. This is, of course, the technique of the junior school, .where the children's attention span is limited and meaning has to be immediate. Yet if one receives~a line, phrase, sentence, or sentiment of Scripture on the level of altar, sacrifice, prayer, or insight, one just cannot keep chang-ing the focus without fragmenting the reality. Even to move, pick up a hymnbook, attend to alternative prayer or reading, or in general to be .never quite sure what is happening next, can be to break concentration. There may be some gain in alertness but, arguably, loss in continu-ity and assimilation. The Psalms and readings from the daily office have not yet been heard for the first time as Augustine, Manson, the Jewish commentator Plaut, and others would understand it, and will never be if one constantly changes the focus of attention in terms of relevance. One is all the time being brought up to the surface, never left long enough to go down to the depths. Ideally, the Psalms and readings could be so predictable that one almost knows them without turning the page. Only then do they have a chance of becoming part of ourselves so that we can truly listen, not just hear. Fundamental reverence would ask no less. But, however well intentioned, when one has to scan the board for the next item on .the agenda of prayer, or wait for the inspiration of a colleague, one is perhaps paying too high a price for spontaneity. The seemingly prosaic parable as a "spur to religious insight" must be in-vited to speak, not ordered to. On Parables and Prayer When Scripture is approached like this in the context of prayer, what one hears matters little. In time, perhaps less and less comes to mean more and more. It has not been and cannot be quite assimilated. Occa-sionally its relevance may be all too clear, as when, on the morning fol-lowing news of the horrific deaths of the seven astronauts in January 1986, one read: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, naked I shall return. The Lord gave, the Lord has taken back. Blessed be the name of the Lord. If we take happiness from God's hand, must we not take sorrow too?" (Jb 1:21, 2:10). Even if the words appear as dull as a school textbook, it does not matter. Nor does immediacy or surface mood. On the level of prayer, altar, sacrifice, and insight, it is one's faith responding to God that makes the connection. In time the words will peel away and matter less and less as one is held in faith, just as a smile or wave from a friend has a mean-ing out of all proportion to the action. It is a perspective on reality for which one is grateful. NOTES t The Confessions of St. Augustine, translated by F. J. Sheed (London: Sheed and Ward 1944). All references to The Confessions are from here. 2 John Main, O.S.B., "Christian Meditation," The Grail, 1978, p. 19. 3.Peter L. Berger, A Rumor of Angels (Penguin Books, 1971), p. 91. 4 The Tablet, London, January I 1, 1986, pp. 31-32. 5 The Torah, W. G. Plaut and B. J. Bamberger (New York: Union of American He-brew Congregation, 198 I), p. 1294. 6 C. H. Dodd, The Authority of the Bible [1929] (Fontana Paperback, 1962), p. 269. 7 T. W. Manson. The Teaching of Jesus (CUP, 1931; paperback, 1963), pp. 72-73. The Gift of Not Giving Jane Kammer C.S.Bo In our issue of January/February 1983, we published Sister Jane's "Three Times I Asked: Reflections on Weakness." She is a pastoral associate at St. Benedict Church in San Antonio. She may be addressed at 5107 Ozark; San Antonio, Texas 7820 I. So Jesus said to them, 'Well, then, pay to the Emperor what belongs to the Emperor and pay to God what belongs to God ' (Mt 22:21). "Jesus exclaimed, 'You ask me for a miracle? No! The only mir-acle you will be given is the miracle of the prophet Jonah' " (Mt 12:39). "As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had had the de-mons begged him, 'Let me go with you!' But Jesus would not let him"(Mk 5:18-19). A popular Christian saying and song is "God loves a cheerful giver." Giving has been exalted as a hallmark of Christianity, and so it is. Didn't our leader, Jesus, give his very life to show us God's great love? Giving has also been extolled as the virtue of the ideal Christian woman. For most of her life, my mother gave. She waited on my father; she gave of herself for her children. For all but the last few years of her life, I never heard her say no to anyone who asked a favor. But after she had grieved over my father's death, a change took place in my mother. At sixty-two she learned to drive a car; she went on vacations; she joined groups and clubs; and she began to say no to requests she really did not want to fulfill. She had discovered another dimension of giving. Giving is not always healthy for the giver or for the receiver. It is not true respect when I continually do for another what the person can do for him/herself. I am beginning to learn the gift of not giving. Teilhard de Chardin said, "Your essential duty and desire is to be 22 The Gift of Not Giving united with God. But in order to be united you must first of all be --be yourself as completely as possible. And so you must develop yourself and take possession of the world in order to be. Once this has been ac-complished, then is the time to think about renunciation; then is the time to accept diminishment for the sake of being in another. Such is the sole and twofold precept of complete Christian asceticism" (The Divine Mi-lieu [New York: Harper and Row, 1960], pp. 70-71). I believe that part of developing myself is learning, through practice, the gift of not giving to everyone who seems to ask. If I continually place my focus on others, then I cannot really give myself in love to them, for I do not have a self to give. It is my task to discover and develop the unique person God intends for me to be. I am codependent. To me that means I tend to place my center out-side of myself. I am inclined to seek affirmation and validation from some-one else. I feel safest when giving, not receiving. I am a people pleaser who fears rejection. Taking things personally and blaming myself for whatever seems less than perfect are aspects of my codependence. I have lived with many "shoulds" from the past which I have interiorized. In many ways my life repeats the story of my mother. But it is not too late to refocus my center within myself. I can learn to allow the true "me" to emerge from within. In time I can become a self-validating, self-affirming person whose peace is permanent and whose happiness does not depend on the mood of another. If I stay with myself, I can learn to love and accept myself as I am, even while want-ing to change some things about myself. I can give myself the gift of not giving up on the real, beautiful, and exciting "me." Moreover, I can learn to give the gift to others of responsibility for themselves. By re-fusing to absorb and carry the emotions of others, I will gift them with the faith that they are capable of living their own lives, making their own decisions, and caring for themselves. One morning I attended a meeting of four people who work in the same field. One of the workers continually griped and complained. Ne-gativity flowed out of her every word and facial expression. At the end of the session, I felt depressed, oppressed, and.burdened. I had absorbed into myself the flow of her negativity. But I can give myself the gift of not taking responsibility for other people's feelings, for others' pleasant or unpleasant feelings. I can maintain my joy, peace, and positive out-look if I am aware of my tendencies and if I give myself the gift of not giving in to codependence. I can learn to trust other people to run their own lives. I can deepen my trust in God. Review for Religious, January-February 1989 As codependent I also try to control others, though I may not be aware that I am doing so. I have not seen my friend for quite a while. I miss him or her. I may long with emotional intensity to see and be with my friend again. This is all right; this is me~ I fall into codependence, however, when I expect my friend to feel the same emotions that I do, the same strong loneliness. Because he/she feels differently does not mean that we are no longer friends. We are still connected by the bonds of love and the union of our spirits, but my friend is entitled to his/her own emotional swings. Occasionally we may both experience the same feelings, but that just happens; it cannot be programmed. By giving the gift of not giving my friend the task of living up to my expectations, I free him/her to be a unique self, and I free myself from the frustration of unmet expectations. As I grow, I learn the gift of n6t giving allegiance to everything that is said about,~me, even when it is said by significant others in my life. Opefiness to consider feedback is good and necessary for growth, but I can take the comments offered, test them sincerely against what I know of my true self, and decide to allow them to influence me or reject them as not fitting. More and more I stand free: receptive but able to make choices and.changes for myself. Each of us operates out of a specific personality type. I know that those "unacceptable" aspec.ts of myself, my "shadow," can become for me sources of undreamt growth and expansion. If I am introverted, recognition' of the shadow invites me to promote the development of more assertiveness, more sociability. By taking up the challenge of my "opposites," I give myself the gift of not giving in and becoming com-pletely immersed in my dominant qualities. I also give to others the gift of my expanded personality., my versatility to be reflective and quiet, and to be spontaneous and outgoing. I then realize that I have the potential to grow in all qualities of personality. Giving the gift of not giving can be risky. This is especially so if one is looked upon as a professional "helper." 1 am supposed to rescue peo-ple, or so it is often assumed. But the divine in me nudges me to grow and to foster my own "undependence" so that I do not need to rescue in order to feel worthy or worthwhile. I can then rejoice with the other in his/her efforts that lead to confidence, success, self-esteem, and de-victimization. When I encourage the other to look within her/himself for the indwell-ing God, the source of strength and goodness, then the other's success in dealing with difficulties is truly authentic and lasting. I become, not The Gift of Not Giving a rescuer or savior, but a real companion and friend. Recently a friend said to me, "I am upset over certain events that have taken place lately. I feel I can share with you about those situations because you are concerned and will give your support and prayers, but you won't take on my problems and become as upset as I am, and so be-come an added problem and burden to me. And you won't smother me with sympathy either." I consider those remarks a confirmation of the rightness of the gift of not giving and an uncovering of the true meaning of compassion. Jesus gave the gift of not giving. He refused to give direct answers to the Pharisees who were trying to trap him. He did not allow them to control him or his mission. Jesus did not perform miracles for those un-believers. He refused to compromise himself in order to please them. He did not even accept the adoration of the man who was cleansed from evil. Jesus will not allow us to follow him out of coercion or ignorahce. We must make up our own minds. He gave us the gift of not giving easy answers; he taught in parables. Jesus leaves us free and invites us to re- .sponsible living and loving. He refuses to take on our responsibility for ourselves and our world even though we often try to put on him th~ blame for our misfortunes and our mistakes. o Christ's peace was from within. He was "self-centered," anchored in the depths of his love springing from deep within. We too are chal-lenged to anchor in the gift of self that we find within, put there by God. One way to self is through the gift of not giving. Chapters and Structures William F. Hogan, C.S.C. Father Hogan wrote "The Cross Reconsidered" for our issue of March/April ! 988. His address remains: Fratelli Cristiani; Via della Maglianelli, 375; 00166 Roma, It-aly. Postconstitution chapters in most congregations take a very different form from those in which much labor was directed to working out, concept by concept, word by word, texts of constitutions to be submitted for ec-clesiastical approval. If there was perplexity in some institutes as to what a chapter would do when there were no more constitutions to write, the wonderment soon dissolved as attention was focused on the principal calls of the times: justice, peace, preferential option for the poor, sim-plification of lifestyle, apostolic spirituality, and so forth. Less legisla-tion emerged from the chapters; the accent was on setting immediate goals for administrations and planning steps for implementation of di-rection by the community: simple documents of challenge for reflection, inspiration, action. A variety of formulas, techniques, and approaches have been used to provoke a deep listening to the Spirit during sessions and to share the chapter's reflections and concerns with the larger con-gregation. Our times have seen much effort and creativity to make chap-ters meaningful experiences, and more will be needed in the future be-cause there is no magical formula that can cover every set of concerns or apply to all chapter circumstances. The uniqueness of each chapter will demand an approach suitable to its particularity: what works for one may very well not be beneficial to another. The experience of many congregations would advocate that it is not necessary for chapters to go over every element of the life of a congre-gation, as ordinarily done in the past, because there are so many other 26 Chapters and Structures participative structures in place between chapters. More effective results emerge when one topic is pursued in depth and the congregation's ef-forts are channeled in a particular direction. At the same time it is im-portant that a chapter and other community organs related to a chapter devote some attention to important points other than the principal topic. The 1983 code of Canon Law determines a number of issues to be treated in the particular law of religious congregations, and these fall under the responsibility of a general chapter. Most of these matters have been leg-islated in the constitutions; there is widespread reluctance to touch them after experiencing the difficulties of having constitutions approved, even when a group intellectually acknowledges the need for modifications. Oth-ers are taken up in the secondary book and should be reviewed by the chapter, even though its primary thrust is not concerned with the particu-lar law as such. There are ways of accomplishing this so as not to dis-tract from the major chapter consideration--for example, through the use of an ad hoc committee reviewing the legislation and making recommen-dations to the assembly. Without this review there is always the possi~ bility of a gap developing between living and the calls of the Spirit to move forward in mission. One of the most basic areas not to be overlooked is that of the struc-tures of government, where there are many questions deserving ongoing congideration even though structures are usually treated in the constitu-tions and considered of more permanent nature than rfiatters'of the sec-ondary book. Frequently the particular law of a congregation will state that structures are for the mission:, that the participation of the institute in the continuing mission of Jesus is the determining factor for structures of authority and government and the division of a congregation into life-promoting and mission-serving units. It .is far too easy to let the concept of structures for mission become a dead letter, since the mission is not staticbut constantly undergoing variables. Reflective vigilance is needed to take into account the changing factors of the mission of Jesus today and be at the service of the mission in fact and not just in word. This is especially true in international congregations with their divi-sions into provinces, regions, sectors, and so forth, but finds application also'in national and diocesan groups. Religious institutes are experienc-ing decreases in some of their internal divisions because of aging, loss of members, and other factors with the result that some previously sta-ble units no longer appear capable of maintaining the autonomy neces-saryto function as a unit in the same way. In not a few instances there is occurring a reversal of what have up to this point been geographical Review for Religious, January-February 1989 central and peripheral areas in congregations; then, too, there often is dis-persion of individuals and communities, along with new forms of com-munity. New foundations in third-world countries being made by differ-ent provinces of the same congregation point to a need for a networking among them to provide for sharing of experiences and insights, even if situations are not yet sufficiently clear to establish more permanent struc-tures. And surely, sufficient reflection on the units of a congregation will give rise to other situations in need of monitoring. Canon law and practice leaves the regulation of internal divisions to the individual institute and the authority therein determined, as long as the basic points of the approved constitutions are followed. These latter often allow for more flexibility than seems apparent at first glance; where there may be lacking the necessary suppleness, recourse should be had to the appropriate Church authority. A desire for survival may force the issue of restructuring in some congregations rather than a more overt con-cern that structures serve the mission; whatever be the motivation in fact, watchfulness is called for and the occasion of a chapter provides an op-portunity to exercise a healthy vigilance. Reflection on structures is not meant to pull religious in on them-selves, but outwards to furthering the work of Christ and promoting the qualitative dimension of ministry, life, and contribution to the local Church--lest there be a discrepancy between what we say of ourselves in principle and the reality of what we live. Connected with this reflec-tion is the issue of identity and charism, in the sense that the question at times arises whether to bolster the presence of the congregation in one part of the world through bringing new members from countries where vocations are still in abundance or simply to let the presence eventually fade out of existence. The tendency is to give an answer in terms of the works the religious are doing and whether the apostolates should be con-tinued; yet there is a deeper element than simply the works: Are the re-ligious bringing anything different in terms of witness to the local Church that others cannot effect? Not just a question of doing, but the reality of being: How are we in wha~ we do? No simple answers can be given to this; much soul-searching about the identity to which we witness is en-tailed. And if there is nothing .particular being shared with the local Church in terms of charism, it may be that the Spirit is saying that the congregation's presence is no longer gifting the local Christian commu-nity. A number of other matters concerning authority structures deserve periodic consideration, such as terms of office, interimsbetween chap- Chapters and Structures / 29 ters, and whether chapters are the only or best vehicles to accomplish the promotion of the mission and life. Many congregations have gone through a number of changes during the last two decades concerning the duration of offices because of concern with people being in positions too long, the need for freshness of vision in monitoring change and the cur-rents of the times, and the promotion of participation and development of individuals' gifts and talents. Sometimes in addressing one set of val-ues and making decisions in accord with them, experience shows that other values suffer and perhaps there is conflict in trying to integrate all the facets. Thus some congregations have gone full circle and returned to their original terms of office after various experiments; others have opted for a longer nonrenewable mandate; and still others have deter-mined upon several shorter terms. It would be idealistic to think that the workable formula reached for the present should not be open for recon-sideration if changing circumstances would indicate the need for another solution. Frequently religious Speak of the amount of energy that is expended in preparing chapters and implementing their decisions and orientations; also of the insufficiency of time between chapters for a congregation to realize the implications of chapter decisions before being moved on as a group to other subject matters. The frustrations sometimes expressed in this regard, in conjunction with fatigue over the number of meetings in which religious at times have to participate on different levels, raise the issue of whether there are other ways to accomplish the goals with-out the mechanism of chapters so regularly and all that is entailed therein, and still preserve and foster the principles of members working together toward policies of life and mission. Creativity of thought is needed here to safeguard the values intended by the structure of chapter and at the same time to prevent excessive use of energy that could be more directly channeled toward mission. Further, it might prove opportune from time to time to reflect on some of the points brought over into religious structures from corpora-tion models to assure the rights of individuals and promote participation. Some were needed to correct abuses or remedy problem areas at a par-ticular time. Are they still needed? Has something been lost from the com-munity- of-faith dimension while stressing organizational approaches? Where is the congregation now in the balance of values? Some benefi-cial insights could be gained by a congregation relative to structures for mission from treating these and similar questions. Not to be overlooked either would be the number of people involved :30 / Review for Religious, January-February 1989 in community administration full time: too few? too many? enough for the needs of mission on the part of the congregation? How do we under-stand these needs now, taking into account the concept of community for mission and the need for good government and sufficiently broad-based decision making? The answer given at one time will apply only as long as circumstances remain basically the same: hence the need for periodic review. To look at some of these issues of structure from the viewpoint of service of the mission and the community's growth for mission may ap-pe. ar as an invitation to furiher instability in religious life; perhaps it would involve furthe~r unsettling, but in terms--hopefully--of the unset-tling aspe~zts of Jesus' message and mission a~d of the mentaJity of foun-ders and foundresses. Their primary passion, in following Jesus,,was to reveal the Father's love and assist others to experience it in their lives; institutionalization of religious life and structures as such generally arose after the founders' times. Stability of life is an important aspect of relig-ious life; it is expressed in the Church's definitions of consecrated life (see can. 573,1). However, stability must not be equated with no change, especially when the mission that gives meaning to the consecrated life demands change. Stability demands serious prayerful reflection on the whole issue of change, keeping our vision focused 'on the person of Je-sus arid his mission today. And while we concentrate our ,energies and attention on the great sweeping calls of the Spirit of Jesus as reiterated through the Church, we must also keep alert to whether internal struc-tures are enabling for response to mission. Meta-Expectations and the General Chapter J. Roberta Rivello, S.S.J. Sister J. Roberta Rivello is a Sister of Saint Joseph of Philadelphia. She is currently Dean of Graduate Studies Division at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia; prior to that she was research analyst for the Department of Army where she worked for the past seven years. This paper is about the difference between expectations reasonably held and "meta-expectations," and what happens when "meta-expecta-tions" are part of the agenda for a general chapter in religious institutes. Having to deal with these meta-expectations in the general chapter may be a part of the reason why so many religious institutes find themselves, in the years immediately following a general chapter, in the midst of a good deal of frustration, anger, even~outright rejection of some of the mandates of the general chapter. I believe this occurs because many of the expectatio.ns explicitly ex-pressed by the members of an institute are clearly not the substantive con-tent for the general chapter to consider. When a religious institute re-quests from the membership proposals, recommendations, and sugges-tions prior to a general chapter, it may be of some benefit to explain at the same time what is reasonable for the members to expect from the chap-ter, and to provide some criteria for arriving at the proper methods for expressing those expectations to the chapter delegates. Part of this edu-cation could include guidance into what constitutes "reasonable expec-tations," and how to differentiate between these and what I term "meta-expectations." I use the term rneta-expectations as a phenomenological description for the kinds of aspirations and expectations which are not structurally 31 Review for Religious, January-February 1989 . and substantively significant to the issues ~hich h~ive been identified as chapter material. Persons who express such "meta-expectations" through their proposals and letters certainly do not perceive them as meta-expectations-- or they would not submit them. I believe it is the job of the prechapter committees to communicate to those who submit such pro-posals, even personally if possible, why it is that their expectations are not reasonable for the chapter to include in its portfolio of proposals. Do-ing this would eliminate some of the postchapter frustration, even if in-itially the explanation is quite difficult to accept. A general chapter may, for example, need to deal with spirituality and prayer as they relate to the charism of the institute, and proceeds to invite proposals to that effect. When the proposals are reviewed, how-ever, it is found that some members have expressed a variety of expec-tations which~ are, not substantive.ly identifiable with the charism and spiri-tuality of the institute. If these .expectations were to become content for the~delegates' consideration during the chapter, they could seriously im-pair the effectiveness of chapter deliberations and could ultimately erode the charis~n itself of the institute. The "mandates" of a general chapter are simply directives with en-forcement p.ower. These mandates deal with matters which have an im~ pact on the~members' sPiritual development, community life, prayer, ap-ostolic works, or other important areas which are integral to the life of a religious.The precise direction which the general chapter should take is undergirded by the constitutions and charism of the institute. Whatever else, a chapter accomplishes, it ought to accomplish the ful-fillment of its members' first-order reasonable expectations. These rea-sonably held expectations, in turn, ought to flow from the institute's spiri-tuality and charism. Ageneral ch.apter,, however, need not attend with great detail to ful-filling second-order expectations since these do not necessarily consti-tute the ne'cessary and sufficient matter for a general chapter to entertain. It is these latter which I term meta-expectations. Meta-expectations are something which a newly elected leadership might need: to consider sometime soon after entering into their term of office. But religious institutes which choose to concern themselves with such non-reasonable expectations during the general.chapter frequently find that there are.significantly sharp differences between the way the dele-gates perceive of the proposals presented to them and the way the pro-posing me,.mbers perceive the resulting chapter mandates. They will ac-cept the mandates accord.ing to what their expectations were prior to gen- Meta-Expectations and the Chapter eral chapter. Even in the Church today there is a growing sense that religious in-stitutes are experiencing very serious differences in the way the mem-bership perceives the outc0me of general chapters. This is partially due to the way general chapters often conduct their prechapter preparations and the way that Chapters of Affairs are conducted. These differences in perception and interpretation area result of the failure to differentiate between the reasonable expectations and the meta-expectations of the in-stitute's membership. This failure further fragments the members and their acceptance of the mandates and authority of the chapter. In this paper I will try to clarify what are reasonable expectations for a general chapter, and to show the difference between reasonable expec-tations and meta-expectations and how they influence the general chap-ter, Conflict between these two kinds of expectations can exist whenever expectations of any kind are elicited and aroused. For example, if one is invited to dinner, it is all right to expect something to eat but it is not reasonable to expect filet of beefi That is a meta-expectation, and while it may not be wrong to hold such a meta-expectation, it certainly is not reasonable; nor need the host meet it. Neither should the one holding such a meta-expectation be disappointed or offended if the host does not ~erve filet! More relevant to our discussion are the expectations religious have about their general chapters especially when preparations for them evoke strong expectations among the members as well as among the delegates. As I gtated above, two. of the things which ought to be simultane-ously evolving in the months prior to a chapter are how to identify and clarify the proper content for consideration and how to prepare both dele-gates and members to be able to differentiate between meta-expectations and reasonable expectations. It is reasonable for members of a religious institute to e£pect its gen-eral chapter to ~nandate programs for renewal, for spiritual development, for apostoli6 works, and for good community life. But it is not.reason-able to (xpect it to'decide how the membership ought to rest and relax, even thou'gti such matters are very important and time arid thou~ht~ought to be given to their consideration. It is as unreasonable for the member-ship to expect this to be considered as it would 'be for the general chap-ter to consider it---even if some of the delegates want it added to the agenda. The business of a general chapter is to redesign the future of the institute as it finds itself called to reveal Christ to the world in its con-temporary situation. This is its first-order work and is the only claim any- Review for Religious, January-February 1989 one can reasonably make on a general chapter. If the institute is true to its charism, the general chapter will succeed in fulfilling reasonable ex-pectations, and a newly elected leadership, or a reelected leadership, will be confirmed and authorized in working together to find ways and means to carry out what the chapter has mandated. In doing so, general administration should act in such a way that it further clarifies the difference between reasonable expectations and meta-expectations. Acting thus after the chapter assures continuity as well as flexibility in the institute's lived-out charism, since it preserves the in-tegrity of the institute's constitutions even while assuring versatility in their application to the reality that presents itself here and now.~ After all, it is in the real world that the institute exists, and its contemporary situation should be the focus of the institute's energies if it is to survive. If, however, the general chapter takes into consideration everything sub-mitted to it, the real essence of the institute's life becomes obscured. In addition, every proposal presented to the chapter contains its own par-ticular character and language which force the delegates to unpack its meaning before addressing the issue it contains. By sifting out the recta-expectations from the agenda, the delegates will be freed to concentrate on the constitutions and charism of the institute and to interpret the con-temporary situation in light of the Gospels for the world the institute is called to serve. There is good evidence that the bishops did this in Vatican II docu-ments. The document Lumen Gentium shows that they were aware of their .responsibility to separate out the recta-expectations from the rea-sonable ones.2 Their emphasis was on common-good considerations. Common-good considerations evolve from whatever the community has in common, not from things incidental to it. I believe this is why the docu-ments are clearly and straightforwardly parousial (expectant), so fitting for a Church in labor to reveal Christ to the world. For religious insti-tutes, the emphasis should also be on the common good, that is, on what the institute holds in common and what it shares as an institute in labor to reveal Christ to the world. For religious, this is found in their consti-tutions and in the charism of its founding. The document Perfectae Cari-tatis expresses the expectation of the Church about what it believes re-ligious institutes are called to be: Religious should carefully consider that through them, to believers and nonbelievers alike, the Church truly wishes to give an increasingly clearer revelation of Christ. Through them Christ should be shown con-templating on the mountain, announcing God's kingdom to the multi- Meta-Expectations and the Chapter / 35 tude, healing the sick and the maimed, turning sinners to wholesome fruit, blessing children, doing good to all, and always obeying the will of the Father who sent him.3 Rather than stating the expectations of religious, the document states what it is the Church expects of the religious institutes. This sense of expectation is not alien to either the Old or New Tes-taments. Scriptures retell the sacred history of a people filled with ex-pectation for a Messiah. For some, that expectation was misplaced or mis-focused so that when the Messiah came, when the expectation was ful-filled, they did not recognize it. Likewise, the message of Christ was clearly a statement of what it was he expected of us as we await his sec-ond coming. It is this same degree of expectation which is the ground-ing for religious institutes coming into being in the first place, that is, to reveal Christ to others even as we await (expect) his second coming. At this time some institutes are preparing for their chapter. A great deal of preparation will take place, I am sure. Included in that prepara-tion should be some education on what constitutes reasonable expecta-tions for the membership to have and how to express those expectations in proposals, letters, and prechapter committee work. I believe that some of the meta-expectations expressed prior tochapter in proposals to the general chapter are the result of excessive reliance on congregational and personal self-analyses which, in turn, rely too heavily on current statis-tics, social analysis, and popular trends. This tendency is best described as the historicist versus the historical view of events.4 Both views are needed but if they are not balanced, the religious institutes are robbed of either their historical tradition and dynamism (charism) or of insights derived from knowledge of the cultural and intellectual shifts occurring in society. Needless to say, I believe the omission of either is wrong. In fact, one of the tasks of the general chapter is to ensure that the bal-ance between both perspectives is maintained. Furthermore, an advan-tage to holding the Chapter of Election after the Chapter of Affairs is to ensure that the elected leadership is committed to carrying out the man-date of the general chapter and to the mission of the institute visible in its charism. The business of meta-expectations derailing expectations occurs daily in society--in the system of justice, in education, in government and other natural systems. It ought to occur less frequently in religious institutes if they are open to the Spirit unfolding in them. One other example of the distinction between meta-expectations and Review for Religious, January-February 1989 expectations might clarify what I am saying. In a religious institute mem-bers may experience some dissatisfaction with the missioning process, and all kinds of proposals expressing both meta-expectations and expec-tations emerge. The dissatisfaction is with the process and not with the people doing the job. Instead of focusing on the dissatisfaction, the dele-gates begin, as a result of some meta-expectations, to design new roles and functions for the persons charged with missioning when they ought to have seriously looked at the process and analyzed the cause of dis-content. The process is in need of change; failure to redesign it changes nothing, and future chapters will find themselves still dealing with dis-content about the process. Sometimes an issue is finally resolved but only after it has resurfaced in several chapters. One cannot be sure, however, that the ultimate resolution flows from reasonable expectations or not. What is certain is that if it is the result of meta-expectation something of the institute's charism is diminished. A model for expectations showing the process involved in discern-ment of the kinds of things which happen as a result of responses pro-vided in proposals follows: -Perception: dissatisfaction with missioning process -Response: a change is needed in the process In this model the response is a ~reasonable expectation for members to have. The model also lends itself to scrutiny by the delegates who will then test various recommendations made in the context of chapter to see how they relate to the charism and spirituality of the institute. In doing this, no special interest or meta~expectation will drive the final outcome. After chapter, the information and proposals not used in chapter can be given additional study and perhaps even be used for input into some ad hoc trial period of experimentation. A second model based on meta-expectations follows: -Perception: dissatiSfaction with missioning process -Response: establishment of new roles for persons charged with process The response in this case is the fulfillment of a meta-expectation since it begins to deal with m'any different aspects of the dissatisfaction. The issue is clearly defined as dissatisfaction with the process; then the charism and spirituality of the institute should dictate the solution. The response in this model is expressive of one of the many meta-expecta-tions expressed, all of which are not substantively, relative to the insti-tute's charism and spirituality. This model is provided as example; it is not a definitive model. Religious institutes can substitute ever so many examples which violate their own particular charism. This is not to say Meta-Expectations and the Chapter / 37 that it is wrong to have the vision to redesign the institute or to follow "paths unknown." What this paper is addressing is the growing aware-ness among religious that somewhere things are going amiss and worse, that it is becoming increasingly more difficult for the institute to recog-nize its own charism and spirituality at work in the Church for which it is called to reveal Christ and through him the Father. In this brief essay I have tried to make a distinction between the jus-tifiable and reasonable expectations one might have for a general chap-ter and the meta-expectations one might have, which are not reasonable for a general chapter to consider in its deliberations, no matter how at-tractive or relevant those meta-expectations appear. NOTES ~ Bernard J.F. Lonergan, S.J., Insight: A Study of Human Understanding. London. 1958. passim. 2 Walter M. Abbot, S.J. (ed.), The Documents of Vatican !!, p. 225, n. 26. All ref-erences to the Documents are taken from here. 3 Documents, p. 77, n. 46. 4 For an insightful account of the distinction between historicism and historicalism, read Bernard J.F. Lonergan, S.J., Method In Theology: London, 1971. pp. 323- 326, 239, 318. See also the works of Wilhelm Dilthey and Ernest Troeltsch; Maurice Mandelbaum. Enc. Phil., 4:22-25. Thomas Merton and His Own Cistercian Tradition M. Basil Pennington, O.C.S.O. Father Basil's most recent article in this journal was "Simple Contemplative Prayer" (March/April 1987). He now resides at Assumption Abbey; Rt. 5, Box 193; Ava, Missouri 65608. I presume most of the readers of this essay are fairly familiar with the life and development of Thomas Merton. In the last pages of the Secular Jour-nal, Merton sums up his spiritual journey towards the Church and mon-astery: From Gilson's Spirit of Medieval Philosophy I learned a healthy respect for Catholicism. Then Ends andMeans taught me to respect mysticism. Maritain's Art and Scholasticism was another important influence, and Blake's poetry. Perhaps also Evelyn Underhill's Mysticism, though I read precious little of it. I was fascinated by the Jesuit sermons in Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man! What horrified him, began to appeal to me. It seemed to me quite sane. Finally G. F. Lahey's Life of Gerard Manley Hopkins; I was reading about Hopkins's conver-sion when 1 dropped the book and ran out of the house to look for Fa-ther Ford. ~ It is not surprising that this author would be influenced primarily by authors and their books. In a preface to A Thomas Merton Reader, published in 1962, six years before his tragic death, Merton summed up his monastic years: I would say that my life at Gethsemani has fallen roughly into four pe-riods. First, the novitiate. I was a novice in 1942-1944. Those were hard years, before the days when radiators were much in favor during the win-ter, when the hours of communal prayer were much longer, when the 38 Merton and Cistercian Tradition fasts were much stricter. It was a period of training, and a happy, aus-tere one; during which 1 wrote little. The best Gethsemani poems be-long to this period. At the end of the novitiate my health broke down and I was ap-pointed to write and do translations of French books and articles. I was also studying philosophy and theology in preparation for ordination to the priesthood. This second period extends from 1944, my first vows, to ordination in 1949. At first the writing was very bad . In 1946 I wrote Seven Storey Mountain, in 1947 Seeds of Contemplation, and in 1948 The Waters of Siloe. After ordination, in 1949, there was an-other brief period of poor health and nervous exhaustion. I was almost incapable of writing for at least a year and a half after I became a priest. Then after a rest period in the hospital, I wrote The Ascent to Truth and Bread in the Wilderness (both about 1951) and finished The Sign of Jonas, 1952. In 1951 1 was appointed the Master of Scholastics, that is, of the young monks studying for ordination in the monastery. This en-tailed a fair amount of work preparing conferences and classes. Books like The Living Bread and particularly No Man is an Island and The Si-lent Life belong to the end of this period. Finally, a fourth stage. In 1955 I was made Master of the Choir Nov-ices. This is an office involving considerable work and responsibility. No writing of any account was done in ! 956, but after that it was possi-ble to produce short books or collections of essays, and some poetry. Disputed Questions, The Wisdom of the Desert, The Behavior of Titans, and New Seeds of Contemplation belong to this last period. So too do more recent essays on nuclear war, on Chinese thought, on liturgy, and on solitude.2 It is notable that in all of this literary reminiscing, Merton does not mention specifically any Cistercian Father or any of the work he did con-cerning them. Actually he does not seem to have had any contact with the Cistercian tradition prior to entering the monastery. But, in fact, once he entered the Cistercian life he so immersed himself in it that it became the very matrix of his life and .thinking. In his early days as he was as-similating Cistercian spirituality, Merton wrote about the Cistercian Fa-thers explicitly. When he served the community as Master of Scholastics and as Novice Master, he spoke about them constantly; his notes and his taped conferences are full of them. Later they cropped up spontaneously in his writings, the paradigm against which he evaluated what he was then absorbing. One of his favorites would find his place in the final talk Merton gave a few hours before his sudden death.3 When Merton first entered the monastery, there was, as he said in the epilogue of The Spirit of, Simplicity,4 little of the Cistercian Fathers 40 / Review for Religious, January-February 1989 available in English.5 But this did not hinder him. He not only found no problem in reading the Latin texts in Migne, he strongly believed that translations always lacked something of the origin~il.6 How carefully he studied these texts is witnessed not only by his frequent use of quota-tions from them in his early writings and the talks he gave his scholas-tics and novices, but also by the .und.erlinings and annotations found in the voit]mes of the Fathers which he used. One of Thomas Merton's-- or Frater Louis, as he was then called-- earliest assignments was to translate a.report from the CisterCian Gen-eral Chapter, entitled The Spirit of Simplicity,7 and provide a suitable in-troduction for it. He'not only did that but gathered a complementary selection of texts from St. Bernard on interior simplicity in its fullness. He translated these and commented on them, turning the report into a full book. This part of the The Spirit of Simplicity has recently been published in a volume in the Cistercian Studies Series with two other early Bernar-dine essays of Merton.8 He wrote a five-part study of Bernard and St. John of the Cross for Collectanea which expresses his concern of that period when he was writing The Ascent to Truth .9 We can detect in these essays a certain struggle Merton was experiencing in trying to respond both to the rich, fully human patristic heritage Bernard offered him and the exciting, stimulating, scholastic approach which John of the Cross was able to integrate with a high mystical theology. It wbuld be Ber-nard's approach that would win him over. In the prologue to The Sign of Jonas he would write: "I found in writing The Ascent to Truth that technical language, though it is univer-sal and certain and accepted by theologians, .does not reach the average man and does not convey what is more personal and most vital in relig-ious experience. Since my focus is not upon dogmas as such, but only on their repercussions in the life of a soul in which they begin to find concrete realization, I may be pardoned for using my own words to talk about my own soul." ~0 The third piece in the Cistercian Studies volume witnesses to another early concern of Merton--the superiority of thecontemplative life. In an extensive essay which was first published serially in ~Collectanea and later appeared as a volume in French,~ Merton is at pains to establish that the apostolic life, though it may have a fullness beyond the purely contemplative life, as Bernard ,acknow!edges,.has true:value only inso-far as it flows out of contemplation. And thus the contemplative life is in itself more important or of greater dignity. Merton's~argumentation Merton and Cistercian Tradition here is not all that easy to follow, nor that cogent. Later he himself would comment negatively about such preoccupation.~2 The eighth centenary of Bernard's death led to a spate of publishing on the saint. Merton translated the papal encyclical produced for the oc-casion and wrote an introduction to it. ~3 He was invited to introduce other works. His preface to Bernard de Clairvaux, a collection of studies pub-lished by the Historical Commission of his order and edited by its chair-man, Father Jean-de-la-Croix Bouton, shows the increasing influence of Bernard on Merton.~4 The piece is filled with scriptural texts and allu-sions. We might.say it is a very Bernardine piece about Bernard. In line with his earlier concentration, Merton sees that Bernard added to the Cis-tercian reform "an emphatic call to contemplative union with God." ~5 At the same time Merton begins to reveal a more integral understanding of Bernard as a "man of his times . . . a many-sided saint." 16 This is further in evidence in the next piece. His .introduction to Bruno Scott James's translation of the letters of St. Bernard, he considered important. ~7 At his behest it was included in A Thomas Merton Reader in the section ".Mentors and Doctrines."~8 It revealed Thomas Merton's growth in his appreciation for Bernard in line with his own personal growth. Merton had had his experience on the cor-ner of Maple and Fourth. He now beheld all with a greater integrity. He had a new .appreciation for Bernard the man. H~e appreciated the letters because they so well brought out the human dimension of the great saint: They [the letters] show the man as he is, and because he is so much a man, readers who forget that saints must be men may sometimes be in-clined to question his saintliness . Bernard is sent to instruct us how human a saint must be to forge'out the will of God in the heat of the affairs of men . He had the humility to be himself in the thick of a silly argument. He had the good grace to admit that a saint might pos-sibly have to bicker with another saint . The angry Bernard, the pas-sionate Bernard . . . the merciful Bernard, the gentle long-suffering monk who could be as tender as a mother . 19 As Merton noted in his brief literary biography quoted above, liturgy came more to the fore in a later period of his life. In Seasons of Cele-bration he published one of his most beautiful pieces on St. Bernard: "The Sacrament of Advent in the Spirituality of St. Bernard.' ,20 It is undoubtedly St. Bernard, the "Theologian of the Cistercian Life" (as Merton's friend Jean Leclercq would name him), who received the most attention from Merton. Besides Bernard's prominence as the mas-ter of the Cistercian school, there would be the influence of Gilson. As 42 / Review for Religious, January-February 1989 we have seen above, Gilson was one of the first to open the way for Mer-ton towards Catholicism. Merton's respect for him never diminished, and his masterful work The Mystical Theology of Saint BerndrdZ~ was most carefully studied and wholly accepted by Merton.22 But Merton read all the significant Cistercian Fathers, and spoke and wrote on them as occa-sion offered. The "Bernard of the North," Bernard's disciple, the abbot of Rievaulx, Aelred, received special attenti.on. Merton has an extensive un-published piece on him, which looks like it was on the way to becoming a book. We can hope it will. soon appear in Cistercian Studies. It is an important piece, and I shall return to it later in this esgay. As one of his first projects for Cistercian Publications, Merton wrote an introduction for Father Amfd6e Hallier's Monastic Theology of Aelred of Rievaulx. Here again we see the later Merton rejecting earlier attitudes: Let us be quite clear the monastic theology of Aelred is not a partisan "theology of monasticism." It is not an apologia for .the life of the monk, and not a kind of gnostic system organized to prove some sup-posed superiority of "the contemplative life," urging a flight to ineffa-ble convulsions,z3 He saw that "the Christian life is, for Aelred, simply the full flow-ering of freedom and consent in the perfection of friendship. Friendship with other human beings is an epiphany of friendship with God." Mer-ton notes that "Not so long ago, some of Aelred's books were kept un-der lock and key in Trappist libraries. ,,24 Merton never wrote a particular essay on Bernard's closest friend, William of Saint Thierry, but he considered him "a profound and origi-nal theologian and a contemplative in his own right."25 He dedicated one of his first books to him, "one of the saints and mystical theologians of the Golden Age," and quoted him extensively in the foreword.26 In regard to the fourth of the evangelists of Citeaux, Guerric of Igny, we have the opportunity to get a sampling of Merton's more ordinary treat-ment of the Cistercian Fathers in his talks to the juniors at Gethsemani. Sister Bernard Martin of Chimay transcribed two of Merton's talks which had been taped and published the transcription in Cistercian Studies in 1972.27 For Merton, "Guerric was really deep and very spiritual and very mystical."28 And as Merton.opens him up for his novices, he is also very much alive, very practical and down to earth. It is in these intimate talks that we best see how the Cistercian Fathers reverberated in the mind and heart of this twentieth-century Cistercian Father. Merton and Cistercian Tradition There is a more formal treatment of Guerric of Igny and his liturgi-cal sermons in Merton's introduction to the Gethsemani Christmas book for 1959: Sister Rose of Lima's translation of Guerric's Christmas ser-mons. 29 Other Cistercian Fathers turn up in Merton's published writings. There are poems about St, Alberic3° and St. Malachy.3! When Cister-cian Studies began publishing Sister Penelope's translation of the ser-mons of Isaac of Stella, Merton provided an introduction for this "not the least interesting of the Cistercian writers."32 He found him a "more independent thinker and less subject to the dominant influence of Saint Bernard''33, whose writings reminded him "at times of Eckhart in their tone."34 Merton's spirit resonated with this abbot who withdrew from a large and important Cistercian abbey to an erernus, a poor and lonely island foundation. Merton provided an introduction for another Cistercian Father, one of his favorites, Adam of Perseigne.35 Earlier he had written about Adam's theory of monastic formation in an essay that was published in Charles Dumont's French translation.36 Adam was for Merton something of a mentor in his duties as novice master, and his admiration for the ab-bot of Perseigne remained till the end. In his final talk at Bangkok he brings him forth to illustrate a basic monastic theory.37 When the earlier essay was further developed, Merton gave it a new title, one that wit-nessed to his own development: The Feast of Freedom. Adam, Aelred, all the great Cistercian Fathers led Merton in the same direction. But Merton did not have an unbounded admiration for all the twelfth-century Cistercian writers, Here is an example, Gamier of Langres: Gamier was not deep and not spiritual and not mystical. He was a literal-minded person with a lot of learning. As a matter of fact he is quite in-teresting, On the liturgy, he has a lot of little statements about what they did at the time and what they thought they were doing and why they did it. But these are just little statements of historical fact. Today Gamier would be a scientific-minded critic. "But a scientific-minded critic in the Middle Ages is just about zero, because he has nothing to work on . He's finished, he's dated, he's way back. He is no more modern than 'a twelfth-century concept of the universe.38 He goes so far as to say: "His work., is not in English at all, and if it never gets translated into English that won't be too soon.' ,39 This does, though, give, us another indication as to the extent to which Merton worked his way through the pages of Migne4° and ex-plored all the published writings of the early Cistercian Fathers. 44 / Review for Religious, January-February 1989 Above I have mentioned the monograph that Merton was working on entitled "Saint Aelred of Rievaulx." This is a significant piece of work. In placing Aelred in context Merton gives a fine synopsis of Cis-tercian history and especially literary history from the foundation in 1098 up till the death of Becket (+ 1170). But I think one of the valuable ele-ments of this work is the insight that Merton has as a later Cistercian writer into these early Cisterclan writers. Indeed, as I read the pertinent section I ask.myself if this is not a candid insight into Merton himself as a Cistercian writer: ¯ . . the rich and elegant vitality of Cistercian prose--most of which is sheer poetry--betrays an overflow 0( literary productivity which did not even need to strive for its effects: it achieved them, as it were, sponta-neously. It seemed to be second nature to St. Bernard, William of St. Thierry, Adam of Perseigne, Guerric of lgny, to write with consummate beauty prose full of sound and color and charm, There were two natural explanations for this. The first is that the prolific Cistercian writers of the Golden Age were men who had already been thoroughly steeped in the secular literary .movements of the time before they entered the clois-ter. All of them had rich experience of the current of humanism that flow-ered through the twelfth-century renaissance . There is a second explanation for the richness and exuberance of theo-logical prose in twelfth-century monasteries of Citeaux. If contact with classical humanism had stimulated a certain intellectual vitality in these clerics, it hlso generated a conflict in their souls. The refined natural ex-citements produced by philosophical speculation, by art, poetry, music, by the companionship of restless sensitive and intellectual friends merely unsettled their souls. Far from finding peace and satisfaction in all these things, they found war. The only answer to the problem was to make a clean break with everything that stimulated this spiritual uneasiness, to withdraw from the centers in which it was fomented, and get away somewhere, discover some point of vantage from which they could see the whole difficulty in its proper perspective. This vantage point, of course, was not only the cloister, since Ovid and Tully had already be-come .firmly established' there, but the desert--the terra invia et inaquosa in which the Cistercian labored and suffered and prayed . The tension generated by the conflict between secular humanism and the Christian humanism, which seeks the fulfillment of human nature through ascetic renunciation and mystical union with God, was one 6f the proximate causes of the powerful mystical writing of the Cistercians. , However, once these two natural factors have been considered, we must recognize other and far more decisive influences, belonging to a higher order . It is the relish and savor that only experience can Merton and Cistercian Tradition give, that communicates to the writings of the twelfth-century Cister-cians all the vitality and vividness and impassioned sincerity which are peculiarly their own . The White Monks speak with accents of a more personal and more lyrical conviction that everywhere betrays the influence of an intimate and mystical experience . It is the personal, experiential character of Cistercian mysticism that gives the prose of the White Monks its vivid freshness . Since the theology of the Cistercians was so intimately persona! and experiential, their exposition of it was bound to take a psychological di-rection. All that they wrote was directed by their keen awareness of the presence and action of God in their souls. This was their all-absorbing interest.4~ Many scholars have noted that Merton's writings show a rather su-perficial knowledge of the Eastern religions. But when I traveled in the East and spoke with the spiritual masters there who had come into con-tact with Merton on his last journey, they said they had never met any-one from the West who had so fully understood their ways. I think the same might be said of Merton and the Cistercian Fathers. Certainly many scholars know more about the Fathers and the early history of the Cis-tercian order. But few, if any, so fully understand their spirit as does this twentieth-century Cistercian Father. Moreover, no one has been able to express so fully and clearly, and in a way that communicates to our times, what these Fathers have to say to our times and to the renewal of the Cistercian order. Cistercians cannot but profit from choosing Tho-mas Merton, their F.ather Louis, for their lectio, from spending time with him and letting him lead them into a deeper, fuller understanding and appreciation of their Cistercian Fathers. NOTES ~ Thomas Merton, The Secular Journal ofThomas Merton (New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1959), pp. 268f. 2 A Thomas Merton Reader, ed. by Thomas McDonnell (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1962), pp. viiif. 3 Adam of Perseigne. See The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton (New York: New Directions, 1973), p. 333. 4 The Spirit of Simplicity: Characteristic of the Cistercian Order (Trappist, Ken-tucky: Abbey of Gethsemani, 1948). 5 Ibid., p. 137. Merton played an important role in remedying this situation in the part he played in the founding of Cistercian Publications, which has now published more than forty volumes of the Cistercian Fathers in English. 6 Reader, p. 317. 46/Review for Religious, January-February 1989 7 See note 4 above. 8 Thomas Merton on Saint Bernard, Cistercian Studies Series (hereafter CS), vol. 9 (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Cistercian Publications, 1980), pp. 103-157. 9 New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1951. ~0 Thomas Merton, The Sign of Jonas (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1953), pp. 8f. ~ Marthe, Marie, et Lazare (Bruges: Desclee de Brouwer, 1956). ~2 In the preface to A Thomas Merton Reader he would write: ". it would be a still greater misapprehension to say I am simply trying to prove that the contempla-tive life is 'better than the active life,' . Not only am I not trying to prove these propositions, but stated in this bald and unqualified manner, I do not even hold them. It is true that fifteen years ago I was able to get excited about such theses, but I have come to see that controversy about speculative matters of this sort is not only a waste of time but is seriously misleading. We are all too prone to believe in our own pro-grams and to follow the echo of our own slogans into a realm of illusion and unreal-ity"( p, viii). 13 The Last of the Fathers (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1954). ~4 Bernard of Clairvaux (Paris: Editions Alsatia, 1953). It was later published in The Tablet and Cross and Crown and in Disputed Questions (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1960),.pp. 260-276, under the title "St. Bernard, Monk and Apostle." ~5 Disputed Questions, p. 263. 16 Ibid., p. 262. ~7 Bruno Scott James, St. Bernard of Clairvaux Seen Through his Selected Letters (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1953), pp. v-viii. ~8 Reader, pp. 315-319. 19 Reader, pp. 316f. zo Seasons of Celebration (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1965), pp. 61-87. z~ New York: Sheed and Ward, 1955. 22 There is a copy of Gilson's work in the Merton Center at Columbi~ University with Merton's underlining and marginalia which indicate the care with which he stud-ied this book. 23 Am~d~e Hallier, The Monastic Theology ofAelred ofRievaulx, tr. by Colum-ban Heaney, CS 2 (Spencer, Massachusetts: Cistercian Publications, 1969), p. viii. 2,~ Ibid., pp. xif. 25 "Saint Aelred of Rievaulx," MSS, p. 20. ??26ft2The Spirit of Simplicity, pp. vf. 27 Thomas Merton, "Guerric of lgny's Easter Sermons" in Cistercian Studies, vol. 7 (1972), pp. 85-95. 28 Ibid., p. 85. 29 The Christmas Sermons of Blessed Guerric of lgny, tr. by Sr. Rose of Lima (Trap-pist, Kentucky: Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, 1959), pp. 1-25. 30 "Saint Alberic" in Selected Poems of Thomas Merton (New York~ New Direc-tions, 1959), pp. 44f. 3~ Ibid., pp. 75ff. This poem is reproduced in the Reader, pp. 177f. 32 Louis Merton, "Isaac of Stella: An Introduction to Selections from his Sermons," in Cistercian Studies, vol. 2 (1967), p. 243. 33 Ibid. 3,~ Ibid., p. 244. 35 "The Feast of Freedom: Monastic Formation according to Adam of Perseigne," Merton and Cistercian Tradition in The Letters of Adam ofPerseigne, vol. 1, tr. by Grace Perigo, Cistercian Fathers Series, no. 21 (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Cistercian Publications, 1976), pp. 3-48. 36 "La formation monastique selon Adam de Perseigne," in Collectanea Ordinis Cisterciensium Reformatorum, vol. 19 (1957), pp. 1-17. 37 The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton (New York: New Directions, 1973), p. 333. 38 "Guerric . . . Easter Sermons," pp. 85f. 39 Ibid. 40 He read Garnier in Patrologia Latina, vol. 205. 4~ MSS. pp. 10-17. Liturgy of the Hours: A Canticle for Canticles Three canticles encompass all our praise: Three sacred songs of trusting love and hope. At dawn there breaks upon us like the sun, Old Zechariah's paean to God's work. At dusk, like Vesper star, young Mary sings Magnificat for mercy to us all. Then at day's end in darkness gently fall Old Simeon's thankful words, as clear and bright As Compline candles glowing in the dark To mark the end of day, perhaps of life: To let God's servants go in peace to him. Three son~s that with their jeweled antiphons, Like winking diamonds, daily bring delight As we lift hearts at dawn, at dusk, at night. Maryanna Childs, O.P. Ohio Dominican College 1818 Sunbury Road Columbus, Ohio 43219 The Challenge of Church Teachings: How Do I Respond? Lucy Blyskal, C.S.J. Sister Lucy Blyskal, C.S.J., has a doctorate in canon law and is a diocesan judge on the Tribunal of the diocese of Rockville Centre, New York. Her article is the fruit of her canon law dissertation on the Church's teaching authority. Her address is Tri-bunal of the Diocese of Rockville Centre; 50 North Park Avenue; Rockville Centre, New York 11570. In view of the increasing number of official Church pronouncements on many debated issues, how can today's religious keep informed and re-flect intelligently on such statements? How does one discern and listen to the Spirit of the teaching Church and the Spirit within oneself? The purpose of this article, comprised of two parts, is to help us to respond appropriately to papal and episcopal documents. The first sec-tion discusses three main aspects of the Church's teaching authority: (I) the truths of the faith as given to the ff.hgle.Church; (2) the concept of infallible Church teaching; (3) the noninfallible teaching and the response owed to it by the faithful. The second part offers the reader a practical method for analyzing doctrinal statements, and then applies this method to evaluate three somewhat controversial doctlments issued recently. Hopefully, this information will lead to a deepened knowledge and love of the faith which ought to transform our hearts and impel us to serve justice and peace in the world. Part I: Church Teaching Authority Revelation as Given to the Whole Church To set the correct context for'a discussion of teaching authority, it is important to keep in mind that the Church is fundamentally a commu- 48 Challenge of Church Teachings / 49 nity of faith and witness which worships God in Jesus Christ and bears witness to the Church's divinely given message throughout the world. Because Christ handed over the deposit of revelation to the whole Church, it is in the possession of the whole body of Spirit-empowered people, not just the hierarchy. While Scripture calls Peter the "rock" on which the Church was to be built, it never refers to him or the twelve apostles as "the Church." Thus, to speak of "the Church" as having done something when in fact an office or official is the source is theo-logic. ally incorrect; one should name the office involved, for example, "the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith stated . "~ In its doctrine on infallibility, Vatican I carefully and explicitlyaf-firmed that the deposit of revelation is with the whole Church. The text of Vatican I names the Church as the primary subject of infallibility in stating that: "the Roman Pontiff. enjoys the infallibility with which the divine Redeemer wanted his'Church to be endowed in defining doc-trine concerning faith or morals."2 Vatican II in The Constitution on the Church (article 12) clearly reitera.ted that, thanks to a supernatural sense of faith which characterizes the People of God, "the body of faithful as a whole, anointed as they are by the Holy One (see Jn 2:20, 27) can-not err in matters of belief." Since all believers possess, can perceive, and have insights into the Christian revelation, what is the specific task and charism of the hierar-chy? By Christ's will, the disciples were commissioned: (I) to be his "witnesses. to the end of the earth" (Ac !:8); (2) to "go and teach all nations" (Mt 28:19) his full revelation, under the guidance of his Spirit. (1) The chief vocation of the disciples and their successors is "to witness" to the integrity and truth of the evangelical doctrine. This call to witness does not necessarily include the capacity to have and to ar-ticulate the deepest insights into the meaning of the mysteries of our faith,3 which is a special gift. It is noteworthy that this gift has produced some of the most significant developments in the understanding of the faith not in members of the hierarchy but in such persons as Thomas Aqui-nas, honored as the common teacher of the Church, and Teresa of Av-ila, named doctor of the spiritual life. (2) Because of Christ's command to his disciples to "teach all na-tions," the Christian community from its earliest days has also recog-nized the importance of an authoritative teaching body to maintain inner unity as the gospel was being spread. By Christ's will, this teaching authority, termed the "magisterium," belongs to the hierarchy who are 50 / Review for Religious, January-February 1989 sacramentally empowered and assisted by the Spirit to speak in the name of.Jesus Christ. Therefore, Catholics are to trust what pope and bishops teach, not because of their personal learning or stated reasons for their teaching, but precisely because of the spiritual authority of the office they occupy.4 Infallible Teaching Authority Vatican Council I first defined the infallible teaching authority of the Church as an article of faith in promulgating the dogmatic constitution Pastor Aeternus in 1870.5 While it reaffirmed this dogma of Vatican I, Vatican Council II integrated it into the doctrine on the collegiality of the bishops united with the pope and the doctrine of the Church as the People of God (Constitution on the Church, articles 12, 18, 25). Article 25 of this constitution6 states that when the pope or the episcopal col-lege (pope and bishops together) solemnly,proclaim matters of faith and morals, they are protected by the Spirit of Christ from misleading the peo-ple by teaching erroneous doctrine; hence their teaching is infallible. Several conditions need to be fulfilled for a teaching to be consid-ered infallible. First, the doctrine must deal with a matter of faith or mor-als. Second, it must be proclaimed by a duly authorized Church teacher as binding on the universal Church. Finally, it must be proclaimed "to be definitively held" by all Catholics as a dogma of faith. This infalli-ble teaching authority has been exercised only rarely since its cautious and circumscribed definition by Vatican Council I. More recently, the Constitution of the Church and the 1983 Code of Canon Law7 describe three ways in which this infallible magisterium can be exercised. (I) The pope may issue a solemn or ex cathedra pronouncement. Ac-cording to Vatican Council I, popes possess and can articulate the infal-libility with which the Divine Redeemer endowed his Church for defini-tive decisions in matters of faith and morals. For example, Pope Pius XII proclaimed the dogma of the Assumption by the bull Mun~ficentissimus issued November i, 1950. (2) The episcopal college may act solemnly in ecumenical councils. In ecumenical councils, the episcopal college, assembled in one place, acquires a special clarity and efficacy. Here the corporate episcopate can act in a solemn manner to define an article of faith; for example, Vati-can Council I promulgated the doctrine of infallibility in Pastor Aeter-nus in 1870. (3) The episcopal college may exercise its "ordinary and universal magisterium." In their ordinary and universal magisterium, the same bish- Challenge of Church Teachings / 51 ops, without coming together in one assembly, and with each remaining at his post, can definitively set forth some doctrine for the absolute ac-ceptance oLthe entire Church. In practice it is not always easy to ascer-tain whether or not the magisterium in a given case is exercising infalli-bility through this "ordinary" manner. It has been suggested that a pos-sible example of this level of Church doctrine is the common and con-stant teaching of pope and bishops throughout the world on the moral evil of abortion. How is an infallible doctrine to be received by the faithful? Vatican II's Constitution on the Church and the 1983 Code hold that infallible teaching must be accepted with obsequium fidei, translated as the 'as-sent of faith." This assent of faith is to be absolute and unconditional because it involves divine authority which utteriy excludes the possibil-ity of error. Consequently, the obstinate denial of truths proclaimed as infallible would constitute heresy. However, various Church documents warn the faithful to receive a teaching as infallible only when it has been definitively proclaimed as such. Vatican II, for example, declared that its statements on faith or morals should be seen as binding on the Church only when the council expressly declared them as such.8 Like'vise, the new Code cautions that no doctrine is understood to~ be infallibly defined "unless this is manifestly demonstrated. ,,9 From this review of the meaning of infallible teaching, it is obvious that the great majority of doctrinal statements issued on a day-to-day ba-sis do not fit into this category. Rather, most documents seem to belong to the nondefinitive level of authority--which makes the accurate under-standing of this noninfallible teaching crucially important today. Noninfallible Church Teaching The noninfallible magisterium is the term used to refer to the follow-ing exercises of the Church's teaching office: (l) the pronouncements of the pope when he is not teaching ex cathedra; (2) the declarations of an office of the Roman See with the special approval of the doctrine by the pope as his own; (3) the declarations of a curial office with routine but not special papal approval; (4) the promulgation of a doctrine by the pope toget, l~er with the college of bishops in council; (5) the teachings of an individual bishop; (6) the pronouncements of a grouping of bishops in an episcopal conference or a particular council. In order to respond appropriately to the numerous doctrinal state-ments issued by these official teachers, one needs to understand: (I) the nature of noninfallible teaching; (2) gradations among nondefinitive teach-ings; (3) inherent difficulties. Review for Religious, January-February 1989 ( I ) The Nature of Noninfallible Teaching. Three basic principles un-derlie this exploration of the noninfallible magisterium. (a) The concepts of noninfallible Church teaching and the response owed to it are evolving concerns whose complete meanings are not yet in the Church's consciousness. ~0 Recall that the definition of infallible teaching authority (1870) took place only within the last one hundred twenty years of the Church's two thousand year existence, (b) The issues of nondefinitive Church teaching and the response owed to it are being examined and applied by a Church that is itself an evolving reality as a community and an institution. ~ (c) With the spread and evolution of the Church, there has been a concomitant growth and development of doctrine, for example, "a growth in the understanding of the realities and the words which have been handed down" (Constitution on Divine Revelation, article 8). Vati-can II reiterated in its Decree on Ecumenism that: "If there are deficien-cies in the formulation of doctrine . these should be appropriately rectified at the proper moment" (article 6). More recently, the Congre-gation for the Doctrine of the Faith for the first time officially acknowl-edged that even the Church's expression of a truth of revelation at a par-ticular age may need to b~ reformulated in a subsequent era. ~2 These of-ficial statements on the growth possible in dogmatic teaching can be ap-plied afortiori to the noninfailible level of teaching. ,Basically, it is difficult to categorize the precise nature of nondefini-tire teaching. According to Orsy, noninfallible teaching is composed of two types of doctrine in an organic unity: some changeable h~uman thoughts (often of a particular school), and incorrupt expressions of the deposit of revelation. For this reason, simplistic statements such as "non-infallible statements by ecclesiastical authorities are binding," or, "dis-sent from noninfallibly stated doctrine should be always permissible" do not recognize .the complex content of the body of noninfallible beliefs. Orsy also makes the important observation that a particular document may, and. usually does, contain a mixture of infallible and noninfallible teachings without any indication of the different levels involved. ~3 In 1967, the German bishops referred to another significant aspect of noninfallible teaching authority when they pointed out that this level of magisterium "can, and on occasion actually does fall into error." 14 Francis Sullivan, a theologian, comments that it seems impossible to fault the reasoning of the German bishops: if the nondefinitive teaching of the magisterium is not infallible, it can be erroneous and can stand in need of correction. ~5 Here the basic principle of the development of Challenge of Church Teachings doctrine comes into play. Indeed the Church has corrected or reversed its stance on a number of occasions. 16 For example, the Decree on Ecu-menism of Vatican II clearly departed from previous papal teaching re-garding the Church's negative stance on relationships with non-Catholic Christians. Another obvious example is the final lifting of the condemna-tions imposed in the celebrated "Galileo case." ~7 In their pastoral letter, the German bishops point out that the Church has always been aware of the possibility of error. They conclude, how-ever, that in order to maintain the true and ultimate substance of faith the Church officials must, even at the risk of error in points of detail, "give expression to doctrinal directives which have a certain degree of binding force." (2) Gradation Among Noninfallible Documents. The weight or gra-dation of importance of a noninfallible statement can be indicated either by the person or body issuing the teaching, or the type of literary genre of the document itself that is utilized to promulgate the teaching. (a) As noted earlier, noninfallible statements can be issued by the pope or the bishops. Since the formal authority o.f the pope and the epis-copal college exceeds that of the bishops acting individually or con-jointly, there are obviously gradations among the various teachings prom-ulgated. (b) The second criterion for ascertaining the weight of a particular ~ondefinitive pronouncement is its literary genre, or, "the nature of the document" that is utilized (Constitution on the Church, article 25). Ap-ostolic constitutions, for example, are considered the most solemn form of papal documents. Then come papal acts in the form of letters in two categories, encyclical epistles and encyclical letters, the latter form be-ing less solemn than the former. The ordinary magisterium of the pope is also found in doctrinal dec-larations of the curia, for example, of the Congregations for Doctrine and for Seminari

Issue 44.1 of the Review for Religious, January/February 1985. ; REVIEW FOR R ELIGIOUS(ISSN 0034-639X), published every two months, is edited in collaboration with the faculty members of the Department of Theological Studies of St. Louis University. The editorial offices are located at Room 428:3601 Lindell Blvd., St. Louis,-MO 63108-3393. REVIEW FOR R ELIGIOOS is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus, St. Louis, MO. © 1985 by REVIEW FOR R El.IGlOOS. Composed, printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, MO. Single copies: $2.50. Subscription U.S.A. $10.00 a year: $19.00 for two years. Other countries: add $2.00 per year (postage). For subscdpllon orders or change of address, write REVIEW FOR RELIGIOOS: P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Richard A. Hill, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Review Editor Contributing Editor Assistant Editor Jan. / Feb., 1985 Volume 44 Number 1 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to REVIEW FOR RELtGIOOS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the department "Canonical Counsel" should be addressed to Richard A. Hill, S.J.; J.S.T.B.; 1735 LeRoy Ave.; Berkeley, CA 94709. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from REvlEw FOR RELIGIOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. "Out of print" issues and articles not published as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Review for Religious ~,'olume 44, i985 Editorial Offices 3601 Lindell Boulevard, Room 428 Saint Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 . Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Iris Ann Ledden, S.~.N.D. Richard A. Hill, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Review Editor Contributing Editor Assistant Editor REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is published in January, March, May, July, September, and November on the twentieth of the month. It is indexed in the Catholic Periodical and Literature Index and in Book Review Index. A microfilm edition of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS isavailable from~University Microfilms International; Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. Copyright © 1985 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. A major portion of each issue of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is also regularly available on cassette recordings as a service for the visually impaired. Write to the Xavier Society for the Blind; 154 East 23rd Street; New York, NY 10010. Religious Life as Unchanging in a World of Change John E Whealon Archbishop Whealon of Hartford addressed the Fall Meeting of the Consortium Perfectae Caritatis in October, 19.84. He may be addressed at his office: Archdiocese of Hartford; 134 Farmingtoh ~v~nue; Hartford, CT 06105. he theme of your meeting, my dear sisters and brothers, is "Religious Life as Unchanging in a World of Change."Th~ medieval~scholastics taught us that distinctions are necessary for ~good thinking, for good logic. So I make a necessary distinction here between the essentials and the accidentals of the religious life. As a Father of the Second Vatican Council (andotherE are precious few of us left :as active bishops these days), I point,out with sortie authority that the council did call'upon religious to change--or at least to consider.changing --the accidentals ofiheir religious life. The operative text is Paragraph 2 of the council's decree Pe~fectae Caritatis, which lays in effect: "The: appropriate renewal of religious life involves two simultaneous processes: (1)'a continuous return to the sources of all Christian life and to the original inspiration behind a given community;, and (2) an adjustment of the community to the .changed conditions of the times." ~ " So the council expected every religious community to fix one eye on the Gospel and on its founder, and the other eye on the modern world, and to update those accidentals which no longer made sense in the modern world. I do think that all communities, nineteen years after that council decree, have done what they were asked to do. The real question is whether some communities have lost some of the essentials as well in their efforts to update. Returning, then, to that basic distinction, I am thinking now of religious life as "Unchanging in E~sentials in a World of Change." 3 4 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1985 I wish to do twothings this afternoon: first, to speak about these essentials; second, to read to you some quasi-private correspondence. What are the essentials for us in our living out of the Christian life? Forgive me, not a religious, for listing her~ some of the items that are essential in my life--I suspect, though, that they are quite essential in your lives as well. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew gives us the Lord's teaching about the person whose house is built on rock. It is a useful metaphor to describe the person who has certain fundamental convictions which carry through the years. Let the tides and eddies and swirls and winds come, the rock-foundation of these convictions is there, unshaken, unmoved, unaffected by what goes on around. So you and I should be solidly based on the rock of our certain convictions, on the essentials of our lives, so that we are not really shaken by what other people say or do, by the spirit of the age, by the shallow currents of our shallow times. I will now list for you five unchanging elements in this world of change. They have carried me through some years which have been very difficult for any bishop. Perhaps the listing of them will find an echo in your own lives as well. The first essential is God. As the years go on, I "become even more convinced that the incredible design in nature, the intricate and intertwined design of the human body and psyche, and the very continuation in being of this world and of us humanbeings in this world and in.life must be explained by God. How a person can go through, life and not accept a Designer, God, who alone explains life, the world, and the universe, I fail to fathom. The second essential is JeJus Christ, the climax of Revelation. By Revelation I mean that truth from God which we know frrm Scripture and the Spirit-guided Tradition of the Church. From Revelation there are many things God had not ~old us and which we can only wonder about and theorize about in theology. We know so little about heaven and ~hell and purgatory, about what Jesus Christ knew,~ about what the Blessed Mother knew, about how she came to the end of her life, about the Apostles, But we know all that we"need to know to save our souls and to lead a good and fruitfully human life --and whatwe know is summed up in one word, because it is the Word-- Jesus, our Lord. Our life isto be the imitation of that Perfect.Life: Our life is to be our acceptance of the One who is the Way, the Truth, the Life. So, as St. Paul said, life is Christ and death is Christ. In thefirst reading, from Galatians, of today's Mass we have the same lesson: we are baptized into Christ, we live totally in Christ. St. Ignatius of Antioch over eighteen centuriesago described Christ as "our inseparable life." This is what it means to have Jesus as our Lord. For us the ~iimax of God's Revelation is Jesus Christ: in what Jesus was and is, and in, what Jesus has taught us and teaches us. So this is a.second solid essential on which to base a life: Jesus Christ, after God. The third essential for living is prayer, mainly personal prayer, but also Religiou~ Life as Unchanging public or liturgical prayer. One of the standard definitions for prayer is -conversation with God. In my life prayer has not been a. conversation at all with God. My prayer is a poor, one-sided effort to speak to the Almighty and to praise the Almighty. I trust and I believe that God is listening. Prayer is a necessary dimension of living,. I believe, so that a day spent without an attempt at mental prayer, a little move towards contemplation, minutes spent in praise and thanksgiving, would be a ,day somehow lost spiritually. I know that prayer does more good for me than I will ever know, and so prayer is the third foundation for living that I list. A fourth essential is community with others. I am not a religious, but I would have a' very difficult time living alone as an anchorite or a hermit. I need to be with others who think and pray and live as I do, and that is why I live with a community of priests. It seems to me that for much the same reasons the religious life is an element in the Catholic Church that will be present until the Lord comes again. So long as the faith is strong, some will want to live out their Christian lives in a community form of life. Some will be called by God to put themselves under vbw in order to live their lives in Christ more fully, in order to do more for Christ and for his Church. So in .a world of change--and I suspect that the prominence of the electronic, media in our society will make inevitable an atmosphere of continuous change in the: years ahead--religious life will be a constant, an ever-available way of life for those with a vocation. A fifth essential element for any Catholic is the Church itself--the Catholic Church possessed, of a teaching authority or rnagisterium that is a part of the Christ's Church. We are the Church, we People of God. But we are also a Church which has a teaching authority. The Lord Jesus gave a universal shepherd and other shepherds to guide his flock. The Lord Jesus, who taught with authority, told his apostles to use his authority and to teach and baptize all nation's, even to the ends of the earth. One of the dominant characteristics of the Catholic Church is its magisterii~m. We have in the Church an authority to tell us what is right and " wrong, what is true and false, what is to be done and what is not to be done. The test of theomagisterium, and of Our acceptance of it, occurs precisely when we are told to believe something or to do something that we personally would prefer not to believe or not to do. The "obedience of faith," then, calls for some humility. And in a proud and indulgent age, neither the concepts nor the words "obedience" and "magisterium~ are very popular. So, specifically by reason of the magisterium in the Church, the Catholic today should know and hold clearly that racial discrimination is wrong, abortion is wrong, contraception is.morally wrong, liberation theology is in some forms dangerous, and ~o forth. I do not see how a person can live the Catholic life fully without following the magisterium. In saying that, I fully realize that there are distinctions which have to be made about the voice 6 '/ Review for Religious, Jan.-~eb., 1985 expressing: magisterial teachings, the clarity and loudness (so to speak) of that voice;, the.topic taught, and so forth. But my point is that the gentiine ~Catholic is to follow the teaching of pope and bishop, and not turn Somersaults so as to avoid accepting magisterial teaching. It is in the context of this acceptance, of magisterial teaching that I see the various reactions (really only two) to the Holy'Father's letter of April 3; 1983, addressed to the diocesan bishops of the United States. The Holy Father asked the bishops to: give special pastoral.service to religious in their dioceses, with a view to express gratitude for all that religious mean for the Church and also to convey concern over the future of this charism in the Church because of the decline in vocations. The papal letter mad~ reference to the Ten Essential Elements .of Religious Life and to their further explanation in an accompanying document drawn up by the Sacred Congregation for .Religious and Secular Institutes. ,, There.,has been much voiced opposition by some U.S: religious to that document and to the Ten Essential Elements. 1 have heard presentations, that go. into a lengthy exegesis of the document, that anal~,ze the mind,set, the limited world-outlook and limited theology o~ its authors, that criticize the ten points for this or that reason. I can only say to such criticisms that it seems to me to,be improper to attempt to separate the document or the Ten Essential Elements from the Holy Father. In September of last year, in company with~a hundred U.S. bishops, I made the obligatory ad limina visit to Rome and presented a quinquennial report~ on the archdiocese. In talking to me, and to,each of the.other U.S. bishops, the Holy Father asked with concern and worry about.the religioias in our dioceses and about their reaction to :his letter. On the basis of my experience, then, it seems tome that the way to read and interpret this letter is to see that the Lord's Universal Shepherd is'worried about a most.important part of the universal flock, the ireligious in the U,S.A., and wants to tell them what religious life should be: in the past, and now, and in the future. A hypercritical or narrowly analytical reading of that letter will offer, I believe, a wrong interpretation and, in view of the magistegium, not a fully Catholic reaction to it. This question of magisterium is of critical importance today for Catholics seeking to understand more fully the dimensions of their faith. During the past twenty years the underlying question in many news stories relating to Catholics has really been about magisterium. And magisterium is the real question un~derlying the recent discussion regarding two Catholic legislators and their pro-choice stance concerning abortion. I conclude this presentation by summarizing the :several points which we need to hold to as basic for living, as Christians and Catholicsand religious, in an ever-changing world: '1) God; 2) Jesus Christ as Lord; 3) prayer,or our aRempts at prayer; 4) religious community; 5) the magisterium' of~the Catholic Church Religious Life as Unehanging / 7 Come what may in future years, may we hold to these essentials and find strength as. we base our lives, build our house, on them; My second purpose this afternoon is to read to you, for whatever wisdom it holds, my answer to the Holy Father's request for special pastoral service to the Leligious of the archdiocese. A copy of this letter has been. sent to Arch-bishop John Quinn for~reference to the Pontifical Commission which he heads and the committee which he appointed. ~ , My answer was dated August 14, 1984, and reads as ~follows: Most Holy Father: This letter is in response to the request of Your Holiness to the U.S.A. diocesan bishops, asking each to give special pastoral service to the religious in the dioceses. After receiving the letter of Your Holiness, I met with either the provincial or council or community of each of the ten communities of religious with provincial houses in the Archdiocese of Hartford. With each group I discussed the esteem of Your Holiness for these religious, your concern for their future, and religious vocations, and their experience of renewal after the Second Vatican Council as seen in the light of the ten "Essential Elements." ~ I learned that of the ten communities, seven [and here I list,,their names] see the ten essentials as expressing their religious life. Most of these have already had their constitutions approved. Of the ten communities three have experienced renewal in. a different way. In general they have experienced a reduction of centralized and local authority In favor of a more collegial approach, an openness to difference and individual apostolates, a willingness to permit smaller groups to live apart from the larger community, and.a replacement of religious garb with a simple secular dress. In these three.communities, however, a minority of the community has kept the religious garb and traditional customs. These are mainly older members of the community. From these interviews, and from meetings with religious outside the Archdiocese, I conclude: 1. We have today in the U.S.A. two sharply different approaches to religious life. The one approach follows the Ten Essentials. The other approach follows some of the Ten Essentials, but has adopted a noticeably more democratic approach to authority, work, living arrangements and religious garb. 2. These two approaches' are irreconcilable. There is a painful division between the two groups, and a more painful division within a community in which the leadership and most younger members have followed a progressive approach to renewal, while most of the older members have remained conservative.* 3. Some; not all, consei'vative communities are growing. The more progressive communities, our largest communities of women, are Review .for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1985 showing no growth. 4. Because of these two different approaches to religious life, there is widespread confusion about the identity of religious life. 5. The progressive group,, includes many of our best, brightest, most dedicated religious. Their lifestyle and works of religion are to the credit of their community and Chui'ch. And that they are not growing in numbers is cause for lamentation. 6. The progressive group is concerned that its approach to renewal will be judged as not valid, and they will lose their status as religious in the Church. One answer to this is that they have .already effectively ~ converted the community to the status of a secular institute. The picture is extraordinarily complex. My best thinking is that the Holy See could respond in two possible ways: 1. Following the Gamaliel~principle, do nothing. In fifteen years, a brief time in the life .of the Church, the picture will be much more clear. At the end of the century a decision can be made. 2. Designate the religious following the Ten Essentials, including individuals in progressive communities, as "religious. of strict ob-servance," and designate the others by a different terminology. The conservative in progressive communities should be given special consideration.~ ' ~ My conclusion is that there is in the long run little difference between these two approaches. But, for the purpose of identifying the religious in the. Church' and for encouraging religious vocations, the second approach is probably preferable. With respect and fraternal affection in the Lord. That is the end of my letter tothe Holy Father, and end of my presentation to you. And I am grateful~ for your attention. *In response'to a listener, Archbishop Whealon offered the following clarification: By the terms .progre~ssive and conservative 1 intend nothing other than the more or less conventional way used to describe different extremes in the body p~61itic. I am consciously irying pot to use loaded terms in any way, and so am open to any more successful way of expressing these differences. Future Directions in Ministry Barbara Kraemer, 0 S. E Sister Barbara Kraemer is Vice-President of the School Sisters of St. Francis. This article is based on a presen~tation delivered to the, Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the course of their.Assembly (August 6, 1984). Sister may be addressed at her generalate: 1501 S. Layton Blvd.; Milwaukee, Wl 53215-0006. Our future directions in" ministry are rooted in our history and in our current context. We are members of apostolic communities in the United States. Our spirituality is rooted in our western culture. The experience of growth and renewal these past years has been basically positive for Changes have not been made lightly, nor have they been made without mistakes and difficulties. Renewal is an ongoing process. My community was founded at a time when ~Catholic schools were being established to teach religion and to giv~ people the skills they needed in an irfimigra~society. Over the years, the needs have changed and also our responses ~m ministry. Todaywe must ask: "What is our unique contribution in education?" Today the descendants of~the German immigrants are members of the middle and upper classes. Do we continue to have a mission to them? What is its new focus? Do we have a mission to new immigrants from Southeast Asia, from Latin America and the Caribbean? There are several areas of blatant need in the U.S. today that help to direct out: efforts in ministry. They are the real needs of real people and they must be part of our consideration as we shape our present and future responses. First, Poverty. Not the t:oncept, but thepeople who are poor. How can we keep in touch with the devastating reality of the poor people around us?.How can we keep our hearts open to them? What can we do so that the distribution of wealth and opportunity will be more equal? "~ ,. Second, .Violence. There is a lack of respect for life in our country, and I'm not speaking only of abortion or capital punishment, but also about child and 9 10 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1985 spouse abuse, prison conditions, war-making. Are we aware of the violence within us? What steps can we take so that in the future our country and our people stand for a nonviolent world? Third, Inequality of Women. Women in our country receive contradictory messages. Are we convinced that further changes need to be made? What is my or your personal commitment to equality for women? Fourth, Economic Exploitation, There is the philosophy that says we should have more because it's available, that we should sacrifice nothing and enjoy our abundance. And there is the undeniable fact that someone can make a living by exploitation, later beginning a respectable enterprise, made more respectable by donations. People are happy to accept the money because they need it. Playboy Enterprises now has a charitable foundation. Do we scrutinize the source of donations we accept? The response we make to these and other needs is important not only in terms of the what but also the how. The value of our future contributions in ministry depends as much on how we live out our beliefs and values, as it does on the work itself. Therefore, I would like to emphasize three characteristics of ministry that are extremely important for the future: insertion into the lives of people; public witness; and effective use of resources. Insertion Insertion simply means that .we must be part of the people we :serve, part of the society we live in, identifying ourselves as much as possible with the people. Sometimes that seems easy, especially when we come from the same class and a similar background. It is harder when a person with ~a middle-class background goes to teach in a wealthy suburb or to work~at an inner-city shelter for the homeless. It takes careful looking and searching to see the people around us and to recognize what they have to contribute to our lives. Not many, if any, of us rea!ly know what it is to stand in a line at a government office waiting'for an unemployment check,.to personally face the question of abortion or divorce. But iLwe let people teach us, our ministry will not be superficial and it will not be judgmental. Recently,someone. questioned the priorities of a small group of our sisters living in a village in Guatemala. "They spend so much time buying food and " preparing the meal," she said. Their work is basically with the .women of that village and the surrounding area. What better way to understand the life of those women than to identify with how they spend their day! And whose time priorities do we use to measure the value of our presence with these people? Henri Nouwen has spoken about how difficult it is for us to receive from people; we 'always want to give. He pointed out: a servant doesnt decide how h~/she is going to serve. He/she comes to work for people and observes and graduall3i learns how to serve them.~ It.seems that this is something we learn slowly in life. New teachers believe that everything depends on them. They prepare and prepare, presenting a day's work in the first half hour of class and Future Directions in Ministry then wonder what they will do the rest of the day. With time they learn that they don't even know what to prepare or what to give until they learn from the students what they need. Teachers must receive from their students in order to be of service to them. There are some consequences to the approach to ministry: We can't as easily deceive ourselves, believing we are in control. Not to be in charge can be very frustrating! Neither should we be an elite group in the Church anymore, on a pedestal, separated from the rest of the faithful. There is no work religious do that laity cannot do. And maybe the laity can do some things better. We may learn that lay leadership can be far more effective than our own in a parish or a school. We may need to stay for years in an area before we are really accepted by the people. This is often true in places like Appalachia where people are suspicious 6f"here-today, ,gone-tomorrow" outsiders with projects. The people we work with who are poor, who have little, help us examine our own lifestyles. We see what we actually need and what we have accumulated because consu-merism has crept in. One sister, speaking about the poor she encounters in the cour~ system, said; "They keep me honest." In our society and in our wo~:ld, the values that are a.ccepted and carry weight are: competition, power, domination, control--what we would characterize as "masculine" values. What our world needs is an alternative vision: not domination, but in,terdependence; not control, but freedom; not individualism, but collaboration. Within the Church, as religious persons, we already bring many gifts. We have the potential to do more. Sometimes lay women see sisters as rivals .for positions or recognition, rather than seeing them as sisters working with them to make the Church receptive to the contribution of women. Collaboration requires us to leave our ghettos, wherever they are, however comfortable. We need to stretch ourselves, to be with those who are different from ourselves and who can complement the gifts we have to bring. For such collaboration, coalitions can be formed so the power of action for good can be strengthened, i have belonged to the Central America Solidarity Coalition in Milwaukee since I returned from Nicaragua in 1980. ~.There are Catholics, atheists, Lutherans, students, union workers, socialists, democrats, medical personnel and many others in that coalition. It takes us time to come to agreement on directioqs or actions. But there, is respect for the differences, which is cbnstantly an example to me. I ~m convinced that it is worth the effort to make the coalition work because we can reach out to more people. We are not only talking to ourselves, to those convinced of the need to stand with the peoples of Central America. We also talk to the Catholics who are indifferent, to the union workers who want to see the relation of Central America to their jobs, and to many others. Our mission as a coalition is served by our diversity, even though this same diversity can be an obstacle, because people tend to categorize others by their associations. That may be what we are afraid of in taking such a step. 12 / Review for Religious, Jan,-Feb., 1985 To summarize, insertion into people's lives calls for a ministry with them, a -ministry which is reciprocal. It calls us to collaboration with other religious, with laity, with people who have the same goals as we, no matter what their background. There is one other point to be considered, and it is a sensitive one. Why would a musician take a practical nursing course and work in a nursing home? Some would say she is wasting her talents. Why would a Ph.D. go to work in a refugee camp or in a Catholic Worker house when~ she could be teaching? Most often these changes occur because the ministers have inserted themselves into the lives "of the people around them, and are listening to the needs of these pepple. Most often these.people are poor. We continue to hear the phrase, "the preferential option for the poor," and it has a foreign ring to it. The expression comes from Latin America, not from the United States. What does it mean? This preferential option for the poor basically is not about the type of people w~e work with, or where, or what type of work we do. It has to do with our hearts and with the values that inform all we do. It has to do with our priority concern in ministry. The term "preferential option for the poor", does. come from Latin America. The Latin American Conference of Religious-(CLAR) has explained its meaning, declaring a priority for certain poor, those who have these three characteristics: (l). they have nothing, no opportu, nities, no resources (2) they can do nothing, i.e. they have no power, and (3) they struggle in faith and love for justice and for a better world.2 The Church in Latin America has made a preferential option to accompany this group of people. And these are the poor 'who evangelize, who convert us. The question is: can We p~rsonally, can our religiou~s-institutes, make such an option in ministry? Can we support those who make this option? Public ~Mi~ "nistry For'some missionaries the preferential option for the poor has led to their persecution, torture, even death, the same consequences that the poor face in their daily lives. By thifir choice these missionaries give public testimony to Gospel values and to their following of Christ. This'is a second characteristic of ministry, public witness. In the United States our bishops have exercised a public ministry through their positions on racism, the threat of nuclear war, abortion, capital punishment and Central America. They' have not been persecuted, but they have been criticized and wooed. They have generated opposition and reaction. J. Bryan Hehir in the commencement address at Catholic University this past year coffcisdy presented.the meaning of public witness for us in the U.S. Church: In the.end a public church is a community which stands for something--indeed, which Future Directions in Ministry v stands f9r many things. It is the product of people who shape their personal lives in such a way that they make a public d~ifference. In concrete terms, that is the challenge of a public church: to live with a vision which makes a difference for the world.3 In this country we have a unique opportunity to 19e a public church. We are guaranteed freedom of expression and freedom from religious persecution. But many times Catholics do not understand this role for themselves or for the Church. Our tradition of separation of Church and state, designed to guarantee freedom of religion and prevent the establishment of any one religion, has been interpreted to mean that religious concerns are private, and that the Church should stay out of public life. The spirit of the Second Vatican Council is just the opposite. Gaudium et Spes calls the Church tO be a permeating rather than a parallel presence in the world. The mandates of Vati.can II must be carried out in the market place, in political cgnventions, in schooi~, in nursing.homes, in international meetings. To move in this direction is a risk. Bishops, Church people, may lose support and privileges. Religious institutes might lose their tax-exempt status, especially if the message they.speak is a threat to the status quo. Yet how ¯ important it is to hear Church representatives and organizations say no, as Bishop Hunthausen and others .have, to weapons production; ~ say no, as Archbishop Weakland has, to the deportation., of Central American refugees. More and more the Church must be known for upholding the vision of a better world and thus announcing the Reign of God on earth. It is unfortunate that at times we hear more from .our bishops than from our parish priests. There is such a need to awaken a consciousness of injustice. Who is doing it? Are we? Just as we say an institution has a mission or a sponsored program has a mission, so the total religious community or institute has a mission and can make a corporate response to the needs of the world. The community can take a public stance on certain issues, not because they are fads or the latest cause, but because of the values that we believe in as religious persons, as Catholics, as Christians. Furthermore, the leaders of a religious community, by their writing and other.actions, can call attention to injustices and to needs in society and in the Church. For years, the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, Kentucky, have been using a corporate reflection process in their community. They reflect in small groups and then in larger groups on a certain need or concern, for example, racism. Most of their sisters are located in the south. Publicly they are known as a community tha~ stands against racism. What are our communities known for publicly? How can the Gospel affect the world through our 9ommunities? Another dimension is the public witness of individual members of the community through writing, public appearances, participation in demon-strations, lobbying for reforms, holding prayer vigils, even civil disobedience. Our beliefs and values as a religious community, stated in our documents, are a guide to us as members examining the need for public witness. Increasingly, 14 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1985 this area of action l~as become more controversial within the Church. as we face the question of public office. It may not always be appropriate for individuals to speak publicly or take political stands. One of.our sisters in'Honduras, Maria Rose Leggol, directs a program for orphaned and abandoned children. The success of her efforts depends on support from all sectors of society and from the Government. Another ' sister in Central America works in a refugee camp. If she wants to continue to work there, she cannot criticize or even complain about anything that happens. This is especially difficult for her because of her background in union organizing in the south, but she makes this choice in order to continue her ministry. What is important is that some of us are present in the public arena--as legislative aides, as members of UN commissions, as writers for national publications and as artists who call to mind the beautiful in this world. Through some of our members we can be present where decisions are made, where values can be influenced. One caution in all of this: we must avoid dichotomies. Rather, we must see the connections. There is not only one way to look at anything. So, we are not all ptiblic figures or writers or artists. But some of us are. And weare all called to be leaders and prophets in our own ministry. The choice is not between direct service and structural change, between education and social justice, between the individual and the corporate. The choice is between cooperation and competition. The challenge is for us to see the connections among all of these types of ministries, and to be a public witness in the spirit of 1 Co 12:4-5: There is a variety of gifts but always the same spirit; there are all sorts of services to be done, but always to the same Lord . Effective Use of Resources As members of religious institutes Wer share in their personal, financial, institutional resources. We do have some money at our disposal and perhaps, as religious communities, more money than many individuals in our society, because the money is held in common. At the same time we also have needs within our-communities, including retirement needs. Therefore, there has to be a balance between the use of inonies to meet those community needs and to respond to ministry needs. A question to ask, as a community, is: What are the ministries that we believe in so much that we are willing to make sure that they continue? We can make sure that they continue in different 'ways. One is~by giving personnel, maybe even sacrificing someone we would like to see in internal community work so that ministry needs can be met. Another by allowing our members to work by contributing services, that is, working for a stipend or lower salary. A third is giving real money, on a one-time or an ongoing basis. Maybe those earning more can contribute or be assessed a certain amount annually to support those who do not earn enough. Future Directions in Ministry ] 15 An example of how to insure an ongoing program, in this case one that meets the immediate food needs of the poor, is the St. Benedict Meal Program in Milwaukee. This program has been organized citywide with many parishes and organizations providing the meal one day a month for the people who are poor and homeless. It is a program that does not drain resources, because different parishes and groups sponsor one day a month. They can afford to do that. It is a program that is systematized so that people are fed every day of the month. Therefore, it is a program that is ensured a long life and is a real service to people. St. Benedict the Mror Parish also had the idea for,the project now known as the Benedict Center for Justice, which helps women in jail through a program of v!siting, of education, and of job counseling. This program is dependent on outside financial resources to be able to continue. There are limits to financial commitments, and the parish may not be able to do much, but they have established a brainstorming group to consider the long-term. Over the years, our religious institutes have made some institutional, Commitments. We must evaluate these to determine whether they continue to respond to the fieeds of people, and whether we have the resources, personal and financial, to maintain them. Institutions can give a service that individuals cannot. Because of the size of an institution and its very existence, it has a certain amount of clout, or power. An institution can have an effect on a political issue, for example. We have been looking at this questirn in relationship to our health care institutions in the United States. We have one rehabilitation hospital, one nursing home, one psychiatric hospital and one general hospital. We have been asking whether we should maintain the one general hospital, and until now the answer has been "yes" because having a general hospital allows us to speak in a forum that would otherwise be closed to us. . An alternative tO owning and operating an institution is to sponsor an institution or a program. For example, our community sponsors the LaFarge Lifelong Learning Institute, a separately incorporated organization, serving the needs of over one-thousand elderly people each semester by providing classes, a place to visit, h.chapel, and a hot meal at noon. The community has no financial obligation to this institute, but some of our sisters, active and retired, work within it. Another example is a project our community sponsored some years ago in the Walker Point area of Milwaukee. It is still bearing fruit, even though the project as such has ceased to exist. A small group of sisters researched the needs of the Walker Point neighborhood community. Three of them began to live and work there. One worked with a handicraft cooperative, another helped to establish a neighborhood newspaper. They all served within a local parish. At the present time, only one of those sisters remains, but now there is a tri-college outreach project, with our college, Alverno, participating, to help women in that area of the city who have not had the opportunity to continue in school, to complete their basic education. So needs change, responses change. If there 16 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1985 is some ~commitment to an area, sponsorship ofa new program, even though that program h~is a time limit, m~y be one way to serve people, Many of us are familiar with discussions about the meaning of "corporate th.rust~ or ',corporate commitment." Institutions and sponsored programs and parish schools are clearly ',corpora, te" commitments. But there are other ways of serving ,that amplify :our undei'standing of the corporate dimension. For example, the Capuchin priests ~nd brothers have some intentional communities, In one the priests are in different w.brk but they are all committed t~ being part of the inner-city neighborhood the~ live in; and they share the same values and concerns about justice. Another w,ay of looking at the corporate dimension is to see it present in each member,of the community. One member may say about another, "Oh, she is just going off to do her own thing." What that person may not know is that this itnd~vldual may have internalized v~ery well the vision of her foundress and theigoals of her community. Se.eing a need, she might, respond as an individual but very much as part of the community Bishop Kenneth Untener of Saginaw, MI, said to the religious of his diocese that the measure of the val,ue of religious life is the impact of our lives upon others. He says, ~ ' Today your witness is more individuali Today we notice how each of you prays. Today we notice how each of you finds ways to :live out the vow of poverty. We notice how celibate commitment is expressed through your own person. We notice your attempts to be obedient to the Lord's call, to the work of your community, to the needs of the Church. Your respo~nse unfolds in ma~ny different ways . You are aware, I'm sure, that this p~laces different demands upon ~ou. It is One thing to be a member of a community whose Collective life makes an impact. It is quite another thing to make an impact through your own individual life. The Church needs both . 4 If this trend is true, and we know from our experience that it is, then it continues to be exceedingly important that each one of us develop ourselves, our own resources through study, reflection, education and through other ways :of ~keeping ourselves open, to learn more an~l to become more. Experiences of people very different from ourselves can be broadening if we are open to them. One of our sisters, participating in our mission exchange program, went to Peru to develop her Spanish and her understanding of Hispanic people. She works with learning-disabled children in Aurora, Illinois, many of whom.are Hispanic. This year she is back in Aurora, her h~art opened to the pastoral needs of the Churc~h in another part of the. world. We are all aging and though x~e might be happy with .the work we are doing, we have less choice about, what else we might do. The Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in LaCrosse .~ponsored a hostel last summer for their sisters age fifty'five ~nd older. It ~;as a program of theological reflection, in which participants looked at their own futures and possibilities for new directions in their lives, recognizingithat with aging come physical Limitations. The contribution of new members also needs to be drawn out and appreciated. When we think about~lspecific ~vorks, we need to recognize that new members are not necessarily in education or health-care fields in which Future Directions in Ministry many of us have worked. What do they bring? What kind of ministry directions do they point us toward? We had a meeting of all our formation directors from different countries during December, 1983. One of the points mentioned at that meeting was that the new members help to form the community. If we really believe that, we have to find ways of putting it into practice. Sometimes they are so new that they do not take much initiative, or they are drowned out by the initiative of other members. We need to look for ways to hear their voices so that they can really shape the community, which is theirs, in the future. Each one of us must: Consider the treasure that w~ arer the gifts and skills and abilities we possess. We must recognize our own freedom or lack of freedom to make changes, to start on a new path, to "let go." We must take into account our limitations, our personal needs. The deeper our awareness of our own selves, the more we can be in ministry. We, in the United States, in the Catholic Church, have a unique opportunity to be prophetic. We belong to a Roman-based Church that, at the present moment, emphasizes hierarc~iy at the exPense of the prophetic dimension, and the Church needs both. We know that at times our contribution is not recognized. Thdt does not mean that it is not valuable. The Church needs the dimension we bring just as the body needs both arms, each finger and toe. To be prophetic in ministry may mean nothing more (or less) than that each of us and all of us pursfiE our goal as members of our communities, which at root is the goal of the Church and' ultimately of the Gospel, to transform the earth and promote the Reign of God. ' We express our fidelity to that goal through our ongoing willingness to reexamine our ministry priorities. As :we crntinue that reexamination, we must keep before us the people we serve. We must ask ourselves about our awareness of reciprocity and our efforts to collaborate. About the quality and the fearlessness of our public witness; individually and corporately. About the creative and effective use of our many-faceted resources. Then we will be prophets in the Chui'ch of today ¯ and tomorrow, true in our following of Jesus and fa'ithful to the heritage of our communities. NOTES t Henri Nouwen, "The Spirituality of Struggle," a presentation at the annual meeting of the U.S. Catholic Mission Association, May 6, 1984. , 2Cited by Anthony Bellagamba, I.M.C., "The Preferential Option for the Poor," Alba House Cassettes, Canfield, Ohio 4440~6, to be released in Spring, 1985. 3j, Bryan Hehir, "A Public Church," Origins, May 31, 1984, p. 43. 4Kenneth Untener, "The Rich Abundance Within an Earthen Vessel," Origins, June 7, 1984, p. 61. Focused Freedom: To, Someone in Formation Desmond O'Donnell, O M.1. ; Father o'Donnell, is a General Councillo~r of his congregation, and may be addressed at the generalate:~ Oblati; C.P. 9061; 00i00R o m~a-Aureh"o; Italy. His last article in our pages, "The Problem Member in Community;~ appeared In the issue of March/April, 1981. Agood friend confides in you that he or she is considering adopting a way of life which will guarantee reasonable security but no significant material rewards, in which Considerable mobility of residence may be foreseen, in which work-preference will not always be,given, in which marriage and family life ar~ forgone and for which a seven or eight year training period, will be necessary. What would you sa); to your friend? What sort of questions do you think he or she should consider? Is there~ one big question which your friend should face deeply? Before you read further, in this letter, it could be useful to jot down the sort of questions you think you~r friend should think about before he or she gets into this unusual way of life. t No deep reflection is necessary to discover that your friend is thinking ~bout giving up a great deal nor to see that the demands of this way of life are unusual. Can you do it? Is it worthldo~ng? Has anyone the right to ask all this of you? Why are you doing it anyway? What do you hope to get out of it? These are some of the spontaneoqs questions which might come to mind in responding to you~ friend. It is clear that at base there is question not merely of material prosperity, marriage or m~obility but of your friend's very self, of his or her core freedom. Your friend h~s to face the issue of exercising or of losing his or ~her freedom in a very radical way. You are aware~that I am talkin~ about your own respofise to priesthood or to the vowed life. Looking at either from this human point of view that of using.or losing one's freedom---can~,be a good starting point. The questions are 18 Focused Freedom / "19 important for you at this time and they cannot be answered theoretically nor by another person for you. Your own very personal freedom is at stake, The exercise of freedom at any level is personally demanding but at the level of priesthood or the vowed life, one's entire personhood is involved. 31,000 priests asked to be dispensed from their way of life between 1963 and 1978; 60,000 sisters have changed their way of life during approximately the same period. Did these sincere people have freedom? Did they lose their freedom? Did they give it away? 'Did they have it taken from them? Or did they find it only in later life? What does the fact of their presumably painful experience of staying, then leaving and readjusting to a new way of life, say to people life yourself? The failure to deal with this sort of question could mean that you become an additional statistic. Keeping Your Options Open There is a very obvious, and attractive temptation today to avoid the risk and exercise of freedom at any depth. It is to avoid completely all deep and permanent choices like marriage, priesthood or the vowed life. It is to sidestep all unconditional decisions. Besides being aimless, this if-perhaps-maybe-for-a- while exercise of freedom is purposeless, as we are~ reminded by Dag HammarskjiSld -- "The man who is unwilling to accept the axiom that he who chooses one path is denied the others must try to persuade himself, I suppose, that the logical thing to do .is to remain at the cross roads."1 We can understand and admirea married couple very fruii-fully renewing their choice of each other, at regular intervals, but constantly revising or reassessing their choice would hardly make for a deepening relationship any more than regularly uprooting a flower and replanting it would help it~ growth. As Karl Rahner reminded us, freedom is not exercised in the constant revision of choice but in the, ability to make one choice and follow it. Experiencing Freedom . 4, To be free is to be untrapped, free from han/~-ups which could hinder a chosen directioning of one's life. It presumes the ability to shake off anything which might limit the power to say yes in the direction of a deeply-chosen goal. More positively it is the power to surrender one's whole self, to lose oneself even one's life--for a chosen cause: It is the ability to bring oneself together, to collect one's frequently scattered parts, to point them and trigger them all in one important direction. Freedom at its best enables the momentous launching of one's life in a morally irreversible .direction. "Man is free when he is able to make up his mind in conformity with the highest values and the ultimate aims" (John Paul II to the Faculty of Frib~urg University, June I3; 1984, quoted in L'Osservatore Romano 2/7./84 p.3). Maximilian Kolbe was most frbe when he walked out of his cell in 20 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1985 Auschwitz to take the place of another prisoner about' to be killed:" .Dag Hammarskj~ild tells us about his '.freest moment--"To be free, to be able to stand up and leave every, thing bfhind--without looking back. To say yes" (p,88). ~ Jesus .summa~:izes his life thusT--"I~ lay down my life., no one takes it from me. I lay it down freely" (Jn 10: 17, 18). While this deepest exercise of freedom can sometimes be socially supported and encouraged by less than totally selfless motives, it can come ultimately only from someone who i~ rich indeed--a real adult. No wonder (Jordon Allport reminded us that only adults can commit themselves and that commitment and adulthood arrive simultaneously. Appreciating Freedom It seems to me that one blessing of this age of totalitarian regimes and mind-manipulating techniques is ttlat it is leading to an increased appreciation of freedom. In the past the conscious awareness of freedom was lower because it was less necessary, or less encouraged but now there is a growing sense of human rights and freedom everywhere. Some would see a need to recall St. Paul's words today even in the Church: "Some who do not belong tO the brotherhood have furtively crept i,n to spy on the liberty we enjoy in Christ Jesus and to reduce us all to slavery again" (Ga 2.4): To which he opposes the fact that "When Christ freed us, lie meant us to remain~free" (Ga 5.1). Paul surely appreciated hisfreedom agai.hst those who would limit it even within the Church. ', It is only in freedom that we c.an become our best selves by transcending ourselves in an act of kenosis and thus reflect the justice-fidelity of God by the power of his Spirit---"Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom" (2 Co 3:17). When we use our freedom toldo what w6 know is right or what we know we are called by God to do, we arellike God whose dabar was his word-event, his word-acted-upon in freedom. Our freely acted-upon word no~t only expresses us but it makes us what we are,. as Karo.l Wojiyla, later Pope John Paul II, emphasized in his Acting Person. Thus it is that freedom involves your deepest you. Your free acts express you, and they also make you---especially those rare acts of dedication which influence your life'~ direction deeply. While you can be forcibly limited by others whenexpressing it externhlly, this core freedom can be touched only, and used only, by you. The full and, fruitful exercise of this freedom calls for an ever-deepening appreciation of it. Conscious Awareness Since thefinal choice of priesth~aod or/and of the vowed life is. going to be an expression of your deepest freedom, it is important that you get the feel of this freedom now. You cannot lose yourself unless you have found yourself. It will only be when you have exp'ressed and felt the satisfaction of lesser Focused Freedom / 21 :freedoms that you can gradually appreciate the deeper ones. and finally the deepest one of being "ready at any moment to gather all into one Simple sacrifice"2 as Hammarskji51d put it. -~, Have you recognized yet that every choice is a little death; that every choice makes you in a way that can never quite be unmade? Or have you ex;er thought and reflected upon how prominent people in the Chuich, in your own congregation or in history have exercised their freedom? Why not organize a seminar or write a paper on one of these people and then line it up with the oarticioants' own experience of freedom? And to flex your~own freedom muscles in the exercise of everyday actions such as eating, drinking, fasti~g, going to bed, getting up, keeping to study or prayer exercise/schedules can be a revealing and helpful exercise. This recognition of' the primacy of the practical--just doing it--will add authenticity to the reading and reflection you do on the subject. Your failures to be free can teach you as mu(has your hard won victories. From these you can discover and list--it is good to write them down--the areas of your freedoms and unfreedoms and what it is that contributes to'each. Your freedom to finally choose the vowed life or. to accept priesthood will be on sand or on solid ground depending on the type of soil you have prepared over these early years. The fact that. you fail or succeed in exercising your smaller freedoms could be less important than ~,our discovery of what motivated the success or failure. That iswhy the habit of monitoring your.freedom in a daily examen of consciousness is important. Heightened physical and mental aware-ness has great benefits for richer living: Try to grow in a similar awareness of your freedom by learning to look at it reflectively. Discerning Freedom , ~ To help you in monitoring your freedom-efforts as you grow into~your vocation, may I offer you a guideline or norm? As you find yourself growing in peacefulness, ease, harmony or even enjoyment of your way of life, you can know that you are moving into real freedom in your vocation, This, of course, allows for rough spots and moments of doubt but not for a constant series of such. You will grow into thefeeling that paradoxically you are beco .ming less free to choose outside that way of life as a happily married couple becomes less free to part, with the years. In a way, your growing vocational choice can be compared to an onion with its many layers~ If the core is sound, then each layer originatingfrom the core fits around it and strengthens' it~ As time passes, the healthy core becomes safer with its close-fitting layers protectingly around it~ And a time comes when the core cannot be touched unless the layers are gradually and destructively removed and the entire organism destroyed. That is why. it is difficult to lose a genuine vocation and impossible to lose it suddenly or without gradual and long infidelity. If a person's vocational choice has been sound in the beginning and 22 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1985 succeeding choices emerge from it and fit it, then what is called loss of vocation has tb be more a partial disintegration of the personality than a departure from something which was part of it. If, !on the other hand, the core has been poorly motivated, the later layers are more like wrapping paper which can easily be removed b~cause ~they do not really belong; they, were put on rather than having emerged from the core. Thee vocation was not lost; it was never there. So it is vital in these early years to beaware of your core freedom, to reflect on it and to relish it.~Each day of ygur life over these early years cannot be a review, a revision nor a momentary rejection of your basic choice just as the layers of a healthy onion cannot be !removed even for constant clinical analysis. On the contrary, each~act is a renev~ing and deepening of what you know was a healthy initial choice. It will help you perhaps in ~onltonng your grdwth into freedom to consider Ivan Illich's question about schooling--,'Is it a place where the child . is~,chasing knowledge or where knqwledge ~s chasing the child?" In these early years, do you increasingly get the feeling that this way of life is something you are pursuing more comfortably eac.h year or do you have the feeling that it .is something clumsily pursuing you and with which you are increasingly less than comfortable? Or to put it another Way, can you see and feel yourself enjoying this way of life freely in, say, tweniy years' time? Is this way of life becoming more "good news" to ~ou each year? If you answer these questio.ns in a clear no or with a hesitant yes, you have reasons to doubt the presence of freedom in your present way of life. . I ~ Spiritual directors now exercise their role less as directors than as someone who accompanies--a sort of spiri.tual friend. And who better to help you monitor your growth in freedom? ~With this friend, you can, as it were, take your freedom out to look at it in the only way possible--how you use it from day~to-day, In the presence of such~ friend, you can bring yourself to account gently and even ask him or her to do it for you. Formators, too, have an important role to play in our growth in the external use of freedom. You can 'r.easonably ask, then, that they fulfill their contractual role- that of leading you into a life'form which they themselves are already living. In recent years .,there may have been a sort of suicide of leadership in reaction to an earlier bver-authoritarian model. But laissez-faire leadership is not a Christian model and if your formators use this, they do you an injustice. If you feel theyare faili,hg you in this way, yo.u can reasonably ask them to encourage, challenge and confront you on your external behavior in such matters as presence at commgn prayer, availability to the community, academic results, interpersonal behavior and pastoral work. Both your spiritual guide and your formators are important, in helping you find your response-ability in freedom. ~ ~ Focusing Freedom ,~ .~ It seems very significant that s~]ch a diverse group as a Dutch spiritual Focused Freedom writer, a Jewish psychiatrist, a French philosopher and an American psychol-ogist stress that focusing is an indication of adulthood. Van Kaam says that permanent commitment is entrance intopotential maturity after the indecisiofi and dispersion of adolescence, while Viktor Frankl stresses that the human person actualizes him or herself only insofar as he or she becomes committed to life's meaning. Gabriel Marcel adds to this by reminding us -- "Man can know himself only if he is committed and only the man who knows himself is ready for ~ommitment." Gordon Allpo~t seems to summarize it by saying that it is only when youth begins to plan for life that the sense of self is complete. Like a river which gathers force when it is channeled, freedom is at its best when it is focused. A man is never so free in his relationship with women as when he deeply chooses and marries one. Freedrm is maximized when. it 'is purposefully pointed in one direction. Because all freedom is ultimately situated in a pla,ce, time'and activity, it must be focused to be full and fruitful. You are now looking seriously at one life-form on which you consider it worth centering your freedom. Your diocese with its people, its structures and its leaders or your congregation with its charism, community living and mission, offer you an opportunity to express yrur freedom in and through them. The question before you remains -- "Is this the structured life-form in which and through which I can freely b~come my best self?. Is this where I want to focus and express my deepest freedom unconditionally?" Hume said that reason must always serve passion and Lonergan described emotion as the mass and momentum of human existence. True, to follow feelings or to be driven by emotions is not necessarily to find one's vocaiion, but feelings and emotions experienced over a time can help us find our personal truth." Despite-the partly foreseen sacrifices entailed in your con-sidered way of life, do you feel that this is where you want to express~our personal gifts;' that the mission of this diocese or congregation is increasingly getting hold of you? Do you feel even somewhat driven as St. Paul expressed it in speaking of his own mission: "It is for'this that I struggle wearily on, helped only by his~' power driving me irresistibly" (Col 1:29) or lik~ Jeremiah: "You have seduced me, Lord, and I allowed myself to be seduced"or like Jesus when he said: "I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were blazing already" (Lk 12.49)? Do you feel a conviction that something important will remain undone if you do not do it because,no one else can make your unique and irreplaceable contribution?' While. this experience has come to some people in one momentarily very strong impulse, it comes~to most of us in a calmer and more prolonged way. But come it must and pres~ent it must be, if you are to launch your life freely into the life-form you are now consideiing. Freedom Through Community One good way to determine the quality of your choice now and throughout your life will be your attitude towards and your actions for or 24 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1985 against the community you join. ~her.e will ever be a healthy tension between your individuality and the community. Dialogue and discernment will have to ¯ be a permanent part of this interdction but from the point of view of the new member like yourself, he or she can reasonably ask: "Will this presbyterium or c~ngregation give me the experience of a community of believers so that the exercise of my freedom in faith arid love will be supported or am I just being invited into a busy bachelors' club or into a same-sex group of social workers where interaction is generally SUl~erficial and mostly for the sake of smooth interpersonal relationships?" On 'the other side of the dynamic, a modern Jewish scholar poses questions t6o: "The proper use of autonomy begins by repudiating the self as a monad! I am individual and unique but likewise inseparably part of all mankind. More, by my finitude I am necessarily more intimately linked to some of its vast number than to others. I am therefore morally obligated to live my life,in community with them and exercise my personal autonomy in terms of them . I understand that to mean that my community .may reasonably demand of me that 1 discipline my will so that the community can function and persevere . It can also legitimately expect me to sacrifice my conscience when its promptings conflict with central affirma-tions of my group . .Our com¯munities and traditions bear a wisdom far more profound and embracing an,d certainly more enduring than anything we could create on our own. In conflict with it we must often bow to what, against our private judgment but in due humi.lity, we accept as.its superior understanding.'3 I have consciously omitted mtich explicit reference to God in this letter so far. I thought it best to isolate the ~,experience of any focused freedom without naming the central motivation which would inspire it in our case, namely faith in God and in his Son, Jesus Christ. To return to your im~ aginary friend of the first paragraph, sure!y the deepestland most inclusive question for him or her will be: "Why are you doing this?'? Because priesthood and the vowed life are meaningless without faith and a real experience of God. the choice of these vocations without faith would beiself-destructive and ~]ltimately harmful for others also. It is not easy to define priesthood or.~ the vowed life with theological precision but one t6ing remains clear, namely that a deep experience of God must be the motivating force. Even positive motives such as preaching good news or changin~ political structures for the sake of God's poor, will not sustain these life-f0rms. While this faith-motivation does not usually come to us as it did to Paul en route to Damascus, it must be there just the same, despite the often-present doubts which are part of any adult faith. "Father, if it be possible." was i .fiamediately followed by nevertheless spoken in faith and freedom by Jesus. Freedom and Uncertainty The .quest for total certainty iis self-defeating whether it is about hang gliding or about God, whether it i~i abou.t someone we love or the significance Focused Freedom of our own lives. Caution cannot be a substitute for action; it can only accompany it. We must beware of theorizing too much about certainty and freedom in a veiled attempt to eliminate the risks of action. Lot's wife was almost persuaded to leave Sodom and Gomorrah; Agrippa was almost persuaded by Paul to become a Christian and the rich young man was almost persuaded to leave his wealth and follow ,lesus. Their search for certainty paralyzed them. Again, Dag HammarskjSld helps us: "Once I answered yes to Someone or Something. And from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life in self-surrender, has a goal.TM He acted in freedom despite the uncertainty expressed in his "Someone" or "Something." It is surely important to be as free as possible before making important life decisions but this is not to say that we must await the chimera of perfect freedom. Carl .lung reminds us: "Life itself flows from springs both clear and muddy. Hence all excessive 'purity' lacks vitality. A constant striving for clarity and differen-tiation means a proportionate loss of vital energy, precisely because the muddy elements are excluded. Every renewal of life needs the muddy as well as the clear. ''~ Muddy freedom will become clearer #s it is exercised just as the str~earia gets clearer on its journey from its muddy source. Conclusion I find that Robert focused' freedom: Frost offers people like us an ideal, as we grow in But yield who will to their separation, My object in living is to unite my avocation and my vocation as my two eyes make one in sight. Only where love and need are one and work is play for mortal stakes, is the deed ever re.ally done for heaven and for future sakes. NOTES ~Dag Hammarskjtild. Markings Ed. W.H. Auden: Faber and Faber Ltd, London 1966. 2Dag Harfimarskji51d. op. cit., 1. 3Eugene Borowitz Theological Studies. March 1984, "The Autonomous Self and the Commanding Community." 4Dag Hammerskji51d. op. cit., 1. 5Carl .lung Psychological Types Bollington Series (Princetown), 1974, p.244. Trusting in the Providence of God Mary Ann Fatu~a, 0. P. Sister Mary Ann is well. known to our readers by reason of her earlier contributions, the most recent of which was "Catherine of Siena on the Communion of Friendship" (March/April, 1984). She may be addressed at her office as Chairperson of the Theology Department of Ohio Dominican College; 1216 Sunbury Roadi'Columbus~ OH 43219. "Cast all of your cares upon the Lord, for he cares for you" (1 P 5:7). A key figure in the political and dcclesial crises of her day, the fourteenth-century Dominican and doctor of the Church, Catherine of Siena, lived a' spirituality which embraced this radical trust in the providence of God. In her Dialogue she expressed with unique insight a central truth experienced by men and women of faith before and after her: far from providing an escape from the reality of human life, it is precisely such a trust which provides the focal point for a key human conversion. It is a conversion to placing one's trust not simply in one's own limited resources and efforts, "but" in the abundant and intimate providence of God. Paradoxically, it is also this conversion which founds a spirituality capable of nourishing an authentic personal autonomy and mature interdependence. Early in Catherine's life the Lord pledged that he would make her his concern if she would make him her concern. Experience of her helplessness in situations which her efforts proved powerless to change faced Catherine daily with the same choice 'which in some way confronts every human being: either to trust or to despair. "Which of you by being anxious can add a cubit to his or her life? If then you are not able to do even this, why are you anxious about the rest?. Yo~.ur Father knows your needs. Seek first his kingdom, and these things shall be yours as well" (Lk 12:25-26, 30-31). Toward the end of her life, Catherine reflected on the Lord's faithfulness to his promise made in her youth. The result is the section in her Dialogue which stands as a hy, mn of praise to the infinite mercy of a provident God. Her close friend and 26 Trusting in the Providence of God / 27 biographer, Raymond of Capua, wrote that this chapter was an explication of the very foundation of her spirituality, the experience of the frailty of what is Created, and the absolute power of the love of God. °The Choice~to Trust In life's most precious experiences there is perhaps the wordless recognition of,.the fruit of trust. It is the paradox of security in the presence of what we cannot ,unequivocally verify. Around us are alluring traces of the kind of trust which makes human life possible at all: in the vulnerability of a child asleep in a parent's a~:ms; in the secret shared between friends; in the vow that is said and then lived, to love faithfully until death. But life leaves also its scars. Those who know what it is not to trust or to be trusted, who know what it is to be betrayed, recognize also the fruit of distrust in the sense of worthlessness which eats away at their identity, in the anxiety and fear which rob them of peace. ~For each of us, in the face.of what life has held out to us, a deeper question and choice inevitably presents itself in the decisions of everyday. Has life ultimately been gracious to us, or has it cheated and betrayed us? To ask this is to ask the meaning of our life experiences taken as a whole, an6 holy vve will choose to live out the future in the light of that meaning. More than most, Catherine knew what it was to live through the bitterness of life. She knew what it was tO have those for whom she had poured out her life energy turn against her. And yet Catherine made her choice. In and through the weak and often twisted ways of the human heart, she found the reality deeper than all others and which she learhed to trust absolutely. For Catherine, the entire universe is ruled not by forces' which rob and deceive us, but by the provident mercy of God. She learned to trust that all of creation is made for humanity, and it is this fragile and precious work of his hands with whom God ~has fallen "insanely" in love. He has given everything with love and care: every facet of creating, every gift and faculty of our unique persons. In every event of history he has unfolded his mercy, until finally, he did not spare even his own Son. What he wantsqs only our good, and having provided for our every need in the past, he will continue to do so to the end.* Catherine realizes that it is only those who see with eyes of faith and hope, who make the radical choice to trust in God'sprovidence, who are able to receive its fullness. The God who infinitely respects the human persons he has authored will not force his love on .their freedom. His providence will never fail those who place their hope and trust!in him (280): But it.is a trust Which cannot exist side by side with a contrary hope. To trust in oneself is to trust in "what is not." To trust in God is to cling to the one alone "who is." The choice to trust is finally the choice to let go, to entrust oneself, to receive the gift Contained in *The Dialogue: 136; in Catherine of Siena: The Dialogue, translation and introduction by Suzanne Nofke, O.P. (New York: Paulist Press, 1980), pp. 180-181. Other references to this work will be cited in the text by page number. 211 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1985 every moment of life. Yet how can one receive with love and reverence the tragedies which life holds and which evoke in us only :anger and bitterness? Are not '~life's experiences of disappointment and pain empty of the providence of God? ~On the contrary," the Lord tells Catherine. "No matter where they turn those who trust in my providencewill find nothing but mydeep burning charity, and the greatest, gentle, true, perfect providence" (290). It is not that his providence causes tragedies. Rather, even in life's inevitable tragedies, his providence is great enough to bring life from what is material for death. Itis not that we are to deny or repress human feelings of anger in the face of pain. But working through anger and pain is meant to bear fruit finally in the peace and even joy " which recognize the gift of God given in every event. The Wealth ltidden Within Catherine's experience taught her that what human beings find particularly bitter is the discovery that all that is created will eventually~fail us. The temptation then is to cry out against the God whose providence has .abandoned and deprived us of what our plans had fashioned. We "lift up our heads against the goodness of God," writes Catherine, and draw death from what was intended to give life, because we "do not recognize the wealth hidden within" (219). How is the "wealth hidden within" every human experience to be discovered? One dimension of sin is the human resistance to change,-the unwillingness to grow. "How can you lift your head .against my goodness? Because you do not see that all things except my grace are changing and. because you . are constantly changing, I am constantly providing what you need at any given time" (282). The refusal to olet go of a present and yet outgrown security is so. strong a temptation in us that unless it.is removed from us, it can become an obstacle to the deeper security which alone founds human maturity and autonomy. God permits what is created to fail us so that, in the absence of previous supports, we may cling to the one alone "who is," and so be given the means for deeper growth. The "troublesome thorns" of life God permits not out of hatred but love for us (290). In this way we are forced to learn what we would rather not: that what is created can never be God for us. In the collapse of hope in what is created, we are given .the invitation to see and to turn to the one who will not fail us: "I wanted her to learn that although everyone else might fail her, 1 her Creator would never fail her. and that with or without the help of another person, in any situation or at any time whatever. I know how to and can and will satisfy her in wonderful ways" (296). Those who place their trust not in themselves but in God, eventually experience the fruit of this trust. God himself becomes their provider and gives them his "merry," the Holy Spirit, as their mother to nurse them at the breast of God's love (291). Gradually their fear and insecurity starve for want of food. Trusting in the Providence of God / 29 The Spirit, their mother, feeds them with the milk of gratitude and love. The ones so nourislied become with time strong and confident, able to see life with new eyes in a light given by the Spirit. Slowly they learn to hold "all things in reverence, the left hand as well as the right, trouble as well as consolation." Even in painful situations they learn to reverence the gift "hidden within" as the material for deeper growth. Thus, the Lord tells Catherine, in situations 0f great labor, he gives the gift of even greater strength (292). The "Holy Tricks" of Providence In order to make his people "drunk" with his providence, the Lord devises "holy tricks" perfectly suited to meet their needs at any particular moment. To those caught fast in sin he gives his providence by "plucking the rose" from their thorn. One kind of "thorn" is an enslaving sin; the rose, the lack of satisfaction he gives in the experience of that sin. "They set their affection on something,., but they find nothing there" (297). This gift of his providence is meant as an enticement away from the emptiness and pain of sin by means of the sweeter gift of peace and freedom (297): In other circumstances, the Lord employs still other "holy tricks" of his prowidence. He finds ways to humble the pride which bears fruit in judging others, gossiping, and using the tongue to complain and "spit out hurtful words." As healing, the Lord permits emptiness in a person's feelings, darkness in her mind, and temptations which besiege the senses. "Why do I keep her in such pain and distress? To show her my providence so she will trust not in herself but me." The person who is humbled through these struggles will learn the contrast between her own weakness and the provident love of God for her. In these struggles is contained her liberation, for the Lord himself eventually will free her in deeper ways than she could have imagined. Serenity and peace come unforeseen, not through her own effort alone, but through the Lord's "immeasurable charity, which wanted to provide for her in time of need when she could scarcely take any more" (301). The struggles which humble are in fact the gift of God: "The soul comes to perfection by fighting these battles, because there she experiences my divine providence, whereas before this she only believed in it" (302). For those formed in virtue, the Lord provides in still other ways by using a "pleasant trick to keep them humble.," Often, after they have borne the weight of burdens and sufferings with patience and gentleness, he allows them to feel passion or rage at a mere trifle: "In something that really is nothing, that they themselves will later laugh at, their feelings are so aroused that they are stupefied." At other times, his providence leaves his servants a "pricking" as he did with Paul: "I left him., the resistance of his flesh." Is the Lord able to remove the weakness of his servants? Certainly, he tells Catherine, but his providence leaves his loved ones "this or that sort of pricking" so that they will become humble and "compassionate instead of cruel to their neighbors." For those who suffer from their own weakness will have cause to be all the more 30 / Review for. Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1985 compassipnate toward the weakness of others (305). .- The Chain of Charity According to Catherine, the most tender means which the provident God has designed to care for us is one anothi~r. The God who in his being is trinitarian communion of love has fashioned us in his image. The inescapable truth etched into our own beings is that we are made by love, and we are made for love. We are, in fact, made to need and care for one another. "In this life I have bound you with the chain of charity. 1 in my providence did not give to any one person or to each individually the knowledge for doing everything necessary for human life. No, I gave something to one, something else to another, so that each one's need would be a reason to have recourse to the other" (31 l). Could he have given, everyone as an individual all that he or she needs? Yes, he tells Catherine, "But in my providence I wanted to make each of you dependent on the others,'so that you would be forced to exercise charity" (312). Thus, for example, the poor who place all their trust in him will experience for themselves his providence.Sometimes in their .need they are brought almost to the brink of despair, only so that they may see all the more clearly the miracle of the Eord~s care for them (314). Sometimes the provident God acts directly, as he did with Dominic, causing bread to appear for his brothers who had nothing to eat. Usually, however, he inspires his loved ones to pray for and to come to the assistance of the poor themselves. In many ways he touches his servants' hearts to provide' for those in need. Even those dedicated to solitude cannot escape the chain of charity with which the Lord has bound his people together. Thus, he inspires a hermit to leave his or her solitude in order to giqe help to another hermit (324). He "stretches out" his providence to his poor by inspiring his servants with compassion for the needs of their brothers arid sisters (315). "The whole life of my gentle poor is thus cared for by the concern I give the world's servants for them" (314). In still another way, the Lord cares for our deepest needs through one another. He tells Catherine that he uses a ~holy trick" of his providence to inspire people with a "special love" for another. It is this "special love" which eventually brings to light hidden insecurity, jealousy, possessiveness, manipula-tion, selfishness. The inner struggle uncovered through the pain of these relationships is meant to lead to humble self-knowledge and dependence bn his healing. As a person grows through these struggles into deeper personal autonomy and inner freedom, "a greater and more perfect love for others in general will follow, as well as for the special person my goodness has given her" (303). Thus, his providence has inextricably bound and woven itself into our care for one another. Our 'own~ persons are the lixJing sacrament of God's providence given to us in one another. As his friends grow more and more one with him in prayer, they become identified with him and live out the Trusting in the Providence of God / 31 experience ofPaul: "It is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me" (Gal 2:20). And as with Jesus, those whose love grows will know both deeper joy and deeper sorrow. The pain of the friends of God is not finally that of offenses done to them, but rather the grief they feel for sin against, the Lord and the destructiveness of sin for the sinner. Those who learn to love "know how ineffably I :love my creatures., and so they have fallen in love with my creatures' beauty for love of me." Through the chain of charity with which the Lord binds his people together, he provides in a marvelous way at one and the same time for both sinner and those his love inspires to intercede for them, The sinner's heart is touched through the prayer of his servants, and these latter are in turn all the more united to the Lord through their p~rayer~ Through their love and yearning for others' salvation, "they are another Christ crucified ,. they have taken his task on themselves" (306-307). Catherine compared God's people united in charity by his providence to an orchestra. The Lord is the "maestros" and each person is an indispensable instrument. Without each of the otl~ers, no instrument,alone is sufficient. The more sweetness with which each one plays his or her instrument the gift of each one's own unique life--the more those who hear are allured by this music to the Lord. "Consider the glorious virgin Ursula," writes Catherine of the legend of Ursula and her companions. "She played her instrument'so sweetly she caught eleven thousand from the virgihs alone." The entire orchestra together is meant to grow more lovely in its sound, swelling to make this music worthy to fill heaven and earth with the praise of God. For those who trust in him, everything which happens in their lives is a gift f~rom God as a way of refining their instruments and rendering the music they play more beautiful. It is his infinite providence which cares for each one and all together, teaching each one what and how to play (311). The chain ofcharit~ with ,which the provident God has bound us to one another will not be loosed even in death. The life of heaven will be a rejoicing not only in him but in one another, and this very joy.will be a continual praise of his providence~ "I have so brdered their charity that no one simply enjoys his or her reward in this blessed life that is my gift without its being shared by the others." The joy of all adds to the joy of each, and the joy of each is the joy of .all (312). ~ To live one's life in trust is a gentle ~'0retaste on earth of the life of heaven. The fruit of trust in the proEidence of God is a joy and peace more secure than what human missteps and failures can destroy. The One who trusts learns to rejoice "in what she sees and experiences in herself and others," and finding joy ~in God's goodness to l~er, she learns to rejoice without jealousy in the goodness of God to others. She "is not afraid thaf she will lack the lesser things because by the light of faith she is guaranteed the greater things" (293). Conclusion For Catherine, trusting in the providence of God is not a spec~c kind of 32 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1985 "spiritual exercise,~ but the entire content of a life lived in 10ve. The more one lives in hope and trust, the more lavishly will God's providence in fact provide. To live in trust is not something mere human willing can attain; it is rather a gift the provident God most deeply wants to give, and for which he wants his people to ask. Catherine learned that what best nourishes trust is a good memory, a heart and mind that have learned to remember and to reflect upon the experiences of one's own life, and to find there the indisputable evidence of the personal and intimate providence of God. In this way, one's own unique life story becomes the inspiration and encouragement to ask for even deeper trust for the future. To trust in this way is not imprudence nor immatu(ity. It is, rather, a depth seeing which increasingly frees one's energies from inner forces inhibiting personal autonomy and mature interdependence. It entails the paradox of a radical inner poverty and inner contentment. To trust, in fact, is to live secure in the care of the one who can be trusted absolutely. It is to have the peace and freedom and courage to dare, to take risks inspired by the Holy Spirit. It is, ultimately, to have the heart to let go. It was not the fourteenth-century Catherine of Siena alone who had the personal call to live a life of trust in the providence of God. Today also, it is the witness of lives lived.in the maturity of trust in the one who alone is Lord over all, which perhaps will be the most radical statement a contemporary world will hear. From Tablet to Heart: Internalizing New Constitutions I and II Address: by Patricia Spillane, M.S.C. Price: $1.25 per copy, plus postage. Review for Religious Rm 428 3601 Lindell Blvd. St. Louis, Missouri 63108 Christian Conversion: Suffering Out of Love John Navone, S.Z Father Navone is well known to our readers. The idea of this article is developed at much greater length in his recent Gospel Love: A Narrative Theology (Wilmington: Michael Glazier, Inc.). Father Navone is professor of biblical theology at the Gregorian's Spirituality Institute, where he may be addressed: Piazza della Pilotta, 3; 00187 Roma, Italy. In the seventeenth century, Samuel Crossman wrote that Christ in his passion has:° Love to the 16veless shown That they might lovely be. The passion story is both the good news of God's unconditional love for us as well as the mirror by which we can judge the authenticity of our own life and loves. It changes us from being °unlovely to being lovely (and loving) by showing us what true loveliness could be. Christ is the author and communicator of authentic communion with God. His claim that all authority belongs to him (Mt. 28:18; .In 17:2) and his communication of that authority to others are based on his power to transcend the limitations imposed by human desires and feelings to suffer freely and gladly out of love, When someone truly loves us, we respond to that love by investing our lover with the authority to initiate elements in our life story. When that love is absolute, as in the love of God for us, the absoluteness of that love claims an absolute authority. The story of Jesus reveals that God is Love, and it summons us to share in God's dynamic state of being-in-Love.I The trinitarian imagery of Scripture presents us with the symbolism of transcendent and unrestricted love where the persons are persons by virtue of their relationship to one another. ,iesus is the human incarnation of that loved and loving reiationship to God and the Spirit. Being-in-Love (Father) with 33 ~!4 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1985 Jesus Christ (Son) entails our accepting a relationship to the Love that transcends every human Ioye.2 We, however, do not establish that relationship; it is given to us. We do not possess it by nature, so it cannot be taken for granted .3 Our self-deception is the failure to accept the gift of God's love and the call to be transformed into God's children in the Son. We merely pretend that our communion with God is authentic, that we share his being-in-Love, if we are not willing to undergo the suffering that is entailed in meeting the demands and total claims of Love. In meeting the demands of L6ve, suffering demonstrates our authentic acceptance of the gift of God's love. The sovereign transforming power of God's love, as opposed to self-love, is manifested in the sufferings of the just. The Drama of Suffering Love The Synoptic Gospels tell the story of Jesus as a drama in four acts. The first act prepares us for what is to come (Mt 3:1-4, ll= Mk l:l-13 = Lk 3:1-4:13); the second act tells the story.of Christ's ministry in Galilee (Mt. 4:12-18:35 = Mk 1:14-9:50 = Lk 4:14-9:50). In the third act Jesus journeys to Jerusalem (Mt 19:i-20:34 =. Mk 10:1-52 = Lk 9:51-18:43) while the fourth act tells the story of Christ's passion and resurrection. As in every good drama, the story invites the onlooker to join in the dramatic action. We are called to become actors within Christ's dramatic story rather than to remain as onlookers marveling at the drama of what is happening to someone else. The evangelists want their hearers to be trans-formed by authentically sharing Christ's life and his Spirit by dying and rising with him. The life of the Spirit is a sharing in the whole life of Jesus, his dying and rising, his self-emptying and his self-fulfilling glorification in God. We cannot be filled by the Spirit unless the self has been emptied to make room for the Spirit's gifts. The mystery of the Cross and resurr6ction expresses the true nature and power of Jesus' being-in-Love, the power and freedom to .be able to love to the end. The disciples, who share their Lord's de~tiny, are also called upon .to suffer. As his ,followers, we must expect suffering, rejection and persecution (Mk 8:34-35; Mt 10:24-25; Lk 6:22; 14:26-27; .In 12:25,26), for the kingdom of God that comes to us in the myster3) of Jesus Christ's dying and rising is a sign of contradiction. Fidelity to the Master means that the disciples must enter into the same struggle that Jesus entered to fulfill God's plan for creation. Opposition to Jesus is manifested within all his human contexts. Mark structures his Gospel to underscore human resistance to the arrival of the kingdom in the person, work and ministry of Jesus Christ. Society resists Jesus (l: 14-3:6)~ Pharisees and scribes, the leaders of the people, engage him in five controversies (~2:1-3:5) and decide to destroy him (3:6). His family, relatives and townspeople are disturbed by him (3:7-6:6), and they fear for his sanity (3:21). Despised in his own country, among his own relations and in his own Christian Conversion / 35 house, he could work no miracle there (6:4:6). Jesus meets with the incompre-hension of his own disciples (6:6-8:33), and he rebukes them for not understanding the miracle of the loaves (8:17) or the necessity of his passion and death (8:31). Fidelity to the will of God meets with human resistance and incompre-hension. If the kingdom of God was ours by nature, Jesus would not encounter incomprehension, hostility and.rejection. His harmony with the will of God entails his disharmony.with all that is opposed to it. His being-in-Love entails his suffering and death out of love that all persons might be-in-Love. He loves his people, fami]3i, disciples and all others with whom his life, vision and mission are in conflict. He suffers out of love for them with the compassion that leads to his passion and death, in order that all might have the fullness of new life in the kingdom. Especially in Mark's story of Jesus, we see that as God's will for Jesus is being progressively fulfilled, he becomes increasingly unpopular until he dies alone--rejected and abandoned by all. Mark's narrative structure makes the theological point that God alone is the fulfilling origin, ground and destiny of Jesus Christ's living, dying and rising out of Love. The coming of the kingdom in the person of Jesus Christ is the ,revelation that God is in love with all human persons and summons them to become a new creation in God's Love. What is demanded of us is repentance and faith in his love given to us in his Beloved Son (Mk 1:11, 15; 9:7). Such repentance and faith entail the suffering out of Love which the Beloved Son himself experienced i.n his prayer at Gethsemane (~Mk 14:36). Jesus experiences suffering out of Love in every human context, the intra-personal as well as the interpersonal; this is evidence for the community of faith that the integrating center of his life transcends every human context. God's lordship in love is a creative goodness which makes others good. When God begins his reign as Father in Jesus Christ, all things are made new in his love,.all things are possible (Mk 10:27; 11:36; Mt 19:26; Lk 18:27). Conversion: Becoming Persons-in-Love Through the example of Jesus' being-in-Love, ~he Christian community sees that God compassionately demands all persons to find and accept their true fulfillment in the gift of his Love so that all might forever be persons-in- Love. God is not indifferent to what weare and become. To accept his love for all is to learn to suffer with his compassionate and passionate love for all, ¯ overcoming our intrapersonal and interpersonal tendencies to remain impersonal. The new life of the kingdom that is given to us in Jesus and his Spirit entails the suffering out of Love for others that manifests our being-in-Love with others. This new life transforms us by making us willing and glad to suffer for others in the service of the kingdom. In the context of the Last Supper, John's gospel implies that Jesus gladly and voluntarily lays down his life that his friends might know the joy of being able to do likewise. ~16 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1985 True disciples love as the,Master loves. They share a life that is rooted'in God's community-creating love for all, the only love that constitutes the community of divine and human persons which lasts forever. True disciples have solidarity in that invincible love which, despite suffering and death itself, makes them glad to pour out their lives for others. They do not consider themselves to be martyrs or victims; rather, they suffer for others (divine and human) as true friends in the power of that love which alone grounds the eternal friendship that is life in the kingdom, Central to the notion of Christian conversion as suffering out of love is the fact that God wants all human persons to enjoy his life as their own. The gift of God's love is not so much a giving away as a sharing. In loving, God shares himself and all that he is. Jesus Christ enjoys the life and love of his Father; therefore, he is glad to suffer out of that love so that all human beings might share what he most cherishes. But what is perfect in the Master is imperfect in the disciple. The life that Jesus Christ fully enjoys is the life that his disciples are learning to enjoy. The disciple knows the Master to the extent that he or she enjoys the same life and is glad to suffer out of love to secure that life for others. The. solidarity of Master and disciple in suffering out of love for others consists in their enjoying and cherishing the life that they want others to enjoy. Christian conversion is not only an event but also a process that deepens this solidarity through fidelity to the grace and demand of God for responsible lives. Christian conversion, both as event and as process, is participation in the befriending love that Jesus Christ received and accepted from his Father as the integrating center of his life, mission and death for 6thers. Lived Christian conversion entails suffering out of a befriending love that affects all our conscious activities, directs our attention, pervades our imagination, release~ symbols that penetrate to the depths of our psyches, enriches our under-standing, guides our judgments, reinforces our decisions and motivates 0tii~ actions. To enjoy the transforming, benefit of God's befriending love in Jesus Christ and his Spirit implies a gratitude that actively accepts it and makes a religious and moral commitment to sharing it with others. Gratitude for the gift of God's befriending love reflects a humility that takes nothirig for granted. Such humility'brings an appreciation of others and a commitment to them, even when they are superficially unattractive. If we truly appreciate others, we are glad to suffer out of love for them and to befriend them as disciples of ~the Master who lived and died to make his joy ours and to make our joy complete (see Jn 15:11). Some Principles and Practical Points of Reference 1. Being-in-Love is the motivating power for suffering out of Love. 2. If, as Jesus reveals, God is befriending Love, being in befriending Love is the motivating power foi" suffering out of befriending Love for others. It makes us glad, despite difficulties, to befriend others. Christian Conversion 3. Suffering out of befriending Love for others is the self-transcending activity that frees us from self-absorption, self-pity and self-idolatry (i.e., from being impersonal). It frees us for the fulfillment that is being-in-Love with others (i.e,, for being personal). 4. For human beings to be fully personal is, ultimately, for them to be-in- Love befriending others. Sin is the refusal to be personal, the state of the impersonal subject. 5. In lived Christian conversion, suffering is not sought for its own sake; rather, it is embraced only when it is a condition for commitment to the grace and demand of God's befriending love. 6. If lived Christian conversion entails suffering out of befriending Love for others, suffering is not a univocal sign that something is wrong with a person. It may be, as the teaching of the beatitudes implies, the sign that something is profoundly right with a person. 7. We are not committed to persons or values for whom we are unwilling to suffer. We cannot suffer out of love for others when we have no love for them. 8. Being-in-Love is the efficacious ground of self-transcendence required to live responsibly and to be responsible to the pursuit of the truth, however difficult it may be to discover or to accept. It motivates the will to be responsible and to pay the pric.e of responsibility. 9. The fact that Jesus Christ was willing to suffe~ and die for us grounds the primary dogma that God loves us~ To sense that we are loved is to sense something that is true. It may be that imagination is involved in our sensation, but the truth of the dogma will stand. Being-in-Love and willing to suffer out of love for others should never be identified with the presence or absence of any particular feeling or sensation. Our faith and hope is in God, not in our feelings. 10. Because human beings leave something to be desired that God alone can fulfill, suffering out Of love is the condition for the possibility of friendship. Friendship (marriage, community, society, and more) disintegrates with the refusal to endure limitations arid deficiencies in others. Our incapacity for friendship is related to our unwillingness to be committed to others who do not fully gratify, support or console us. There is no lasting commitment to others apart from the willingness to suffer out of love for them. 11. Having time for others is a form of suffering out of love for them. Religious conversion implies that we are living in God's time, that we have the gift of his time for welcoming and listening to others. Consequently, we do not see others as taking or consuming our time; we are free for them to the extent that we are free from the illusion that the only time we have is our own. Prayer is a form of enjoying God's time and transcending our own. Some seldom find time to pray because they are living in their own time and do not want to lose it for life in God's time. The call to pray always is the call to be-in-Love and to live in God's time forever. Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1985 12. Sufferingout of love for others is a form of our self-investment in them. Inasmuch as communities are formed and held together by a common faith and hope, there is a community-creating and community-sustaining power and value in suffering out of faith, hope and love for others. 13. Inconveniencing ourselves for others is perhaps the most basic form of suffering out of love for others. Unwillingness to inconvenience ourselves for others is a reft~sal to be personal; it is the failure to befriend others at the most rudimentary level of everyday life. No possibility of a lasting commitment to others exists without our being willing to inconvenience ourselves for them daily. 14. The New Testament demand for human transformation through following Jesus' way of the cross should warn those who are tempted to reduce God to their own measure. The self-abandonment that God's befriending love required of Jesus Christ should correct our tendency to manipulate God. 15. Tothe extent that we are convinced that our importance is in God, as opposed to the illusion of an independent self-importance, we are equally convinced that all others have the same importance and are worthy of self-sacrificing and befriending love. The conviction that we exist because God loves us implies that we-find security and a sense of personal worth in God, rather than in the approval that others may choose to give us. 16. If God's will is done, all human persons will be in his kingdom. Our finite, limited, human love is inadequate to the challenge of loving all persons, apart from the gift of God's all-embracing, all-encompassing, all-sustaining, all-forgiving, all-reconciling and all-fulfilling love. His community-creating love for all is the origin and ground of life in the kingdom. 17. Love takes others seriously. How seriously we take others, according to the Judeo-Christian tradition, reveals how seriously we take God. It is the conviction of Jews and Christians that God takes all human persons seriously. How seriously God takes us is implied in the Christian affirmation that God is Love. We know that God is Love because he sent his only Son to live and die for us: We know that such Love transcends words because it embraces human living, suffering and dying. We know that we are truly loved and taken seriously by those who willingly share our living, suffering and dying. We discover the reality of our love for others in willingly doing likewise. NOTES ~See Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology. (London: Darton, Longrnan & Todd, 1971), passim, esp. pp. 105-122, 2Although Being-in-Love is the existence of the Father and Son and Spirit, I pareaihesize Father to highlight the filial relationship of Jesus as Son. 3See Charles Hefling's lntrduction to Frederick E. Crowe, The Lonergan Enterprise (Cambridge, MA: Cowley Publications, 1980), p. xvi. A Clump of Lichen and Me Kathleen Gallas, OS.B. Sister Gallas is Food Service Director at the Sacred Heart Convent and Conference Center, where she may be addressed: P.O. Box 488; Cullman, AL 35056-0488. What ig contemplative life? Why the nuclear arms race? Why the environ-mental devastation? In the aftermath of "The Day After" my reflectivd moments pondered these seemingly unrelated questions. A combination of spiritual reading, n~ws magazines and discussions on the American Catholic Bishops' Pastoral On Peace surfaced this assortment of questions. While pon-dering the last two questions there eventually came over me a sense of futility. What can any one p.erson do to change the course of events toward possible destruction of life and environment? It can even be questioned as to what will destroy what firs!! Even if there' is a nuclear disarmament it will only be a matter of time before life is destroyed through our irresponsible use of environ-ment and our exploitation of peoples around the world as though they were so many pins on a chart. The question of contemplative life I pondered as an altogether different kind of issue. Ordinarily when one speaks or hears of contemplative life and of contemplative prayer, it is understood in terms describing activities limited to a select few. Contemplative life involved Contemplative prayer, and anyone experiencing contemplative prayer was undoubtedly living a contemplative life--which usually meant living a vowed religious life. Neither combination is necessarily true, nor the total meaning. My own convictions saw a distinction between contemplative life and contemplative prayer. Mother Mary Clare, S.L.G., in her book, Encountering the Depths, gives a difference. "Contempla-tive prayer can be experienced, if God wills it, in any such circumstance as he sees fit to bestow, while contemplative life is the life so directed in its simplicity, and separated from the normal distraction of the active world, that it provides the best preparation for carrying out the work of contemplative prayer." How- 411 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1985 ever, as Thomas Merton said, "Not all who are vowed contemplative religious experience contemplative prayer." After a while I found myself considering the word contemplative as separated from the terms life and prayer. By itself I couldn't limit the meaning of contemplative to a few but asked the question if being contemplative wasn't a dimension of being human, and therefore per-taining to everyone. What is it to be contemplative? This assortment of questions unexpectedly came together and found its own kind of answer in an experience 1 had on a January afternoon. Everything I had been meditating within the context of each of the three basic questions surfaced and synthesized an experience with a clump of lichen. I had been pondering these questions separately without any thought of relating them. However, my experience of lichen gave me the insight that in actuality the answer to the question of what is contemplative life was the foundation to answering the other questions--and all other questions concerning peace, justice and harmony in our relationships with each other and our environment. I am standing at my special place on a particular hillside with an Alabama version of mountains before me evoking the line: "I lift my eyes to the moun-tains from where comes my help--the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth." At my feet is a clump of gray-green lichen with red dots. Flowers? To see them eye to eye I have to lie on my stomach. Then do I see. The lichen grew finger-like projections and each finger tip is painted red. There am I on the ground "eyeballing" a lichen's painted finger nails! At first I laugh at myself. Then at us, the~lichen~and me. I talk to it. "Aren't we a crazy pair? Somehow, this is a fun moment, isn't it? We share a secret, you and I. Others might question my sanity if I were to tell them of our secret delight in each other. However, there must be others like us, for Goethe back in the eighteenth century said: 'Tell no man, tell wise men only, for the ~vorld might count it madness'," My deepest intuitions say that I am not mad in having fun seeing and listening ~ith a clump of lichen. After a while the humor of the situation shifts in mood to a sense of wonder, fascination and appreciation of so tiny a bit of color on a January day. In this Garden of Eden setting comes the urge to pick up this clump of lichen and bring it home to the prayer room--a winter flower for the Lord. But no! in my position of lying stomach flat to th~ earth comes the awareness that I am hugging great Mother Earth who in Greek mythology was named Gaia--a name personalizes and effects a deeper relationship. Gaia and I became one in this°moment--a moment of union. She and I are gift to each other from our God, the maker of heaven and earth. There is the vista before me, t_he clump of lichen below me, and myself. We are responsible to each other and for each other. So, I am one human being and this under my eyes is roughly a 3 x 4 inch clump of lichen. Yet this clump of lichen and I represent a microcosm of life on planet earth. On the one hand it could be said what harm done to pull up this clump +sp~cially with the motive of offering? But how thoughtless and insensitive to Gaia who needs this clump of lichen to maintain nature's balance A Clump of "~chen and Me / 41 so that I might live comfortably. To be fruitful and multiplyr fill the earth and stibdue it doesn't mean that I ravage it, pollute it, coerce it for my own selfish needs and even worse, under the guise of something good. Whose good? How often our God voiced that he spurned such offerings. Some would say that I have done no harm to another human being in pulling up this clump. But I have. Even if it is in innocence, the innocence of thoughtlessness; I have harmed another in contr!buting to making earth an unfit place to live. Gaia is upset. Mother Nature reacts and there can eventu-ally come a separation, a divorce. I could be a contributing cause in the erosion of this hillside. In being responsible to Gala and for Gala I am also responsible to all other human beings. Each of us is responsible to the other for maintaining a harmonious relationship with Gaia who will respond accordingly. In this total economy of life no one human being is insignificant. Neitheris this clump of red-dotted lichen by my side. Just now 1 suddenly recall a long-forgotten story, The Little Prince. The fox is explaining to the prince what it means .to be tamed. "It means to establish ties." "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world." We were asked to subdue the earth, Wouldn't "to subdue" mean "to tame'~. To establish ties, to create a need for each other? To instill a reverence for the uniqueness of each other? In lying flat on the ground face to face with a clump of lichen, I felt an. interrelatedness. The lichen and I were one. My body pressed to the body of earth were one. As far as the eye could see there was not another clump of lichen to be seen amidst the variety of winter-colored plant life. Yet there was the awareness that while this was so on the immediate level, there was also an awareness on another level that the earth was populated with the likes of me and the likes of this lichen. Each was one in the many and the many in the one. I knew an interrelatedness with all in the universe that was human. The lichen would'feel the same with its kind. However, the sense of harmony, the expe-rience of0neness-and-manyness wasn't limited to recognizing this in our sepa-rateness of plant and human, for at the same time there was the feeling of Oneness with each 6ther. The lichen and I knew a oneness with each other as well as a oneness in the manyness of us. Lichen and me. Plant life and human life. Mother Earth Gaia and me, Gaia and the manyness of me. Each and speaks of union. Each and speaks of a union that is life-creating, life-giving, life-supporting. This life with a small "1" could only be because of the gratu-itous, unfathomable love that is Life with a capital "L." It is from the Life and in this Life that the lichen and I have life. We are gifts to each~ other, responsible to each other from the Gift that is Life--maker of heaven and earth. A dialogue from another story, The Farthest Shore, by Ursula LeGuin Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1985 speaks of this responsibility. The wise magus explains to his young companion the meaning and responsibility of personal choice. "On every act the balance of the whole depends. The winds and seas, the powers of water and earth and light, all that these do, and all that the beasts and green things do, is well done, and rightly done. All these act within the Equilibrium. From the hurricane and the great whale's sounding to the fall of a dry leaf and the .gnat's flight, all they do is done within the balance of the whole. But we, insofar aswe have power over the world and over one another, we must learn to do what the leaf and the whale and the wind do of their own nature. We must learn to keep the balance. Having intelligence, we must not act in ignorance. Having choice, we must not act without responsibility." When did we become responsible for each other? In the beginning of , creation Life hovered over the darkness of the deep and breathed over the waters of the abyss. God said, "Let there be . " With each word of God, each breath of Life a living being was created. Gaia is a living being. This clump of lichen is a living being. I am a living being. Within each resides the breath of Life uniting us as one. Gaia and this clump of lichen act unconsciously accord-ing to their nature. The breath of Life that brought me into being included the freedom of choice. But "having choice, we must not act without responsibility." However, if I am not awakened in eye and heart to that breath of Life within me then my actions are likely to be irresponsible and contrary to the nature Life intended me as a ruler of myself and of the earth. Only if I am awake to this Life breathing within me will I be able to make responsible choices that will be in harmony with all other beings until All is in all, a union of One, a oneness in the manyness. Frederick Franck in his Book of Angelus Silesitis says: "For the awakened.spirit there is no longer a split between 'I' and 'other'." Meister Eckhart asks, "When is a man in mere understanding?" "When he sees one thing as separated from another." "And when isa manabove mere under-standing? . When a man sees All in all, then a man stands beyond mere understanding." Until one is awakened to the Life within there is no unfolding, no con-sciousness that this clump of lichen and I are responsible to each other, gifts to each other for all others in our oneness. Thoughtlessness, insensitivity, ihgrati-tude to the gift of oneself and the gift of each other have compounded to the magnitude of global disaster at the exp.ense of all that represents the lichen and me. In our insecurities and lack of appreciation of each other's unique gifted-ness-- everything that makes up heaven and earth--we have become envious and greedy. In our drive to be number one in whatever area of life, individually and nationally, we have lost sight of our interconnectedness. We have forgot-ten that the world is round'and not fiat. In our linear vision of life we have forgotten that there is a Center that links us as spokes in a wheel. In our fears and insecurities we can be likened to the schoolyard bullies easily provoked when our power position is threatened. In the global schoolyard we clench nuclear warheads. ° A Clump of Lichen and Me / 43 Or? I was about to pull up the clump of lichen to use as an offering and a decoration but I didn't because ~of an awareness that each of us is connected to a Center and interdependent. But on a global level we have those who thought-lessly, selfishly ravage the earth's peoples and places as so many clumps of lichen and for a variety of reasons--least of all, offering and decoration. On the other hand, when done out of offering and decoration it is far more devastating. It is said that greed brings out the animal in us but that isn't true. Animals act according to their nature as designed when breathed,into life. ,~ dog gnawing on his bone is not envious of the dog next to him chewing on a steak. Each is content. Humans in their greed that becomes exploitation of all living beings act contrary to even animal nature in wanting both, their own and what others have. ~ I feel that my experience with the lichen spoke to the fundamental ques-tion, what is contemplative life--what is it to be contemplative? Am I off the track? I don't think so.-It is for each of us to live life moment by moment deliberately, reflectively, consciously, reverently; awarely, thoughtfully, prayer-fully. The majority claim that this isn't possible. But why not? Walter Burg-hardt in his book Season that Laugh and Weep_:quotes his friend William McNamara in defining contemplative as "a long loving look at the real." Burghardt goes on to explain the "real~" Reality is living, pulsing people; reality'is fire and water;~reality is the sun setting over the Poconos and a gentle doe streaking through the forest; reality is a ruddy glass of Burgundy, Beethoven's Mass in D, a child lapping a chocolate iee-crearn cone; reality is a striding woman with wind-blown hair; r~ality is Christ Jesus. Contemplation~is not an abstraction "where a leaf is no longer green, water no longer ripples, a woman is no longer soft, and God no longer smiles." He goes on to say, "This real I 'look' at. I no longer analyze it or argue it, describe or define it; I am one with it. I do not move around it; I enter into it." When one enters into it one becomes one with it. I am that at which I give a long loving look. Sense of separateness disappears.in the embrace. I am convinced that this capacity is within each of us.As I am writing and ponder-ing this (now a summer morning) I'm aware 0fa buzzing fly. The window has a space between outside glass and .inside screen. The fly flew in by the open middle section. It is now buzzing and frantically dashing itself at the top section of panes. This has been going on for over an hour. If it would just stop long enough to take a long loving look at the reality of its situation, it would come to know that the next set of panes is open. The fly would be free to become one with all that is outside the barrier of closed upper-window panes. To be contemplative is a dimension within each of us that must be responded to in order to live in harmony with one's self, with each other, with Gaia. That dimension is there enabling us to be free, but like the fly we frantically dash our lives on window panes of our own choosing. In all the ceaseless buzzing and frantic dashing about we fail to "see" that the next set of panes is op.en which would free us to be one with all we see but interact with through the glass of 44 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1985 fears and insecurities. We are gifts to each other.~As human beings breathed into existence each of us is endowed with gifts we hold in common as well as those unique to each. Gifts can remain latent or be 'used intelligently ~nd responsibly. But this is an unfolding and a growing that starts from a beginning. In the beginning God created the heavens and earth. In the beginning was the Word. In the begin-ning life breathed. The very words "in the beginning" suggest that there is a past, a present and a future. We all have beginnings and are now in process toward endings. But life is a spiral of beginnings and endings gradually open-ing us to greater circumferences. Beginnings proceed to endings only to find that endings become new beginnings. Life is breathing, bringing us to an expanding awareness and fullness. However time past and time future ismean-ingful if I live the now moment attentively, patiently, caringly, lovingly. Other-wise the clump of lichen is just a clump of lichen to be trampled on or pulled up indifferently, carelessly--for there are no established ties. Again, theqittle prince and the fox: "What must I do, to tame you" asked the little prince? "You must be very patient," replied the fox. "First you will sit down at a little distance from me--like that--in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day." In my experience on that January'day, the lichen and I tamed each other. Ties were established revealing secrets visibly to the heart. As I was walking back home filled with the fullness of Life, pain and sorrow entered. I could identify with St. Francis who cried because Love is not loved. Along the roadside was the trash 6f beverage cans and fast-food restau-rant containers. This marring of the creation of heaven and earth is evidence of a lack of awareness of the meaning of life breathing within all created things. Most of the trash along our highways are food containers betraying the pace and emptiness of our lives. Many people claim they are too busy to eat' reflectively, appreciatively, companionably and as an undivided activity. Too busy to take "long loving looks at the real." Busy-ness reflects an emptiness or a fife lived in qu~intity not quality until it becomes a frantic dashing about. There is not the patience to live the now moment attentively, undividedly. From just considering the kinds of trash I saw along the way, it seems that eating has become something we do while in the process of doing something else, on our way to somewhere else--all activities of another kind that are not entered into fully either. Our attention is fragmented; when the activities of each moment are multiple and experienced indifferently and randomly, as a ¯ necessary activity to get over with, it is a natural consequence to open the window of the car and carelessly toss out the trash on the landscape which goes unnoticed. The fox upon saying goodby to the prihce imparts his secret. "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." "It is the time you have wasted for another that makes this tamed one so important'. Men have forgotten this truth but you must not forget it. You A Clump of Lichen and Me / 45 become responsible forever, for what you have tamed." What is it to be contemplative? Whether described as "a long loving look at the real" or "time you have wasted for another," it is a time consumption that a pragmatic materialistic society rejects because for them time and life are mea-su~- ed in terms of money--cash and flow. The contemplative dimension that enables us to be truly human is there but lost. From still another source, Tom Brown, a woodsman taught by an Apache Indian, describes in his book, The Search, his conviction of the contemplative dimension. There is a place I know where everything lives in harmony. Nothing is envied, stolen, or killed. Instead, everything is shared. The land is everyone's and no one's. Life is sacred there. A dweller in this place thinks highly of human life because he lives so close to the earth. He understands his part in the scheme of nature and is not lost or searching for himself. Where is this place? Does it really exist? Yes. It is within me and can be within you. It is a state of mind; it is an awareness; it is an appreciation; it is an understanding; it is a commitment to life. It is the realization that everything I described is all about us every day of our lives, but we miss it. We are blind to the beauty of a sunset, deaf to the music of the wind, callous to rough bark and soft grass. We speak of salaries and war instead of singing songs of life. We taste the bitterness of pollution and miss the sweetness of wild honeysuckle. We smell bus fumes but never the apple blossoms or clover flower. Life is manufactured and marketed. It is, for many of us, something to be bought or sold, and the more we pay, the better off we feel we are. Empty, untamed and fragmented lives are not awakened to the Life within. There is no awareness of interconnectedness, of taming and being tamed. There is no awareness that the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth and everything therein, is at the center of his universe and the center of each of us. One indifference leads and escalates into another: trash out the window by individuals, pollution and exploitation of land, sea and sky by industry, oppression of people around the world by political systems. If lives were lived contemplatively to what is essential and visible to the eye of the heart, then it would be realized that no being is insignificant because each o

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

Issue 35.5 of the Review for Religious, 1976. ; REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS IS edited by faculty members of St Louis University, the editorial offices being located at 612 Humboldt Braiding, 539 North Grand Boule-vard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. It is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute; St. Louis, Missouri. Published bimonthly and copyright (~) 1976 by REVlEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Composed, printed, and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. Single copies: $2.00. Subscription U.S.A. and Canada: $7.00 a year; $13.00 for two years; other countries, $8.00 a year, $15.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be accompanied by check or money order payable to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS in U.S.A. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Change of address requests should include former address. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Everett A. Diederich, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Robert Williams, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor Book Editor Assistant Editor September 1976 I"olume 35 Number 5 Renewals,-new subscriptions, and changes of address should be sent to REVIEW FOR RELICtOUS; P.O. BOX 6070; Duluth, Minnesota 55802. Correspondence with the editor and the associate editor together with manuscripts and books for review should be sent to REVIEW FOrt REL~CIOt~S; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boule-vard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gailen, S.J.; St. Joseph's College; City Avenue at 54th Street; Philadelphia, Pennsyl-vania 19131. The Prayer of Jesus' Paul VI The Holy Father delivered the following address~ in the General Audience of June 14, 1976. The text is taken from Osservatore Roma/to, no. 26 (430), June 24, 1976. In these times, in these days so busy with human events, we are ~till mind- " ful of the spiritual cyclone that Pentecost was for the world and especially for the Church. We turn our thought again to prayer, to its legitimacy, its necessity, its procedure. We are well aware that the study of religions, the study of Christian prayer, the study of human psychology, have dwelt upon this expression of the human spirit. This almost places in a quandary one who, from such a great mass of experiences, customs and literature, wishes to draw a comprehensive and guiding idea,, sufficient for the modern secular man to classify in the summary of a mental index-card that which it is enough to know on this subject, now alien to his empirical and positive mentality. Accepting this imperious simplifying method, we conclude our reflection on prayer with two major propositions. These are: prayer, first, presupposes oft God's side an interest, a listening to the voices addressed to him by man, that is, a "Providence"; and, second, it presupposes on man's side, a hope, an expectation of being satisfied 'and helped. Thus we see that we have, it is true, constructed the essential pattern of prayer, that is, a possible con-versation betweeh man. and God, but that we still know very little, if any-thing, about the validity of this conversation. Is it an imaginary hypothesis, or does it really establish a relationship; a bilateral relationship, a bene-ficial relationship? Meaning of Prayer Well, among the greatest favors tha~t Christianity, faith, nay more Jesus 641 642 / Review lor Religious, Volume 35, 1976/5 Christ in person, conferred on mankind, there is precisely this real, valid, indispensable, very opportune prayer. Christ established communication between man and God; and this communication, which prevails over all our marvelous modern technical and social communications, has as its first, normal expression, prayer. Praying means communicating with God. Christ is himself this fundamental communication with the manifestation o[ himself. We enter the sanctuary of the exploration of who Christ is, the subject, today still, of tormented and, fundamentally, inevitably negative investigations for those who break with the Chalcedon definition of the one person of the Word, living in two natures, divinerand human (cf. Denz- Schoen. 301-302; Bouyer, Le Fils eternel, 469 ft.); the "bridge," as St. Catherine said (Dial 25, ft.). Jesus himself is the most luminous example of prayer, which, documented in the Gospel, becomes for us the highway to prayer and spiritual life. People who follow him and believe are still tireless students in this school. "By what way can I reach Christ and his message?", a well-known modern Catholic thinker asks himself; and he answers: "there is one very short and simple way: I look into the soul of Jesus as he prays, and 1 believe" (C. Adam, Cristo nostro Fratello, 37, see the fine chapter: "la preghiera di Gesh,"). And likewise the powerful synthesig on the "'Message de Jdsus,'" by L. De Grandmaison, Jdsus Christ, 1I, 347, ft.). Jesus Prays But, how and when did Jesus pray? Oh, how beautiful and instructive an excursion into the Gospel pages would be, picking like wildflowers the almost incidental references to the Lord's prayer! The" evangelist Mark writes: "And rising up long before daybreak, he (Jesus) went out (probably it was Peter's house, at Capharnaum, see V. 29), and departed into a desert place, and there he prayed" (1, 35). See, for example, after the multiplica-tion of the loaves: "And when he had dismissed the crowd, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. And when it was late, he Was alone" (Mt 14, 23). The Lord's prayers, about which the Gospel informs us, would deserve such long meditation. The famous one, for example, in chapter XI of Matthew, which lets us "enter the deepest secret of his life';: "At that time Jesus spoke and said. 'I praise thee Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou didst hide these things from the wise and prudent, and didst reveal them to little ones' " (verse 25). And what can we say of the prayer that concludes the talks of the Last Supper? "And raising his eyes to heaven, he said, 'Father, the hour has come!~-.Glorify thy Son, that thy Son may glorify thee', . " We recall it: it is the prayer for unity: "that all may be one" (Jn 17, 21-22). And then the triple groaning, heroic praye~" at Gethsemane, just before the passion: "Father, if thou art willing, remove this cup from me! Yet not my will but thine be done" (Lk 22, 42). The Prayer o] Jesus / 643 Union in prayer What a revelation not only of the drama of the Saviour's life, but also of the complexity and depth of human destinies, which even in their most tragic and mysterious expressions can be linked, by means of prayer, to the goodness, the mercy, the salvation deriving from God. Pray, then, like Jesus. Pray intensely. Pray today: always in the con-fident communion that prayer has established between us and the Father. Because it is to a father, it is to the Father that our humble voice is ad-dressed. So let it be, always. .O ¯ . . be silent now and try to listen within yourselves to an inner proclama-tion! The Lord is saying: "Be assured, i am with you" (see Mt 28:20). I am here. he is saying, because this is nay Body! This is the cup of my Blood!'. Yes, he is calling you, each one by. name! The mystery of the Eucharist is, above all, a personal mystery: personal, because of his divine presence-- the presence of Christ, the Word of God made man; personal, because the Eucharist is meant for each of us: for this reason Christ has become living bread, and js multiplied in the sacrament, in order 'to be accessible to every human being who receives him worthily, and who opens to him the door of faith and love. Paul VI to the Eucharistic Congress in L'Osservatore Romano, August 19, 1976, p. 3. Prayer Father Joris,, O.F.M. Father Joris (Heise) has taught scripture at St. Leonard's College in Dayton, has recently completed an as-yet-unpublished translation of the Gospel o] St. Matthew, and regularly contributes Old Testament exegesis to "Homily Helps" published by St. Anthony Messenger: he is presently on detached service in metropoliffan Washington. He usually signs his name simply Joris, in imitation of evangelical simplicity. Prayer is not a thing, not even an action. It is a quality, a dimension of living. Prayer is not the words you say. Jesus says for us togo into our cryptic place, and pray in the dark. He tells us not to say, "Lord, Lord!" He tells us not to go up front and rattle off repetitious or self-centered information. Prayerbooks--we will always have them. The Book of Psalms is the prayerbook, and it is a good one. It has in it litanies and moods and orchestras (Psalm 150); it stiggests common prayer and has some very pri-vate ones that are shared with the world. But no prayerbook is a prayer. Prayer is us, me, when I stop and my soul's face turns to God, when I really edge into desperation and need and joy. Prayer is that quality of openness that happens in response to discovery of newness, whether of pain, of belief, or sharing, or insight--into the real state of things. Prayer is that dimension when the person's bud blooms into a maturity beyond just coping, just drifting. For instance, when I talk with God (talking sort of to "myself) about how to treat some visitors who have complicated my life, really, and no particular answer is ready--that is prayer. When I find myself in a new territory where I do not have an answer at all, and I am waiting for onew that is prayer. When I discover someone else shares a shame or a wonder 644 Prayer / 645 or an interest--that discovering is itself a prayer. That edge-of-truth, like a blade that enters skin, is prayer. Established Prayer (the Pr,ayerbooks of Liturgy and Childhood) I received in the mail recen.tly a "prayerbook" that included many of my childhood prayers and songs: "The Way of the Cross," litanies, prayers to Mary, prayers to "Most Sweet Jesus." It served to remind me of the differences between Prayer and prayers, between the things, called "prayer" pointed to by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount and the kind of prayer he thought was right. ,, I think that children need "prayers." They need to hear litanies and to memorize grace at meals. They need to hear the repetitions of Mass prayers, the "Our Father," songs that will be sung over and over as "old favorites." I think that the.child who continues to live inside us throughout our lives--that child--needs to hear old and familiar "prayers" that give us a comfortable feeling, a sense of belonging here to the club of tradition. I think that this set of simple prayers, memorized, repetitious and senti-mental, needs to be accompanied by other non-verbal features: stained-glass windows, incense, vestments, an intonation of authority in the priestly voice, familiar tunes that are even mawkishly sentimental (like some Mary-hymns based on old romatic or drinking songs). But it is essential that we remember that these traditional prayers, as they are done, are done so as to cater to the child-in-us. If these are the only prayers, the only forms of prayer we_ take seriously, then we are not adults who have "turned and become a child again," but rather we are simply immature persons. We never grew up in the first place; we "fixated," to borrow a term from psychological jargon. Furthermore, a person who limits himself to forms that just come close to these, a person not creating his or her. own forms of prayer, will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven, as Jesus warned. They are receiving their reward already: the comfortedness they feel, the sense of belonging, the nurturedness, the peace. These are all qualities, of the drug world, too-- qualities condemned throughout th~ Gospels. It is a false world, a self-centered, self-rewarding form of prayer. It is valid for children and valid to begin with. It is not valid to stay there. It is the validity of blossom that needs the autumn fruit. Conversation ~vith God All of us talk tO ourselves. Sometimes we really talk, in deep conversa-tion, with other people. We reach a stage of conversation that is just more than usual, it means something more than the day-to-day exchange of com-ments. Prayer is that talking--that talking when we have no answer, when our need or, question or wonder or shame or comments form into words but 646 / Review for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/5 without any answer ready,set and cut. Not ~rambling;~on the contrary, the words focus some human matter that is definitely bothering us--or helping us grow. It is a moment when we gather "it" together and say it, not know-ing what the answer is or whether there is an answer. That is prayer--that "talking out" of what is inside of me. It has that quality of truth-which-is-more-than-facts, more than honesty even, because "honesty" is "saying something that is true." This "talking out" is the very creation of truth, the appearance of truth that is discovery of it. Real prayer is the birth of the words of truth--it has been carried inside of oneself, but has not yet come to light. Everybody who matures, 1 think, begins this conversation with God, this phrasing of problems (and expression of wonder and they are often the same thing. They certainly have the same quality.) ~ This kind of prayer-~-these prayers--occur during moments of pause and work, during habitual actions. (like driving, scrubbing, planning jobs, parties, schedules). They touch .significant elements of life as well as little things. (God is interested in it all, of course.) ~The solitary person as well as the very active person can discover to their surprise that they both do the very same thing on the inside--and perhaps spend as much time at it. Some people do it with deliberate advertence to God: the words are ad-dressed to "You, God." (Both the Tevye of Fiddler on the Roof and Jesus used such ~xpressions of direct address--they half, praise God for such good-ness and half-haggle with God about the possibilities of the future.) Other people are officially atheistic. The conversations of such people may, surprisingly, contain references to "God" in the form of cursing or "bad language"; and the surprise is that the very reference indicates the quality of prayer that it really is. I have. known an agnostic administrator-- a Dr. Bill Fitzgerald--whose determination 'and decisions were colored by some kind of "swearing": "By God, . . o " or "Jesus Christ! We're going to . " I studied his habit and noticed that he used these words only in connection with this quality of truth, this edging into a real commitment, this formulating of a communion of the office people so that .action would result. It was a "creation of truth"--and I found it funny that the little '~flag of prayer" was his reference to God. Still others do not connect their serious self-conversations with "re-ligion" or God. But they are prayer, they are real prayer. They are truth emerging and commitment forming. They are care rising into practice. They are small and large crises--listening then for what is the "right thing to do." They are a turning on of the radio to the "station" of God. The very turning on is the listening for God, the words that come to mind are the presence of fresh truth; the coining of the phrases the way the situation appears--is itself the belief in solution, the belief that some intrusion, from somewhere, from Someone, can measure up to the words uttered. Prayer / 647 Into the darkness the words go, and a response is expected that may be beyond words. Such a "conversation" is of God, is prayer. Beyond Conversation with God Years ago, some monk wrote a book titled something like Common Mystical 'Prayer. His point as I recall it, was tO ~.say that "mystical prayer" is far more common than we suppose. I'agree with that monk. Prayer is a quality, a facet, of the good person, it is a habit or even a limb of the good person.In the end, 1 cannot picture a good person without a "side" that is prayer--a side that faces God nor-mally, continuously. Bye that I mean that, besides successful actions~ deliberateness, care, kindness, strength and truth, there is in the good person an attention to what is, right, an internal facing forwards that is nothing else but prayer. By prayer here I mean that quality of a person which is his or her validity-and-awareness, an aliveness that is more than simply living. To be alive is a gift. It happens to every human being born and growing. But prayer is the "choice to live" and the many ramifications of that choice --all the nobility and pain and acceptance which mark the person who is doing more than "suffering through life." In other Words, prayer is as~integral to the good person as blood; as thought, as the electrical charge of all the body's cells. Prayer is the mystery gurrounding someone who is "different" when we cannot quite say why he is different. Prayer is the "reason" for our feeling that this person is mature and that ~person is not; prayer is the quality bf deliberateness that makes some mistakes "all right," but other mistakes are in fact ',guilty" ones. Prayer is the humble honesty of a person who retrieves a mistake or failure, and converts it into a more valuable event than could be thought. Prayer is the, power to make decisions on a basis deeper than the facts would indi, cate, on principles beyond the conflicting, shallower principles of popular debating. Prayer is the way we are--the whole root of, and then reflection on the meaning of the decisions that we make. Prayer is the connection we keep making .between the momentary commitments and the larger ripples--and ultimate results, those commitments which we make in our lifetime and in our world. Prayer is the belief that everything I do has meaning--and mean-ings-- touching far beyond what I can see. And so i need a constant help in doing them. God, of course, is the you for whom this attention, this search for principles, this belief in. value, is done. It is not that we pay attention to a mere "god of tradition" out there. The One we are paying attention to in this silent discourse is our God. We are paying attention to a Mystery, to a quiet source of answers, of truth, to someone who is beyond being just a 648 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/5 person or a "non-im-personal." T.his "wail" we address with our very self, so often without even any words at all, is God, the very meaning of a god. This is the value-giver, the ultimate, the Final One we "bounce against" at the end. Community, Shared Prayer ~ Without living these previous forms of mature, complex, and human prayer, community-shared prayer is meaningless. When 1 go into a church on Sunday, I find so often that there is so little effort to connect community prayer with these other elements of--- "elemental prayer." No effort at all, sometimes. Such liturgical prayers then are the empty voicing of words, gestures "and pomposity which Jesus condemned so strongly. They are magic and not prayer. They are sleight of mind and hand; but not prayer at all. We have Great Traditions. ' We have the Gathering of People regularly and the wonderful gift of ever-fresh Scripture. We have the hierarchical leadership of order and the application of talents, such as in music. We have all the right elements to comprise a living body of shared prayer. But there is almost a conspiracy to suppress quality, to reduce Prayer to prayers, to eliminate human communication as though that hinders Holy Communion, to supply clich6s instead of truth, to repeat anything that once proved good in the past, without realizing that such a repetition is to freeze and kill prayer that is alive. Shared prayer--contrary to all of this--is the sharing of elemental selves, the gathering of the greatness of our past and pouring it into our present as a "way of life." (Incidentally, I hate "relevancy" as simply a plastic imitation of real prayer. Prayer is relevant, but because it is prayer, not because its ideas or words or stories or music are "relevant:") Shared prayer is the spirit of wonder ("What really does it mean?") at the traditional Scripture. The repetition of the act of Jesus in giving, breaking, blessing the bread needs to be seen as a strange and puzzling thing, a curiosity that makes our minds wonder what is going on. The readings from the Bible become praye~ in the exploration of what it means--not the assurance of what that meaning is. The readings--when read with appro-priate emotional and intellectual sincerity--are themselves prayer and beget prayer. (How tragically often the Bible is read in church with an over-pious tone of voice. The finest reading I heard, 6ver, was a boy of ten who read Genesis, chapter one, as though he was just discovering the whole wonder of how creation has happened.) The community at prayer needs to receive everything as wonder and gift--the words from the past, the songs with their emotional impact, the presence of one another (and the mystery we are to one another). Hassling about ~clothing and place, about whether to stand or sit or kneel, about themes or style--these are distractions, inappropriate, even sinful--is alien Prayer / 649 to the quality which is the prayer of the gathering group of people. Every-thing there is to serve the prayer of the praying persons. The leader of such prayer, the priest, is the uncommon person whose heart and eyes, are as a sponge absorbing the people here. The leader uses the p~ast and the future to focus on these people; this is the nature of his prayer. The leader draws the sacred attention of. all together towards the mystery where all the threads meet, where all the human wants and joys hunger for fulfillment, where all the quests for meaning meet in their com-monness. The persons who enter the praying community on Sunday morning come not just for religious reasons, but for their entire lives and the meanings hunted and mysteries encountered in day-to-day events. They need religious jargon--but only insofar as it enlightens and judges the unfolding of daily ,work and play, of marriage responsibilities and growth, of jobs and adoles-cent children and political choices, andso on. The person of prayer is in the habit of scrutinizing all these things for what they mean--or might mean. In coming together, this person is searching with others to find where they, the ones who pray, are, what they have concluded, how they are cre-ating and finding true directions for living. The coming together becomes a matter of "spirit" when this quest and this finding is perceived in other persons who care and ripen like oneself. Without some "communion" between people in church (not just the leader to each individual, or the past .words to the present--but sideways, one to another), the whole gathering is only partial towards its fulfillment. The facets need to interlock, the side of true prayer in each good person to fit the sides of others. We need one another. We need the surprising side of each other, the edging into revelation that is faith that there is someone worthwhile--someone godly--there. We need to hear the admissions of guilt which this truthfulness so often is. We need to hear the shared needs, the outspoken hungers that are new discOveries. We need to feed one another with a handed-on Bread, the sharing of the single Cup. (This physical act, so rarely seen i~nd' practiced in our churches, is designed [by Jesus, no less] to represent and facilitate the.~ore significant one of hand-ing on our care, our truth towards one another, our passion, interest, in-volvement- our love.) Essential Prayer , Prayer is not a concept. It is even "inconceivable." Prayer is a "person facing." Prayer is a reflectiveness outward. Prayer is a tone of our life, a "how" we look at someth!ng. Prayer is a deliberate meaning towards choices--a meaning not in words, and certainly not a meaning that comes afterwards! Prayer is the meaning I sense for doing something, the ~ood I am when I am about to make a choice. Prayer erupts'into words (but is 650 / Review for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/5 not the words afterwards repeated); it is the developing process (like a photograph) from a need into making a decision that is the "good reason why," as well as the commitmeni itself involved in the ~lecision. Prayer, in other words, is never simply something we do or say: Prayer, rather, is the quality with which we do something, the rootedness and hope-fulness involved in living, our deliberate Jiving. It is the thinking and thank-ing which is our delicate dialogue with our environment and with ourselves. Prayer is facing God as God really is (and not just' some religious, narrow view of God, a religious jargon about God). Prayer presumes an ultimate of truth for some issue I face--and God provides it. Prayer means confronting' this new edge of truth for me, this searching for it and into it, and believing it when it is found. Prayer means involving the best we can do in what we do. Prayer, then, is an "always-freshness" about our lives, a constant ripen-ing towards fruition. Prayer is .my opening to discovery, my lifting up of myself towards exposure of some divine light, my waiting for whatever comes next from God. Prayer is placing myself to wait for what God wants. I ~m black, but comely, daughters o] Jerusalem . . . Do not regard me only as one dark With sin, for there is God-like beauty here. Too easily i'm seen to miss the mark Of all my high resolves, and it is clear That dark 1 will remain. With angry scorn My loved ones gave to me a servant's place Which I have filled, with patient merit borne, A Quie.t joy upon my dusky face, Because I am beloved. Like to the tents of Kedar on the glowing summer sand 1 take from each day's gift the light from whence My shadowed beauty shines. Simply to know I am beloved of Him--this is the band Of golden hope that gives my life its glow. Cornelius Askren P.O. Box 783 Bothell, WA 98011 Centering Prayer--Prayer of Quiet M. Basil, Pennington, O.C.S.O. Father Pennington is a frequent contributor to these pages. He resides at St. Joseph's Abbey; Spencer, MA 01562. We live in one of the greatest moments in the history of the human race. We live in the Christian era when God has sent his very own Son to bring to us the fullest revelation of his love and his inner life and to share that life with us. We live" in the time of a council, when there is a special out-pouring of grace and light to enable the People of God to achieve a deeper and fuller insight into the Revelation, And certainly the Second Vatican Council was one of the more significant of the twenty Councils which the Lord has granted to his Church in the course of her twenty centuries of life. But over and beyond this, we live in the time of a Second Pentecost. The humble-Vicar of Christ, Pope John XXIII, dared to call upon the Father to send forth the Holy Spirit in that same powerful and unique way in which he did at the birth of Christianity. The Spirit is abroad new, among us as never before, enlivening us and calling us forth to ever fuller life. In a very real sense this is absolutely necessary. For the human family has made such strides forward that .it is only by a greater infusion of the Spirit that the Christian can hope to respond to the many new challenges of our times in a faith-full way. One of the more significant changes for Western civilization, where Christianity largely resides, is the evolution from a conceptual era to an experiential one. Since Gutenberg's wood-_cuts first touched paper, the printed word and the ideas it disseminated more and more dominated Western culture. But in these last decades audiovisuals have led men to seek an ever fuller experience of reality. Technology's success has awakened desires.; its failure to satisfy awakens yet deeper desires. The spirit of man has come alive in a way that now transcends cultures. And the man of the West finds that the stirring within him is the same as that which stirs within 651 652 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/5 his brothers and sisters in what has sometimes been considered the "primi-tive" culture of the natives of many lands and in the more ancient cultures of the East. The Christian nurtured in this climate is no longer c6ntent to ruminate on truths of dogma to develop motivating thoughts and feelings in an effort towards union with God. He wants to ex.perience God as present, loving and caring. And the Lord seems to be very willing to respond to this aspira-tion which ultimately springs from his providential care of those whom his love has created. I think this is the significance of the widespread charismatic movement. Among those who open themselves to the Spirit of God, he seems to be granting, in what is commonly referred to as the "Baptism of the Spirit," that experience of himself which the classical mystical writers have called a grace of union. ,But not all are attracted to seek the experience of God in the enthusiastic and communicative climate which surrounds most charismatic groups. Many are drawn rather to seek this experience in the quiet of their own inner sanctuary where the Word dwells in his eternal stillness. There is ample evidence of this in the multitude of Christians who are flocking to the masters from the East to learn the methods of Zen and Yogic meditation, especially the Transcendental Meditation taught by Maharishi Mehesh Yogi. Turning to the East A ~:ouple of years ago I had occasion to visit a Ramakrishna temple in Chicago. Here I found twenty-four disciples gatheredaround a relatively young swami. The man was not unusually impressive, but he lived what he taught and spoke out of a~ personal inner experience. His disciples were an impressive group, twenty-two to fifty-five years of age. They expected an-other twenty-four disciples to join them that year and were inaugurating a subsidiary ahsram in nearby Michigan. All twenty-four disciples were from Christian backgrounds. When I asked them what had drawn them to the temple, they invariably answered that they were not able to find anyone in their own Church who was willing to lead them into the deeper ways of the spirit where they could truly experience God. Then they met the swami and he was willing to do that. They still worshipped Christ, but now, un-fortunately, as only one of many incarnations of God. In their search they have somewhat lost their way because there was no Christian master (or, to be: more faithful to our own traditional terminologyi no spiritual father) ready to guide them, sharing with them from the fullness of his own lived experience. Over the years in retreat work I have talked to many, many priests and religious. I have found that in most cases, though not all, in the .seminary or the novitiate they have been taught methods, of prayer and active meditation. In many cases they have also had a course in ascetical and Centering Prayer--Prayer of Quiet / 653 mystical theology in which they have heard about the various stages of con-templative prayer. Unfortunately they have usually been left with the im-pression or have been actually taught that it is a very rare sort of.thing, usually found only in enclosed monasteries. To seek it is presumptuous. One must plug away faithfully at active meditation and perhaps some day, in the far distant future, after long years of fidelity, God might give one this precious but rare gift of contemplative prayer. In no instance have 4 yet found anyone who had been taught in the seminary or the novitiate a simple method for entering into passive meditation or contemplative prayer. This is sad. Especially in face of the fact that St. Teresa of Avila.had taught that those who were faithful to prayer' could expect in a relatively short time--six months or a year--to be led into a prayer of quiet. Dom Marmion believed that by the end of his novitiate, a religious was usually ready for contemplative prayer. One of the signs that St. John of the Cross pointed to as an indication that one is ready for contemplative prayer is that active meditation no longer works--an experience very many priests and religious do have. Faced with this experience, and ~vith no one showing them how to move on to contemplative prayer, many give up regular prayer. A faithful few plug on, sometimes for years, in making painful meditations that are any-thing but refreshing. Given this state of affairs, it is not surprising that Christians seeking help to enter into the quiet, inner experience of God find little guidance among their priests and religious. If a person desiring, to seek the experience of God. in deep meditation does go to one of the many swamis found in the West today, he or she will be quickly taught a simple method to pursue this goal. "Sit this way. Hold your hands this way. Breathe thus. Say this word in this manner. Do this twice a day for so many minutes." And if the rec'ipient does this, he usually has very good experiences. We can see this~ practice, up to a point, as a good thing. For often, whether the person kno~ws his name or not, he or she is in fact seeking God. And in carrying through this exercise, in devoting mind and heart to,this pursuit, he is actually engaging in a very pure form of prayer. The sad part of it is that his pursuit and his experience, probably of God's very real presence in him in his creative love, is not informed by faith. Sadder still is the fact that, in .not a few cases, grateful recipients, so helped by the swami's meditation-technique, begin to accept from him as well his philoso-phy of life, thus abandoning their Christian heritage. Some of the greater swapnis, such as Swami Satchidinanda and Maharishi Mehesh Yogi, certainly advise against this. But such advice can fall on ears deafened by an almost cultic veneration for a truly' selfless master. These good masters from the East are truly a challenge, whether they intend to be or not, and in more ways than one. For one thing they cer-. tainly remind us that the effective teacher, at least in the area of life-giving 654 / Review lor Religious, VoluJne 35, 1976/5 teaching, must be one who lives what he teaches. For a minister to try to teach the Christian Gospel with its strong bias for the poor' and its way of daily abnegation ("If you would be my disciple, take up your cross daily and come follow me.") and still to be busy pursuing the same pleasures and immediate goals as the wc~rldly'materialist is to condemn himself to a fruit-less ministry. We must teach more by what we are and how we live than by what we say, if we want our hearers to take us seriously. The swamis' response to seekers makes us ask ourselves, are there not in our own Christian tradition some simple methods, some meditation techniques, which we can use to enter into quiet, contemplative union with God? Before responding, I would like .to say, we Christians should not hesitate to make use of the good techniques that our wise friends from the East are offering, if. we find them,' in fact, helpful. As St: Paul said: "All things are yours, and you are Christ's and Christ is God's." Many Chris-tians, in fact, who take their prayer life seriously have been greatly helped by Yoga, Zen, TM and similar practices, especially where they have been initiated by reliable teachers and have a solidly developed Christian faith to giv~ inner form and meaning to the resulting experiences. But to return to our question: Do we have, in our Christian tradition, simple methods or techniques for entering into contemplative prayer? Yes, we certainly do. The Use of "Technique" First of all, "techniques," methods, are certainly not foreign to the prayer experience of the average Catholic. The rosary is a "technique"-- and certainly not one to be readily discounted. It has led many, many Chris-tians to deep contemplative union with God. The Stations of the Cross are another "techn!que." So are the Ignatian Exercises, which are directly ordered to contemplation. Well enough known in the West today, at least by name and reputation, is the ancient Eastern Christian technique of the "Jesus Prayer." We have, in fact, many Christian techniques. The use of a technique or method in prayer to help us come into con-tact with God present to us, in us, and to bring our whole selves into quiet-ness to enjoy that presence and be refreshed by it, is certainly not, in itself, Pelagian. Mystical theologians have not.hesitated to speak of an "acquired contemplation" (in distinction to "infused contemplation"), a state or experience which the contemplator has taken some part in bringing into being. All prayer is a response to God and begins with him. To deny this would be Pelagian. God's grace is not operative only in infused contemplation. When the little child lisps his "Now I lay me down to sleep . . ." if there is any movementi of faith and love there, any true prayer, grace is present and operative. Every prayer is a response to a movement of grace, whether we are explicitly aware of it or not, whether we conscious!y experience the Centering Prayer--Prayer of Quiet/ 655 movement, the call, the attraction, or not. God present in us, present all around us, is calling us. to respond to his presence, his love, his caring. We are missing reality if we think otherwise. When we use a technique, a method, to pray, we are doing so because God?s grace, to which we are freely responding, is efficaciously, inviting us to do this. That we have been taught the technique and have responded to the teaching is all his grace at work, inviting us, leading us, guiding us to have a deeper experience of our union with him. That iswhy it takes a certain courage---or foolhardiness--to learn such a technique. For it is, indeed, an invitation from the Lord to enter and abide within. The Prayer of the Cloud Yes, we do have in our Christian tradition simple methods~ "tech-niques," for entering into contemplative prayer, a. prayer of quiet. I would like to share one such method with you, drawn from a little book called The Cloud of Unknowing. This is indeed a.popular book in our time.1 At the time of our author's writing there was a vibrant spirituality alive and widespread in ~the Christian West. The swell had begun with the great Gregorian reform in the eleventh century and the ensuing monastic revival. This was followed by the enthusiasm of the sons of St. Francis and the other mendicant orders. All, even the poorest, the most illiterate, the vil-lainous, were invited to intimacy with the Lord. The fourteenth century was a high tide for the Christian spirit in the West. Unfortunately it would soon enough ebb. With the Reformation, the monastic centers of spiritual life would be swept away by the new currents that flowed through much of Europe. And on the rest of the continent the prosecution of Quietists and Illuminists by an overly zealous and defensive Inquisition would send contemplation to hide fearfully in the corners of a few convents and monasteries. A great movement of the Christian spirit flowed away with the undercurrent, only to surface and return under the impulsion of the mighty .winds of a Second Pentecost, These winds blow across the face of the whole earth. They certainly are not contained by the Church. But the Church, the Christian commuhity, cannot afford to be slow to respond to them: True renewal must begin with each .Christian, respond-ing to the call of the Spirit within, to the call to the center where God dwells, waiting to refresh, revitalize, renew. There is a simple method of entering into contemplative prayer which has been aptly called "centering prayer." The name is inspired by Thomas 1At p.resent the book is available in 'four different paperback editions. The one edited by William Johnston and published by D~ubleday is the best. The author is an un-known English Catholic writer of the fourteenth century. He could hardly have put his name to the work, for all that it teaches belongs to the common heritage of the Christian c~mmunity. 656 / Review Ior, Religious, Volume 35, 1976/5 Merton. In his writings he stressed that the only way to come into contact with the living God is to go to'one's center and from there pass into God. This is the way the author of The Cloud of Unknowing would lead us, although his imagery is somewhat different. The simple method he teaches really belongs to the. common heritage of man. I remember on one occasion describing it to a teacher of Tran-scendental Meditation. He repli,ed, "Why, that's TMo" I could not agree with him. There are very significant differences, but perhaps it takes faith really to perceive them. I can also remember, when I was in Greece a. couple of years ago, finding a Greek translation of The Cloud. The late Orthodox Archbishop of Corinth had written the Introduction. In it he stated that this was the work of an unknown fourteenth-century, English, Orthodox writer. He was certain it belonged to his own Christian tradition. If one reads The Cloud of Unknowing on his own, as perhaps many of my readers have, he is not apt effectively to draw from the text the simple technique the author offers. This is not to be wondered at. One would have the same experience reading books on the "Jesus Prayer." As the spiritual fathers on Mount Athos pointed out to me, no spiritual father would seek to teach this method of prayer by a book~ It is meant to be handed on per-sonally, through a tradition. The writings are but to support the learner in his experience and help him place the practice in the full context of his life. This, too, I believe is the case with The Cloud o] Unknowing. Simply read-ing it will not usually teach the method. And so let me try to spell out the "technique" of The Cloud of Un-knowing quite concretely, adding some practical advice and explanation. To do this I would like to sum up the method in three rules. Posture and Relaxation But "first let me say a word about posture. Some wonderful ways of sitting have come to us from the East. They are ideal for meditation. But unless we are 10ng practiced, and in most cases, have gotten an early start, our muscles and bones do not too readily adapt° themse.lves to these pos-tures. I think for most of us Westerners the best posture for prayer is to be comfortably settled in a good chair--one that gives firm support to the back, but at the same time is not too hard or stiff. As the author of The Cloud says, "Simply sit relaxed and quiet . " Most imprrtant, the body should be relaxed. When our Lord said, "Come to me all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will refresh you," he meant the whole man, body, soul and spirit--not just the spirit. But the body is not apt to be refreshed if we begin the prayer physically tense. Settling down in our chair ahd "letting go," letting the chair fully support the body, is sacramental of what is to take place in the prayer. In centering prayer we settle in God, "let ourselves go," let him fully support us, rest us, refresh us. Centering Prayer--Prayer o] Quiet / 657 Posture and relaxation-are important. It is good, too, if we close our eyes during this prayer.: The more we can gently eliminate outside distur-bances the better. That is why it is good, if possible, to make this prayer in a quiet place, a place apart, though this is not essential. More important is it that it be a situation in which we will not be disturbed in the course of the meditation. Quiet will usually be found helpful. Psychologically, also, it is experienced as helpful if one has a sort of special place for meditation--a place apart, even though "apart" may be only a corner of a room where there is a presence sacramentalized in Bible, icon or sacred image, and the going apart simply involves swinging around in our chair from desk to shrine. The physical set-up and the bodily movement itself reinforce the sense of passing now from the frenetic activities of the day to a deeper state of prayerful rest and divine refreshment. Three Rules the But now let us get on with the "rules" for entering into centering prayer, prayer of quiet, contemplation. Rule One: At the beginizing o] the prayer we take a minute or two to quiet down and then move in ]aith to God dwelling .in our depths; attd at the end oI the' prayer we take several minutes to come out, mentally praying the "Our Father." Once we are settled down in our chair and relaxed, we enter into a short period of silence, Sixty seconds can initially seem like a long time when we are doing nothing and are used to being constantly on the go. Better to take a little more time rather than less. Then we move in faith to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, dwelling in creative love in the depths of our being. This is the whole essence of the prayer. "Center all your attention and desire on him and let this be the sole concern of your mind and heart" (The Cloud oI Unknowing, c.3). Faith moving towards its Object is hope and love--this is the whole of the theological, the Christian life. All the rest of the method is simply a means to enable us to abide quietly in this center, and to allow our whole being to share in this refreshing contact with its Source. Faith is fundamental for this prayer, as for any prayer. We will have no desire to enter into union and communion, to pray, if we do not have at least some glimmer in faith of the all-Lovable, the all,Desirable. But it is more especially a "wonderfUl work of love," a °response to him who is known, by living faith. -"It is true, some techniques like Zen call for keeping the eyes open. But these are usually effortful techniques. This method, however, is effortless; it is a letting go. "It is simply a spontaneous desire, springing from God . . ." (The Cloud, c.4). 658 / Review [or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/5 The Inner Presence When God. makes things, he does not just put them together and toss them out there, to let them fly along in his creation. "One is good--God.'':~ And One'is true, and beautiful, and all ':being--our God. And everything else is only insofar as it here and now actively participates in him and shares his :being. At every moment God is intimately present to each and every particle of his creation, sharing with it, in creative love, his very own being. And so, if we really see this paper, we do not just see the paper, but we see God bringing it into being and sustaining it in being. We perceive the divine presence. If this i~ true of all the other elements, how much more true is it for the greatest of God's creation: man, made to his own image and likeness. When we go to our depths we find not only the image of God, but God himself, bringing us forth in his creative love. We go to our center and pass from there into the present God. Yet there is still something even more wonderful here for the Christian. We have been baptized into Christ. We are in some very real, though mysteri-ous way, Christ, the Son of God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. "I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me." As we go to the depths, we realize in faith our identity with Christ the Son. Even now, .with him and in him, we comeforth from the Father in eternal generation, and return to the Father in that perfect Love which is the Holy Spirit. What prayer! This is really beyond adequate conception. Yet our faith°tells us it is so. It is part of that whole reality that revelation has opened up to us. And it is for us to take possession of it. We have been made sharers in the divine nature by baptism. We have been given the gi]t of the Holy Spirit. We have but to enter into what is ours, what we truly are. And that is what we do in this prayer. In a movement of faith that is hope and love, we go to the center and turn ourselves bver to God in a simple being there, in a presence that is perfect and complete .adoration, response, love, an "Amen" to that movement that we are in the Son to the Father. This is what St. Paul was talking about when he said, "We do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself prays for us . " Coming Out 'of Contemplation In this prayer we go .very deep into ourselves. Some speak of a fourth state of consciousness, a state beyond waking, sleeping or dreaming states. Tests have shown that meditators do achieve a state of rest which is deeper than that attained in sleep. We do not want to come out of contemplative prayer in a jarring way. Rather we want to bring its deep peace into the whole of our life. That is why it is prescribed that we take several minutes :~See Mt 19, 17. Centering Prayer Prayer o] Quiet / 659 ~zoming out, moving from the level ot~ deep, self, forgetful contemplation to silent awareness and then a conscious interior prayer, before moving further into full activity. When the time we have determined to pray is over, we stop using the prayer word we have chosen," savor the silence, the Presence, for a bit, and then begin interiorly to pray the "Our Father." I suggest saying the "Our Father." It is a perfect prayer, taught us by the Lord himself. We gently let the successive phrases come to mind. We savor' them, enter into them. What matter if in fact it takes a good while. It is a beginning of letting our contemplative prayer flow out into the rest of our live~. A Valuable Asceticism I strongly recommend two periods of contemplative prayer in the course of a day. It introduces into our day a good rhythm: a period of deep rest and refreshment in the Lord flowing out into eight or ten hours of fruitful activity, and then anotho: period of renewal to carry us through (what is for almost everyone today) a long evening of activity. This is certainly much better than trying to base sixteen hours of activity on the morning prayer. Twenty minutes seems to be a good period to start with. Less tharl this hardly gives, one a chance to get fully into the prayer and be wholly re-freshed. Some will feel themselves drawn to extend the period to twenty-five or thirty minutes or perhaps thirty-five. On a day of retreat or when we are sick in bed, and our activity is curtailed, we can easily add more periods of .contemplative prayer. This might be better than prolonging individual periods. Those who are generally living a contemplative life'may find somewhat longer periods helpful. For most of. us, the real asceticism of this form ot~ prayer comes in scheduling into*our daily life two periods for it. Once we are going full steam, it is difficult to stop, drop everything, go apart and simply be to the Lord. And yet there is a tremendous value ,here. All of us theoretically subscribe to the theme, "Unless the Lord build the house, in vain the masons toil." But in practice most of us work as though God could not possibly get things done if we did not do them for him.The fact is there is nothing that we :are doing that God could not raise up a stone in the field to do for him. The realization of this puts us in our true place. Though, lest we do get too defeated by such a realization, let me hastento add that there is one thing that we alone can give God-- our personal love. The very God of heaven and earth wants, and needs because he wants, our personal love. And if, while we pray, someone 'has to wait at our door, for ten or fifteen minutes, he will probably learn a lot about prayer while he waits-- certainly more than if he were inside listening to us talk about prayer. 4See below, under Rule 2. 660 / Review Ior Religious, Volume 35, 1976/5 Actions speak louder than words. Those around us will not fail to notice, even though we might prefer they would not, when we begin to give prayer prime time in our busy lives. Rule Two: Alter resting ]or a bit ~it~ the center in ]aith-lull love, we take up a single simple word that expresses this response attd begiu to let it repeat itsel] within. As the author of The Cloud puts it: "If you want to gather all your desire into one simple word that the mind can easily retain, choose a short word rather than a long one. A one-syllable word such as 'God'. or 'love' is best. But choose one that is meaningful to you. Then fix it in your mind so that it will remain there, come what may . Be careful in this work and never strain your mind or imagination, for truly you will not succeed in this way. Leave these faculties at peace" (c.4,7). What we are concerned with here is a simple, effortless prolongation ~'or abiding in the act of faith--love--presence. This is so simple, so effort-less, so restful, that it is a bit subtle and so needs some explanation. A spiritual act is an instantaneous act, an act without time, "The will needs only this brief fraction of a moment to move toward the object of its desires" (The Cloud, c.4). As soon as we move in love to God present in our depths, we are there. There a perfect prayer of adoration, love and presence is. And we simply want to remain there and be what we are: Christ responding to the Father in perfect Love, the Holy Spirit. To facilitate our abiding quietly there, and to bring our whole being as much as 'possible to rest in this abiding, after a brief experience of silent presence we take up a single~ simple word that expresses for us our faith-love movement. We have seen that the author of The Cloud suggests such words as "God" or "love." A word in the vocative case seems usually to be best. We begin very simply to let this word repeat itself within us. We let it take its own pace, louder or softer, faster or slower; it may even drift off into silence. "It is best'when this word is wholly interior without a definite thought or actual sound" (The Cloud o[ Unknowing, c. 4). We might think of it as though the Lord himself, present in our depths, were quietly repeating his own name, evoking his presence and very gently summoning us to an attentive response. We are quite passive. We let it happen. "Let this little word represent to you God .in all his fullness and 'nothing less than the fullness of God. Let nothing except God hold sway in your mind and heart" (The Cloud, c.4). The subtle thing here is the effortlessness. We are so .used to being effortful. We are a people out to succeed, to accomplish, to do. It is hard for us to ',let go" and let God do. Yet we have but to let go and let it be done unto us according to his revealed Word. The temptation for us is to change the quiet mental repetition of the prayer-word (which simply pro-longs a state of being-present) into an effortfui repetition of an ejaculation Centering Prayer Prayer ol Quiet / 661 and to use it energetically to knock out any thoughts or "distractions" that come along.' This brings us to our third rule. Rule Three: Whenever in the course o[ the prayer we become aware o] any-thing else, we simply gently return to the prayer word. I want to underline that word aware. Unfortunately we are not able to turn off our minds and imaginations by the flick of a switch. Thoughts and images keep coming in a steady stream. "No sooner has a man turned toward God in love when through human frailty he finds himself distracted by the remembrance of some created thing or some daily care. But no matter. No harm done: For such a person quickly returns to deep recollec-tion" (The Cloud, c.4), In this.prayer we go below the thoughts and images offered by the mind and imagination. But at times they will grab at our attention and try to draw it away from the restful Presence. This is so because thoughts or images refer to something that has a hold on us, something wefear, or desire, or are in some other way intensely involved with. When we become aware of these thoughts, if we continue to dwell on them, we leave our prayer and become involved again in tensions. But if, at the moment we become aware, we simply, gently, return to our prayer-word (thus implicitly renewing our act of presence in faith-full .love), the thought or image with its attendant tension will be released and flow out of our awareness. And we will come into a greater freedom and peace that will remain with us after our prayer is ended. Should some thought go on annoying you demanding to know what you are doing, answer with this one word alone. If your mind begins to intellectualize over the meaning and connotation of this little word, remind yourself that its value lies in its simplicity. Do this and I assure you these thoughts will vanish (The Cloud o! Unknowing, c.7). We can see how pure this prayer is. In active forms of prayer we use thoughts and images as sacramentals and means for reaching out to God. In this prayer we go beyond them, we leave them behind, as we go to .God himself abiding in our depths. It is a very pure act of faith. Perhaps in this prayer we will for the first time really act in pure faith. So often our faith is leaning on the concepts and images of faith. Here we go beyond them to the Object' himself of faith, leaving all the concepts and images behind. We can see, too, how Christian this prayer is. For we truly die to our-selves, our more superficial selves, the level of our thoughts, images and feelings in order to live to Christ, to enter into our Christ-being in the depths. We "die" to all our thoughts arid imaginings, no matter how beau-tiful they may be or how useful they might seem. We leave them all be-hind, for we want immediate contact with God himself, and not some thought, image or vision of him-~only the faith-experience of himself. "You are to concern yourself with no creature, whether material or spiri- 662 / Review 1or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/5 tual, nor with their situation or doings, whether good or ill. To put it briefly, during this work you must abandon them all" (The Cloud o[ Un-knowing, c.5). "By Their Fruils . . ." There is another consequence of this transcending of thought and image. This prayer cannot be judged in itself. As it goes beyond thought, beyond image, there is nothing left by which to judge it. In active medita-tion, at the end of the prayer we can make some iudgments: "I had some good thoughts, I felt some good affections, I had lots of distractions, and so forth." But all that is irrelevant to this prayer, If we have rots of thoughts--good, lots of tension is being released; if we have few thoughts --good, there was no need for them. The same for feelings, images, and more. All these are purely accidental; they do not touch the essence of the prayer, which goes on in all its purity, whether these be present or not. There i~ nothing left by which to judge the prayer in itself. If we simply follow the three rules, the prayer is always good, no matter what we think or feel. There is, however, one way in which the goodness of this pra)Ter is con-firmed for us. Our Lord has said, "You can judge a tree by its fruits." If we are faithful to this form of prayer, making it a regular part of our day, we very quickly come to discern--and often others discern it even more quickly--the maturing in our lives of the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, benignity, kindness, gentleness--all the fruits of the Spirit. I have experienced this in my own life and I have seen this again and again in the lives of others, sometimes in a most remarkable way. What happens, ¯ the way the Spirit seems to bring this about, is that in this prayer we experi-ence not only our oneness with God in Christ, but also our oneness with all the rest of the Body of Christ, and indeed with the whole of creation, in God's creative love and sharing of being. Thus we begin, connaturally as it were, to experience the presence of God in all things, the presence of Christ in each person we meet. Moreover, we sense a oneness with them. From this ~flows a true compassion--a "feeling-with." This contemplative prayer, far from removing us from others, makes us live more and more conscious of our oneness with them. Love, kindness, gentleness, patience grow. Joy and peace, too, in the pervasive presence of God's caring love in all. Not only does contemplative prayer help us to take possession of our real transcendent relationship with God in Christ, but also of our real relationship with each and every person in Christ. 'Charismatic Spirituality and. the Catechist Johannes Ho[inger, S.J. Father Hofinger is well known for his work and writing in the field of catechetics. He resides at the Center of Jesus the Lord~; 1236 N. Rampart St.; New Orleans, LA 70116. The true value of any ramification of Christian spirituality must always be judged according to its potential of leading to authentic union with God in a life lived according to God's saving plan. Some valuable side-effects or some partial aspects of this basic criterion cannot ultimately determine the worth of a given spirituality. But good side-effects, too, have their value and deserve to be properly estimated, of course always in the light of the cen-tral aim: an ever closer union with God. With this in mind it may be worthwhile to ask what charismatic spiritu-ality can contribute to a fruitful-engagement in the apostolate of catechetics. A large percentage of religious serve the Kingdom of God in one or other activity'involving religious education. A continuously growing number of them also participate in charismatic prayer meetings. Thus the question may well arise: what can authentic charismatic spirituality contribute to their cate-chetical apostolate?. How can genuine charismatic spirituality dispose them to become ever more perfectly what Christ expects of them if they are to proclaim with him the Good News of God's saving love.? No one would say that all who regularly participate in charismatic prayer meetings have therefore grasped genuine charismatic spirituality and really live it, just as no one would contend that all who live in Jesuit communities have grasped and really live genuine Jesuit spirituality. Be-cause of this, it is definitely meaningful to make explicit inquiry into the apostolic values of the spirituality of Jesuits---or of charismatics. 663 664 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/5 The Pentecostal Origin of Christian Catechesis Before entering into an analysis of charismatic spirituality and its potential for the catechetical apostolate, it may be worthwhile to remember the pentecostal origin of Christian catechesis. The New Testament is very explicit in this regard. True, all gospels mention how, even before Pente-cost, Christ had commissioned his disciples to preach the Good News in his name, but John (14, 15-17) and Luke (24, 49; Ac 1, 8) insist that Christ explicitly promised them the indispensable assistance of the Holy Spirit in order to fulfill their difficult task. In Acts 2 we are given a detailed report as to how the first powerful proclamation of the Good News started with Pentecost. It may truly be said, then, that Christ formed his first messengers through the Holy Spirit. The catechesis of the primitive Church was plainly charismatic in character. To this historical fact Acts and the epistles of the apostles give irrefutable testimony. The starting point of the original evangelization is the pentecostal experience of the life and exaltation of the risen Christ, the emphatic proclamation that he is Lord. "All the people of Israel, then, are to know for sure that it is this Jesus, whom you nailed to the cross, that God has made Lord and Messiah" (Ac 2, 36). This experience of the apostles was so overwhelming that they could simply not cease to speak of what they had seen and heard (see Ac 4, 20). The extraordinary results of this apostolic preaching were not due to any particular method, but to the religious depth of their charismatic ex-perience and the power of the Holy Spirit which accompanied it. "When I came to you," St. Paul reminded the Corinthians, "I was weak and trembled all over with fear, and my teaching and message were not de-livered with skillful words of human wisdom, but with convincing proof of the power of God's Spirit. Your faith, then, does not rest on man's wisdom, but on God's power" (1 Co 2, 3-5. See also Ga 3, 1-5). Is there any indication in the Scriptures or in ecclesial tradition that God later on wanted to lose the original intimate connection of charismatic experience and the proclamation of his Good News? What does the testi-mony of history tell us about the spirituality of the most outstanding heralds of the Gospel throughout all the centuries? Surrender to Christ Even a good number of charismatics may not be sufficiently aware of what constitutes the basic charismatic experience. They may overrate some valuable, particular gift such as prophecies, healing, or the gift of speaking or singing in tongues, and not see these particular gifts clearly enough against the background of the much more' fundamental gift which consists in the total surrender to Christ under the impulse of the Holy Spirit. Surely we cannot blame the Scriptures for such misunderstandings. Although they were showered with the particular gifts we have just men- Charismatic Spirituality and the Catechist / 665 tioned, the e.mphasis of the primitive Church and of its leaders rested unequivocally upon the overwhelming experience they had of God's saving power and love as experienced in their Spirit-given encounter with Christ the Lord and Savior. This holds good not only for the very first disciples who personally have seen and heard the risen Christ, but also for the others who, on the word of the apostles, believed in Christ and accepted him as the Lord of their lives. The original preaching of the Gospel was the enthusiastic proclama-tion of God's saving power with the Christ-event at its very center. "It is the.Good News," St. Paul wrote to the Romans: "I preach, the message about Jesus Christ . . . the secret truth which was hidden for long ages in the past. Now, however, that truth has been brought out into the open" (Ro 16, 25f). It is "a message that is'offensive to the Jews and nonsense to the Gentiles; but for those whom God has called . . . this message is Christ who is the power of God and the wisdom of God" (1 Co 1, 23f). The effect which this faith-surrender to Christ should have on our lives is perhaps nowhere described as impressively as in the writings of St. Paul. In Chapter 3 of his letter to the Philippians--his favorite Christian com-munity- he described the first impact of this surrender to Christ as he experienced it in his own life. After his encounter with Christ (which was real, but definitely charismatic in character) he says, "All things that I might count as profit I now reckon as loss, for Christ's sake. Not only those things; I reckon everything ~s complete loss for the sake of what is so much more valuable, the knowledge of Christ my Lord. For his sake I have thrown everything away; I consider it all as mere garbage, so'that--I might gain Christ, and be completely united with him . All I want is to know Christ and to experience the power.of his resurrection; to share in his sufferings and to become like him in his death, in the hope that I myself will be raised from death to life" (Ph 3, 7-11 ). St. Paul leaves no doubt that he .expects a similar Christ experience in the lives of all His friends. Significantly he concludes this passage of his epistle with the remark: All of us who are spiritually mature should have this attitude . Keep on imitating me, my brothers. We have set the right example, for you, so pay attention to those who follow it" (Ph 3, 15-17). Admittedly every surrender to Christ isn't always charismatic to this same degree. The impulse of the Holy Spirit that leads to it is not always experienced with the same awareness and depth of experience that was Paul's. But any true surrender to Christ is in fact always the result of the impulse of the Spirit. "No one can confess 'Jesus is Lord' unless he is guided by the Holy Spirit" ( 1 Co 12, 3). . What is important here is simply this. On the one hand we know that genuine Pentecostalism, as we find it at the beginning of Christianity, has the surrender to Christ as its fundamental experience. On the other hand, we all agree that authentic catechetical activity continues the preaching 666 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/5 of the Apostles; thus, it, too, must have Christ as its center and it, too, must communicate an existential knowledge of Christ that leads to a life of union with Christ the Lord'. What does this mean for the spiritual life of the religion-teacher him- .self? Must he not first himself live in an exemplary way what he teaches others? Could not the charismatic renewal bring him the spiritual encounter with Christ which is indispensable for his catechetical apostolate? Herald of the Good News The first "Pentecostals" were also the first catechists of the early Church. Although Christ had commissioned the Twelve with the proclama-tion of the Good News, and although they must have been aware of their apostolic obligation, there is nothing to indicate that their preaching was primarily the discharge of an incumbent task, but was rather the spontane-ous consequence of their overwhelming experience of God's saving power. Their own deep and joyful experience simply compelled them to com-municate their own spiritual riches. In the pentecostal movement of our times there is question again of a very similar experience. Whatever one may think of this movement, it is impossible to deny the fact of its tremendous evangelizing power which results from the experience of God's forgiving love. For various reasons the pentecostal experience may not always be equally sotind, but we should not overlook its unusual power of communication. Fundamentally it is the joyful experience of liberation and salvation through the undeserved love of God. Fcr a long time we did not stress enough in Catholic catechetics and homiletics the essentially joyful character of God's message which, by its very nature, is the "gospel," the "Good Tidings." The way, for example, that the message was presented for a long time in the Baltimore Catechism surely did not do justice to the "evangelic" character of God's saving mes-sage. Sorry to say, very few priests and even bishops noticed that some-thing was wrong. The kerygmatic renewal of the late 50's and early 60's opened our eyes; yet there was still much to be desired. All too many re-ligion teachers considered kerygmatics only as a new "method," and did not even grasp its basic point. What kerygmatics intended before all else was a new religious attitude on the part of the teacher himself, not simply a change of textbooks. The teacher of religion is called to proclaim. God's message as Good News. But he cannot do this properly if he has not first in his own life experienced the Christian religion as a liberating power and as the source of deep, interior peace and joy. As long as Christianity for the teacher of religion ,means primarily a matter of inescapable duty or a complex of "good and venerable traditions" which, after all, still deserve to be kept, he will never become a true "evangelizer." His message may be correct, but Charismatic Spirituality and the Catechist / 667 it will not be the "Gospel" which God intended to be given to his beloved children. It would be naive to think that only within the charismatic renewal of our times can the Christian message and Christian life be experienced as the source and guarantee of deep and lasting joy., But it is sufficient ,for our purpose here simply to show that authentic charismatic renewal can make a valid and powerful contribution in this regard. Catechetical and Religious Concentration Before Vatican II Catholic preaching and religious observance often suffered from a deplorable lack of concentration on the essentials, a fact which caused real scandal to our fellow-Christians. That devotional themes, often presented in a sentimental way, could for so long a~ time hold a preferential position .before essential themes, such as the meaning of the Holy Spirit, of true conversion and justice--and this even in the priestly catechesis in the course of the Eucharist--was a fact which clamored for correction. This is not the place to demonstrate how much the Council was aware of this shortcoming, and how it tried to remedy it (see, e,g., J. Hofinger, Our Message is Christ/Notre Dame, Fides, 1974; pp. 6-8). Preconciliar religion teachers (priests, religious, and lay-teachers alike) were usually very cohcerned about the orthodoxy of their teaching. Their c6ncern resulted from the conviction that, in the teaching of religion, the teacher is acting as a messenger of. God whose saving word must be faith-fully transmitted from generation to generation without any falsification. (In fact, we religion teachers of today could learn much from our predeces-sors and their concern to be faithful messengers of God!) But, while giving full credit to the validity of this concern, we might also mention that authentic orthodoxy in the messenger was often understood in much too narrow a way. In order to transmit a given message correctly and faithfully, it is not endugh merely to avoid particular statements which contradict the original message. A faithful messenger must also concentrate upon the central idea of the message that is given to him. He must make sure that all who listen to him grasp at least the main message and act accordingly. Secondary e~lements must be relegated to the peril0hery, or even .omitted altogether in circumstances in which the solid presentation of the more important ele-ments might demand it. Teachers of religion who speak more about the Little Flower or about Fatima than they do about the Holy Spirit are not heretics in the technical sense. But they do commit, objectively, a serious fault against one indispensable element of' their role as conscientious messengers. Historical studies of the last thirty years have proven convincingly that the. evangelization of the early Church excelled in its concentration upon the core of the Christian message. In our times, we might almost be 668 / Review lor Religious, Volume 35, 1976/5 shocked by this resolute concentration, putting, as it does, its whole empha-sis on the core, while it remains surprisingly broad-minded in treating of the rest. The early catechesis forcefully proclaimed God's saving love "now," in the fullness of time, offered to everyone who accepts this love and believes in~.Christ the Lord and Savior. The center of the original message was, beyond any doubt, the Christ-event: tile exaltation of Christ crucified as the Lord of all. It is a joyful message of salvation, but it de-mands a thorough change of life. Ih the name of his Heavenly Father, the risen Christ calls his beloved brothers and sisters to a new life; he fills them with his Spirit; he unites them with himself in a communion .of life and love. The charismatic renewal has as its special purpose a ~horough renova-tion of Christian faith and Christian life in the spirit of its origins. Catholic charismatics are sufficiently aware that we cannot simply copy the primitive Church. Mere .pristine returns never work in history. But from the spirit of the early Church we can all learn. In dealing with the renewal of religious life, th~ Council rightly insisted that authentic renewal in a religious community must be characterized by the revival of the original spirit of the particular institute. This principle is equally valid for any authentic renewal in the Church as a whole. And the return to the original spirit of Pentecost and of the early Church includes, as one of its main points, a healthy concentration upon the essentials of both the Christian mes-sage- and the Christian life. Charismatic renewal in our times has under-stood this, and so has resulted in a noticeable improvement among its adherents precisely in this regard. It is only realistic to note the fact that many of our most dedicated religion teachers come from those segments of the Christian people who were deeply influenced by the earlier, more devotional approach to re-ligion. These individuals often excel in their abundance of good will. But, at the same time, in their spiritual life they lack this necessary concentra-tion which, thus, was also lacking in their catechetical activities. It is en-tirely possible that participation in one or other solid charismatic p~:ayer group could help them to develop still more what was best in their earlier experience and, at the'same time, introduce into their lives and into their teaching the concentration that is so necessary to any life of faith and of apostolate. Importance of Prayer and Religious Experience The concentration that characterized evangelization and life in the early Church was not the product of professional theological reflection, but rather the result of God's gracious outpouring of the Holy Spirit. This outpouring was received in a situation of personal encounter with God expressed, above all, in prayer. The Pentecostal experience, throughout, was distinguished by exuberant and powerful religious emotions, but 'not in Charismatic Spirituality and the Catechist / 669 the sense of a purposeless emotionalism in which emotions figured as ends in themselves. Rather the experience was the result of their vivid aware-ness of our Lord's presence among them and of their astonishment about the marvels God had accomplished in their midst (see Ac 2:11 ). The Acts and all the epistles of the canon present" in this regard a similar picture. Apostolic preaching and apostolic ministry'was not geared to the cultivation of exuberant but irrational emotions. Rather they were geared to the implantation of faith in the sense of an unconditional accept-ance. of the gospel which was then, under the guidance of the Spirit, to lead to an authentic r61igious experience with profound and vigorou.s emotions. Whenever it came to the point of an overflow of emotions, the Apostles insisted upon the necessity of discernment and balance (see, for example, 1 Co 12:3; 14:23, 33; 1 Th 5:19-22). The pentecostal movement of our century must be understood as a re-action against a one-sided rational approach to religion; one which did not do iustice to its emotional side. In this reaction, the movement may at times have expressed itself exaggeratedly in the opposite direction. Still, overall, it would be easy to show that Catholic charismatics have moved toward a sound balance of religious insight, commitment and sentiment just as they have also demonstrated an awareness of their Catholic identity, keeping themselves open to the recommendations and warnings of. the best Catholic spiritual traditions. Even in cases where groups have yet to reach this de-sired balance, we still have to acknowledge their valuable contribution to religious renewal in bringing so many people to a new appreciation and practice of genuine prayer, and through their insistence on more spontaneity in the expression of religious conviction and sentiments. The significance of this contribution for catechetics becomes immedi-ately evident as soon ~as we try to evaluate it against the backg~:ound of our present catechetical situation. An impartial assessment o1~ this present situa-tion would disclose an unprecedentedly low general interest in religion, which stems primarily from our present culture with its secularized outlook on life. In this kind of situation, we need a powerful catechetical movement, one which insists above all on a new awareness of God in life, one which helps those affected to encounter God again in a very existential way. Yet, in fact, we have to admit that the catechetics of the past ten years have more and more stressed the merely human aspects of religious education, that catechetics have quite often favored a secularized outlook on life in-stead of a genuinely religious approach to it. Misled by a wrong interpreta-tion of God's immanence in his world, teachers of religion today seem.to be inclined to content themselves more and more with the "discovery" of inner-worldly values and with a proper use of such values in life without ascending from them to God, to a personal encounter with God in genuine prayer. Thus, catechetics in the past ten years may often have neglected, the 670 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/5 vertical dimension in the process of religious education, but they have surely not neglected at ail to stress the great importance of spontaneity, of gen-uine human experience and emotions in all spheres of'human activity. Mod-ern man, growing up as he is in a secularized culture, may find great difficul-ties in discovering God. But whenever he does discover God and does come to personal contact with ~him, modern man definitely favors the kind: of dialogue which is characterized by great spontaneity and by 'the engage-ment of strong emotions. Especially among younger people, today's person shox~s interest only in a religious movement which gives a great deal of room for spontaneity, for emotional expression. The Spirit of Community The charismatic spirituality of the early Christians was distinguished by conspicuous spontaneity. But this spontaneity must not be misinterpreted as religious individualism! Their pentecostal experience united them inti-mately into a single, closely knit community. When Luke describes (Ac 2:42-47) the life of the first Christians, he may well have idealized somewhat the historical reality. But he certainly expressed well the ideal image which the early Church had formed of herself and which she labored to realize in the various Christian communities of those early days--of course without ever realizing this ideal. Luke, of course, is fully aware of the leaciing position of the Apostles and of their important task, and even stresses it in unambiguous fashion. However, as he portrays her, the early Church is above all a communion of life and of love. His pentecostal community is exactly the ideal of what we call now-a-days the "basic community." There is no ~need to enter here upon an historical investigation of the causes which led this initial ideal of the Christian life to lose its original ur-gency and attraction. Suffice it to say that the change definitely did not come from a change on the part of the Holy Spirit and of his basic in-spiration. Rather it stemmed from a change on the part of ~the Christians-who did not listen to the Holy Spirit in the same way as did the first Chris-tians. As a result of unfavorable influences from without, and from a faulty development within the Church, Catholic theology and its catechetics have, for a long time, overly stressed the ingtitutional aspect of the Church. It needed the assistance of the Holy Spirit in the last council to restore once more the right balance, to see the Church again as, above all, a "communion" (withou.t forgetting or minimizing the God-given aspects of its institutional character). The General Catechetical Directory, published by the Holy See in 1971 as a guideline for all catechetical work, tries to make teachers of religion aware of this shift in emphasis: "The Church is a communion: She herself acquired a fuller awareness of that truth in the Second Vatican Council" (n. 66). Charismatic Spirituality and the Catechist / 671 In order to experience once again the Church as a communion of life and love, there is need for more than a mere shift in catechetical emphasis. There is. need for the formation of relatiVely sma.ll but dynamic Christian communities which can truly come to this experience. Our typical mammoth parishes cannot achieve this experience unless they build up within their structure much smaller groups of deeply committed Christians. Since the begin~ning of this century, small groups have been forming themselves in this renew~il of pentecostal experience. For the most part non- Catholic, these bands have regularly shown strong cohesion within the par-ticular group, while at the same time manifesting little concern for the universal church, coupled with a noticeable tendency to split among them-selves into yet smaller groups with markedly~ sectarian attitudes. Many years' later, when the pentecostal movement began to lay hold of Catholic circles, many feared that something similar would happen among Catholic charismatics. In fact, however, just the opposite took place. Pre-cisely at the time when many Catholics began to waver in their loyalty to the Church, the overwhelming majority of Catholic charismatics "were giv-ing convincing proofs of their loyalty. In fact, through the charismatic move-ment,, many Catholics found a new and vital contact with the institutional Church. In fact, an impartial assessment would lead to the impression that, in the overall scene; there is more interest on the part of charismatic groups in the institutional Church than there is interest on the part of the parochial clergy to provide pastoral care for the charismatic groups within their area --and this at a time when we desperately need the development of such small groups within the Church. It is not impossible that participation in some solid charismatic group. could give to today's religion teacher a valuable experience of Christian community of precisely the kind that he would need in order to present the Church'as a communion! A Zest for Scripture One characteristic feature of pentecostal spirituality is a zest for Scrip-ture. We encounter this everywhere in pentecostal prayer-meetings and in the members' daily prayer-life. This zest for Scripture comes from the first "Pentecostals"; it is a basic element of the spirituality of the early Church. In fact, we can even say that it is a valuable heritage which the young Church received from the Synagogue. The painful break with the Synagogue did not affect Christian attitudes toward the Scripture. Rather, early Chris-tians continued in their deep appreciation and ardent use of them. In our own time, many Catholics found new access to Scripture through the charismatic renewal. True, long before the beginning of Catholic charis-matic renewal, there was in the Church a powerful biblical renewal which had a decisive impact on the discussions and decisions of Vatican II. Just a few years before the first Catholic charismatic groups started, the Council had 672 ,/ Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/5 already vindicated, with unusual emphasis, the role of the Scriptures in authentic Christian spirituality (see Constitution on Revelation, nn. 21-26). There is no need for us to decide here which had in fact brought more Catholics back once again to the Scriptures: the teachings of Vatican II or the later charismatic prayer-meetings, It is sufficient for our purpose simply to point out that a genuine zest for Scripture and its religious wealth is not just a fad among charismatics, but an indispensable element of the spiritual-ity which is to be expected from any true Christian, and, of course, most especially, from the teacher of religion who acts as a messenger of God. Vatican II tells us: "In the sacred books, the Father who is in heaven meets his children with great love and speaks with them; and the force and power in the word of God is so great that it remains the support and energy of the Church, the strength of faith for her sons, the food of the soul, the pure and perennial source of spiritual life" (Constitution on Revelation, n. 21). If the Council really meant what it so emphatically stressed, what must follow for anyone who would take the Council seriously? In describing charismatic spirituality, we are fully aware that any move-ment like the pentecostal renewal is going to include groups which express and live this spirituality with enormous differences of perfection. It could easily happen that a given individual sincerely appreciates charismatic spirituality, yet is not at all satisfied with its realization in the group which meets next door. In such a situation, his remedy may well be to seek out another, more congenial group. The ideal solution for teachers of religion who work as a team~would be to form their own group from the members of the. team. That wotild, be the best answer to their special needs and to their particular aspirations. The Rope When a man reaches the' end of his rope, he comes to the beginning of God. Edward A. Gloeggler P.O. Box 486 Far Rockaway, NY 11~91 On Burying Our Isaacs Sister Mary Catherine Barron, C.S.J. Sister Mary Cath~erine has been a frequent contributor to ,our pages, her last having appeared in the March issue. Her address in the coming year will be: St. loseph's Provincial House; 91 Overlook Ax;e.; Latham, NY 12110. Th~ word of God is something alive and active: it i~uts',like any double-edged sword but more finely: it can slip through the place ~vhere the soul is divided from the spirit, or joint.s from the mar~row; it can judge the secret emotions and thoughts. No created thing can hide from him; everything is uncovered and open to the eyes of the one to whom we must give an account of ourselves (Heb 4, 12-13). It happened Sometime' ,later that God put Abraham to the test (Gn 22, 1). Abraham was a vulnerable man. He could never-quite master the art ~of resisting God. Always, he was too available. Had he been a more pragmatic human being, he would have quickly cultivated a quality of deafness where God.was concerned---rr at least a fair pretense of it. But that was his weak-ness: he was too receptive. Whenever God called, he answered. Such alacrity can be dangerous, especially wtiere Yahweh is involved. He is all-consuming. And so when, after a short span of years of relative peace and quiet, God once again cried out his name: "Abraham~ Abraham," our Old Testa-ment forefather responded as could be expected: "Here I am." He should have known better. He should have realized toe incipient danger of those words, because he had uttered them before and they had cost him quite a bit of pain. In ~fact, they had brought him to where he was then: in a strange land of strange people with a young son, the fruit of his and Sarah's old age. It had been a weary journey to this destination, filled with suffering and hope, alienation and promise, discouragement and fulfillment. But today, existence was peaceful and ,.God was benign and Abraham was happy in the new life growing up around him: Isaac, his son. So he never should have " 673 674 / Review for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/5 answered with such openness, such literalness, when he said: "Here I am." Those three words capsulized a whole lifetime of givenness and surrender on Abraham's part and God knew that. He knew the implied depths of Abraham's response because long ago he had blasted his foundation, carved him out, and molded him in faith. So God was not surprised at Abraham's reply. Hehad tested him before. Purgation is a messy business. No matter how finely wrought the.instru-ment, there is always pain and a certain amount of blood-letting. Ironically, although we are quite familiar with the concept, we are never much at ease in the throes of the process. Double-edged swords are dangerous, especially the ones that slip into the hidden place "where the soul is divided from the spirit," because eventually they strike the heart. Abraham had been prodded and probed before. But he had also lived long enough to realize that there are always untouched recesses, crevices of the heart, where the finger of God has not yet been felt. One of those crevices contained Isaac. And so Yahweh commands: "Take your son, your only child Isaac, wh~m you love, and go to the land of Moriah. There you shall offer him as~a burnt offering, on a mountain I will point out to you" (Gn 22, 2). God couldn't have~ been more blunt nor, apparently, more unfeeling~ With near ferocity, he highlights the very nadir points involved in Abraham's sacrifice: '~'son," "only child," "Isaac," "whom you love." And then he conjures up a picture of that supple-limbed first fruit of endless expectation: blackened--a burr~t offering on a wilder-ness mountaintop. Abraham makes no response because he has already made the 'total one of "Here I am." We are. simply told that early next .morning he rises and begins the three days' journey to Moriah. Whatever the outcome, the journey itself is part of the purgation, is already a piece of the burnt offer-ing, and the fact that.it is leading to final consummation only intensifies the pain. Anguish is not a very communicable emotion. It is too deep for utter-ance. So insistent is it that all other~feelings.give way before its flood. So Abraham says little on the pilgrimage to holocaust, but in grim irony loads Isaac with the wood and himself takes the knife and the fire. In stolid faith, Abraham bears in his own hands the purgative instruments that will cut. and sear his son. But more deeply, he bears the instruments that will cut and sear himsel[.olsaac is to suffer a holocaust ,of body; Abraham suffers a holocaust of heart. iOutrage always accompanies the destruction.of an innocent---outrage on the part of the non-participants. But who can fathom the outrage Abraham feels as he binds his only son and lays him on the altar? We cannot begin to plumb the depths of his grieving heart that still believes in the~irrevocable word of Yahweh. "Abraham stretched out his hand and seized the knife to kill his son" (Gn 22, 10). On Burying Our "lsaacs / 675 Once again the cry comes: "Abraham, Abraham" and once again the familiar responseis given:. ','I am here." And then come the sal~,ific words: "Do not raise your hand against the boy; do not harm him, for now I know you fear God. You have not refused me your son, your only son" (Gn 22, 11~13). Isaac is spared. What about Abraham? The holocaust of the body does not occur; the holocaust of the heart is complete. We are accustomed to naming Abraham our "Father in Faith." Is he not also the ',Father of Freed Love!'? All the time he thought the journey was made to annihilate Isaac. Now he discovers that it was made to annihi-late Abraham. Father van Breemen in his book, Called By Name, offers the following analysis: When Abraham descends from tl~e mountai'n~ with his son, both he and Isaac have changed; something has happened on that hilltop . Like a tree which has been turned full circle in the ground, Abraham's~roots have been cut loose, and he has returned a new man (p. 19). in what does his newness consist?' Abraham comes down the mountain with a living Isaac: Yetsomething in both of them is dead. Because he wag bent over the prone Isaac on the altar, we Could not 'see the pain in Abra-ham'S eyes, the look of utter bewilderment at what he was about to do, the trembling terror at the death of love by his o~wn hand. But Isaac could see~ And in that look of love that 'was exchanged b6tw~en them--father and son--the holocaust of the heart is accomplished. In that inst"~n't, Isaac cedes over his life to his father in trust and surrender. And Abraham cedes over his heart to Yahweh in a similar fashion. Because part of Abraham's heart is Isaac, that part of Isaac in Abraham's heart dies forever on Mount Moriah. Abraham returns to Beersheba with a son, but no longer with his son. Isaac is irrevocably gone, yielded over to Yahweh. Isaac returns ~vith a father who is no longer solely his father, but more radically is father to Yahweh's people. Both lose and gain life; both surrender the other and are given the other in return--but transformed. In The Letter to the Hebrews we are told: It was by faith that Abraham, when put to the test, offered up Isaac. He offered to sacrifice his only son even though the promises had been made to him and he had been told: It is through Isaac that your name will be carried on. He was confident that God had the power to raise the dead; and so, figuratively speaking, he was given back Isaac from the dead (Heb 11, 17-19). Centuries later, when speaking of losing and gaining life, Jesus would use the analogy of the wheat grain dying in the earth to produce a rich harvest. We might say that out of.the seed of love for Isaac which Abraham allows to die in the holy ground of Yahweh, com~s the rich harvest of transformed life. For Abraham, indeed, has Isaac back from the dead, but only after he has first let him go. In a sense, he leaves Mount Moriah having buried part of himself and his son there. 676 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/5 So what does the story mean to us? Certainly we are relieved that Isaac is not slain. We are glad that: Abraham's faith was vindicated: And we hope that we are never put to such a test. It is just such a latter mentality that is our mistake and our misfortune. For we all have our Isaacs--those, hidden crevices of the heart.where we do not even realize that "the soul is divided from the spirit." Unless we are willing to bur), them (our Isaacs) in a holo-caust of: the heart, our faith is weak and our love is unfree. And to that extent We,are poor spiritual progeny of our great desert patriarch. ' The Book of Judith tells us: We should be grateful to the Lord, our God, for putting us to the'test, as he did Our forefathers. Recall how he dealt with Abraham, and how' he tried Isaac; and all that happened to Jacob in Syrian Mesopotamia while he was tending the flocks of Laban, his mother's brother. Not for vengeance did the Lord p,ut them in the crucible to try their hearts, nor has he done so with us. It is by way of admonition that' fie chastises those who are close to him (J~t 8:25-27), Admonition for what? Admonition, so that eventually our hearts in the crucible will be so tot~ally purified'that we will, indeed, have lai~ to final rest all our Isaacs. Admonition, so that eventually our hearts in the cruc!.- ble will be so totally free that we too will be able to respond as did Abraham to Yahweh's cali :~ "Here I am." "The @ord of God is something alive and active"--in Abraham'~ day and in our own.'~Will we let it pierce us, double-edged though it might be? Some Practical Reflections on the General Congregation Pedro Arrupe, S.]. Father, Arrupe, General of the Society of Jesus, originallY, gave this talk as part of a series of cbnferences on the 32rid General Congregation which was sponsored by the Centrum lgnatianum Spiritualitatis (CIS; Borgo S. Spirito, 5; C. P. 9048; 00100 Roma, Italy),~which ~s presently preparing the conferences (in the languages in which they were delivered) in book form. I would like to speak tO you about the last section of Decree 4 of the recent 32nd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus. As you know, Decree 4 was on "Our Mission Today," and the last section of it dea!.t with "Prac-tical Dispositions." These practical dispo~sitions are applications that follow from t,h~e general decisions and guidelines developed throughout the decree. When the, Congregation states~, in this.decree, that "the mission of the Society of Jesus today is the service of faith, of which the promotion of jus~tice is an absolute requirement," it is not in the slightest way restricting the purpose, of the Society. That Society was founded, as you know, princi-pally "to serve the divine Majesty and his holy Church, under the Roman Pontiff, th~ Vicar of Christ on earth" and "to devote itself totally to.~the defense and spre~ad of the holy Catholic faith." Those words are taken from the F'ormula ol the Institute, approved by Pope Julius III (MI [ser. 3] I, 375-~76). The Soci.ety's purpose thus remains the same as ever: the ex-pression that,the 32nd General Congregation used is.simply a reformulation to meet the needs of the present-day world, which is characterized by so many and such flagrant injustices. And so, in discussing this D.ecree 4, we are simply showing how the So-ciety i~sflu~f!,~ll!ng its overall purpose:, how it is living up to its mission. The principle~s, attitu~.es and methods that the decree proposes thus acquire a 677 6711 / Review for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/5 universal value much more far-reaching than the Decree itself, since every- ~thing is included in, and exemplified by, the way the Society carries out its purpose. The Originaiity of St. Ignatius The originality of St. Ignatius is to be found, not so much in the rea-sons that he "put down in writing, so as to be able to reflect on them" (Spiritual Diary, Feb. 11, 1544), as in "other illuminations" that he re-ceived from the Holy Trinity, with "feelings of intense emotion" (ibid.). 'Clearly, his originality will keep the same creativity and apostolic vigor down through .history, and the Society of today wants to continue to be--and should continue to be--what St. Ignatius made it. But there are certain moments in history when an inner force appears, stirring that originality to new external manifestations, and its dynamism acts with greater exuberance and creativity. Today is such a moment. In the aggiornamento that Vatican II called for, the Holy Spirit speaks more clearly to the Church (See Per- [ectae Caritatis, 2), and hence to the Society too, inviting us to a "thorough-going reassessment of our traditional apostolic methods, attitudes and in-stitutions, so as to adapt them to the changed conditions of our day" (De-cree 4:9). Our effort, then, after the congregation even more than during it, has to be to discern how we can provide the Society's distinctive service and carry out its mission with all its consequences. The new way of exercising this mission will require of the updated Society new or renewed attitudes, en-deavors, undertakings and institutions, which in turn presuppose new men, similarly reriewed fo~ today's generation. All these elements--"the Society of Jesus, its mission, its apostolate, its way of life"--are closely in~e'rrelated and cannot be considered or achieved separately. We cannot, therefore, discuss how the decree would have us carry out our apostolate, prescinding from our Order's special charism, or from the Jesuit'of today and his life style. In the constant advance of the pilgrim Church, which, vivified' by the Holy Spirit and under his impulse, comes ever closer to Christ (s~e LG 4), amid persecutions from the world" and consolations from God, the 32nd General Congregation is merely one episode in 'the life of this universal Church moving toward its eschatological perfection. The congregation too, as part of humanity and of the people of God, has felt itself inspired, guided and strengthened by that Spirit "who writes and impresses on hearts the law of charity and love" (Introd. to Constitutions, 1.) and keeps pressing toward "what is most conducive" (Sp. Ex. 23). A Return to Sources At this moment of history, the challenge the world offers has'brought the Society to a limit-situation, forcing it to go: back to the original soui'ces Some Practical Reflections on the General Congregation / 679 of Ignatian spirituality, to find there more effective means, to be able to face today's problems vigorously, not only in order to survive, but to come out of them purified and rejuvenated, and thus to.be more apt for giving the Church the service it desires. The return to Loyola, Manresa, Paris, La Storta and Rome was a .spontaneous movement in the Society of Jesus, and especially in the fathers of the General Congregation. We were, and we are, conscious that any renewal must always be inspired by those funda-mental :graces that St. Ignatius received for himself and the whole Society, by those mystical intuitions that begar~ with the spiritual infancy of Ignatius (.God treated him as an infant then, he tells us in his Autobiography) and continued through his full spiritual maturity, when he composed the Con-stitutions. The-me(hod that the congregation suggests for our ~practical applica-tion of what Decree 4 recommends is very simple, yet it is based on a deep theology and a logic and practical sense that give us the greatest guarantees. The Method Is the Message It has been said in another context that "the medium is the message." Here we may say that "the method is the message," because it includes such a wealth of elements that, though perhaps not altogether new, are under-stood and applied in so profound a way that their meaning and implications and correlations give them a great novelty. It is a method that uses new concepts, and when applied, sheds a new light on those concepts on which it is based. This method was not excogitated in an abstract or a priori way, but results fr6m a number of enriching ideas and concepts, of better studied, better tested situations. Thus it arose almost spontaneously, not so much as a logical deduction, but rather as the fruit of many vital° elements and their mutual Correlations, e.g., the concepts of mission, ofcommunity, of interpersonal relations, of service, of authority, bf poverty, and so' forth. It would be very easy to describe superficially thee manner of applying this decree, but that wa3~ we would not reach the real profundity of its method, nor would we catch the meaning and concrete manner of its application. It would b~ totally ineffective to proceed that way. Our deeper know!edge of certain concepts and circumstances enables us to work out a method v,e~ suited to the situations of this new world of ours. Thus, the application of this method, plus the experience, the intuitions and tile difficulties that contact with reality adds to it, enriches the ~concepts and gives them a greater r6alism. But that is not all: our new understanding of the ideas and their prac-tical apostolic applications call for renewed men~.who, incarnating this men-tality, will react in a fresh way, or at least will be able to adapt their ser-vice to the new needs of a Church and of a mankind we see rapidly becom-ing the great, universal human family. 680 / Review ]or Religious, l/olume 35, 1976/5 A Process of Reflection and Revision The final section of this decree, subtitled "Practical Dispositions," 6pen~ with a clearly Ignatian principle: "Considering the variety of situations in which Jesuits work, the°General Congregation cannot pi~ovide a single, uni-versally applicable program for producing this awareness and reducing it to 15ractice acco~rding to th~ decisions and guidelines gi,~en. Each province or group of provinces 'must undertake a program of reflection.and a review of our apostolate to discover what action is ,appropriate in each particular con-text" .(4.'71): It is the same princip!e that P.ope Paul stated for the whole Church in his Octogesima adveniens: "Faced with such varying situations, it is hard for Us~to formulate a single statement and propose a Solution with universal validity . It is for the Christian communities to analyse objec-tively their country's situation, to clarify' it in the light ofr'the unchanging words of the gospel" (4). ~ To find the appropriate mode of action, the congregation .gives us tWO basic principles that are implicitly contained in the Constitutions, the norms for the selection of ministries and those for the preparation of the instru-ment. We express these principles today by the terms "discernment" and "continuing formation." They are like two roads leading us to a personal knowledge, a conviction, and a more perfect pe~rformance of what God wants of us at each moment. Discernment , Discernment is, in all its profundity, the best way (I would say, con-sidering it in all its breadth, the only way) to be able to plan and choose among our concrete options, the proper apostolic strategy, in other words, to discover God's will for us here and now. The congregation recommends precisely this to us when it says that we need, "not so much a research program, as a process of reflection and evalua-tion, based on the.Ignatian tradition of spiritual discernment" (4:72). Psy-chological or purely t~chnical procedures are not sufficient; we need a deter-mination to .really "find God," using all the means, objective and subjective, indiVi~dual and collective, social, political, and so forth, through which he manifestos his will to us. A process of this sort requires a special divine assistance and a constant effol:t on our part to rid ourselves of every inordinate affection. For that reason, the °decree very properly underlines the word "indifference," when it tells us: "The primary stress is on prayer and the effort to attain 'indiffer-ence,' that is, an apostolic readiness for anything" (72). The seriousness of this discernment 6alls for thos~e perfect dispositions that St. Ignatius demands' inthe election, that culminating point in his Exer-cises. This .is a divine-human, personal, ecclesial act, inserted into the one plan of salvation that leads to the building up of the Kingdom of Christ in time, and comes, even now,~under eschatological judgment. St. Paul d~fines Some Practical Reflections on the General Congregation / 681 it: "Think+before you do anything; hold on,to what is good and avoid every form of evil" (1 Th 5,21~22)., .4 This~Pauline discernment is not~only a key to the New Testament; it is also a key for apostolic planning in the exercise of our :~'mission," remind-ing us of the interplay of divine grace and human freedom in Christian ilife. Thus the apostle feels integrated into salvation history, associated with the central kairos of the Incarnation and Resurrection, and:the final eschatologi-cal~ kairos. Understood in this,way, discernment explains and renews the meaning of,Ignatian solid pruden(e, "discreet charity," And thus the "mis-sion" received under0obedience can be applied concretely to the different and changeable situations of the problematic of today's world. At the same time, discernment is the great force that enables us" to grow spiritually,,in a rapid but solid way, since it obliges us to have our soul always inca disposition of total detachment from created things. As a conse-quence Of this active-passive "indifference,, discernment disposes the soul for the inspirations of the Spirit, no-matter .how they come or where ~they come-from. In particular, it disposes the soul for that basic inspiration of faith,~ hope and "discreet charity" that awakens it to desire the magis, i.e., to choose always what is better, what iS~"~.'God's will'here and now." An ac-tive indifference, always seeking the'magis, is, indeed, the Ignatian equiva-lent~ of ~"finding God in all things," or as Nadal put it in a dense and pro-found, phrase, the "contemplativus in actione" (contemplative in action). In addition to this inner disposition of Spirit, so necessary for a real dis-cernment, we also need as complete and deep a knowledge as possible of the reality that is the object of our .discernment, so that we can discover in that reality the expression of God's will f6r the world. To discover this, we need, first of all, a real "conscientization,, or critical contact with reality; and after that, an "insertion," an "evaluation," and finally an "incultura-tion." The basic elements of.,this process of discernment and conscientization, of insertion and inculturation~ are described briefly in Octogesima adveniens, which the 32nd General Congregation. quoted. They are: experience, re-flection, choices, action,, a constant reciprocal relationship. These are steps that lead, by their own inner force, to a "change in our.thought patterns and a conversion of souls and hearts so that we can make apostolic decisions" (4:73). ¯ Conscientization To know thoroughly the reality that we meet or in which we live, we need more than a superficial glance at it in a random contact, or a one-time experience of that reality. "Knowing thoroughly"means going beyond a mere spontaneous grasp, to a critical understanding. Real conscientization is a critical insertion into historical reality. This obliges man to accept the role of a subject who makes the world---or better, remakes it. It forces man to 6112 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/5 create his existence out of the material that life offers him. This is based, naturally, on the human capacity to work consciously on reality: hence conscientization necessarily includes the combination of our reflection on the world and our action on it. It also follows from this that real conscientization has to be a process constantly in act, so that the new reality that is evolving can in turn be grasped in a new conscientization, which again will produce a still newer reality. It is an ongoing process; conscientization is always creative. "Think-ing of the new reality as something-untouchable is simplistic and reactionary, just as much as saying that the old reality was untouchable; if men, as working beings, continue to accept a 'made' world, they will very soon be plunged into a new darkness."' And so, as conscientization increases, the manifestation of.reality also increases, and the penetration of its phenomenological sense. If we merely contemplate reality, we are no more than false intellectualists. Without the binomial action-reflection, there can be no conscientization; in other words, there can be no conscientization apart from practical action. The dialectical unity "action-reflection" will always be man's most distinctive mode of being, his only effective way of changing the world (see ibid. 30). There has to be, therefore, an insertion into reality 'and a reflection on reality. This double function enables us to know and act on re.ality, which in turn then acts on us. In other words, the external reality that we change then changes us in our very. depths, and that very change makes us become "agents for change." This interaction is a manifestation and an effect of the intimate action of the Holy Spirit, who integrates, simultaneously and har-moniously, the progress of a pilgrim mankind toward its true fatherland and each one's growth in divine life that the Spirit cbmmunicates to him. Insertion To~ know reality, to change our attitudes and achieve a true discern-ment, we must first be inserted into reality in an effective way, When I speak of insertion, I am referring to a real, critical insertion among the men of today, in order to create and shape society in an evangelical way. A genuine, insertion thus requires a change of personal attitude, the giving up, under many aspects, of our manner of being, thinking and acting, so we can understand and come closer to the new realities that we want to evangelize. It is a real problem of life and experience, which gives us a special profound and realistic knowledge which makes us solidary with men, particularly with the poor and the weak. Scripture itself and the entire theology of evangelization invite us to this insertion: "To become all things to all men" (1 Co 9, 22), to make other 1(See Paulo Freire, Conscientizaci6n [Sp. version], 2a ed., 30-36, in Coll. Educaci6n hoy, 4, Asociaci6n de publicaciones educativas, Bogot~i). ~ Some Practical Reflections on the General Congregation / 6113 people's problems ours, "to make ourselves servants of others" (Decree 2". 29), to. be "segregatus in evangelium" ["specially chosen to preach the Good News"] (Rom 1, 1), and to become the "salt of the earth" (Mt 5, 13). For that re.ason, the 31st Congregation recommended that our residences be built and set up among workers and the most downtrodden classes, so that Ours, spending their lives with the poor Christ, may [thus] practice their various apostolates (27: 8). This insertion or "incarnation" means solidarity with those who suffer, even to being identified with their lives. Here we find the most profound meaning of the poverty of the poor Christ, whom we want to imitate and follow. That phrase of the Exercises that describes our contemplation "as if I were actually present" (Ex 114)~-takes on a vivid meaning that re-flects the gospel words: "What you did to the least of my brothers, you did to me" (M~ 25, 40). If we juxtapose St. Ignatius's tw.o key lines from the Exercises: "What shall I do for Christ?" (Ex 53) and "being poor with the poor Christ" (Ex 167), with those words of Christ: "What you did to the least of my brothers, you did to me," everything takes on a new light, whose brilliance shakes our consience. It_is the apparition of Christ among the poor, his real presence among them.: This reality of Christ in the world of today plays a decisive role in our choice of ministries and in our lives. "Have we realized that conversion to Christ implies a conversion to our neighbor, particularly our most abandoned neighbor? This requires a change of mentality that is not at all easy, a change of attitude and of life on the personal, collective and apostolic level. In a word, it transports us. to the heart of the painful tension of the election" (ibid. 199). Not every insertion has~ the value and meaning of a truly apostolic in-sertion. To see if our insertion is apostolic, we will have to look for some of its characteristic features. First of all, it should be evangelical, i.e., inspired and guided by the Gospel, by the spirit of the Gospel, which we find in the Beatitudes, in the cross and the resurrection of Christ. On the contrary, an insertion inspired by radicalism or a revolutionary spirit, one seeking class struggle or vindica-tion, one that exalts itself, regarding itself as a model far better than any other, is not the insertion a religious should seek. In practice, we often lose sight of our evangelical spirit, even though we~protest that our aim is to "evangelize." Sec6nd, this insertion should be apostolic, i.e., inspired by an apostolic motivation and idealism, not by merely sociological or humanitarian con- ~iderations, which are a completely different thing. It has to be rooted in '-'(See J. ,Alfaro, "Ejercicios y Constituciones: Unidad Vital," in Mensajero, Bilbao, 1974, 195-199). 61~4 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/5 faith, built on prayer, purified of all,selfishness. Such an attitude cannot be had from natural forces alone, but comes only from the force of the Spirit. Third, the insertion of the religious has to be the expression of a mission, that is, something more than the fruit of one's own ideas or some project oil-one's own. It has to be the object of a mission that follows, under obedi-ence, God's will, rather than the whims of a self-appointed group thatmakes independent decisions, ignoring or opposing those of their superiors. It must be the result of mission precisely conferred or approved by Obedience. A true insertion requires a series of qualities in the individual or the community: ,. --First of all, it calls for humility and conversion, i.e.; the desire of leading a more evangelical life and the recognition of one's own limita-tions, without considering oneself superior to anyone--and especially without~judging anyone, even if exteriorly he may seem to be leading a less evangelical life. --Second,. such an insertion calls for a clear sense o] one's identity, inas, much as the harsh experiences that can come to those who live such an insertion, and the observance of others' sufferings and injustices can strike us in so forceful and passionate a way as to take away our re-ligious and evangelical sense and lead us to adopt' positions and atti-tudes foreign to the Institute to which we belong. --Third, to be truly and solidly inserted, we need a well'integrated personality, capable of resisting the "shock" caused by the effort of adapting to a very different set of surroundings. Not a few.religious~men and women, full of generosity but without a solidly integrated personal-ity, have lost their vocations because of this "shock," and h'ave then succumbed to irreparable crises. -~Fourth, we need a solid [ormation. Some'have to learn to experience this insertion in surroundings and situations that are not sufficiently formed for that level of hardship. A full insertion into new s.urroundings calls for a very'solid and balanced formation,'which'usually takes a long time and experience. Only a serious preparation can give su~cient maturity and ability to integrate all the elements of the apostolic pro-cess: experience-reflection-choice-action. With it, the insertion can be kept within proper limits and will allow the maximum .of productivity. --Fifth, it requires serious reflection. Experience alone is not enough; it has to be tested by reflection, without which we can never have opti-mum results and avoid the mistakes due to either excess°or deficiency. Reflection on the concrete experience will expand o~r understanding of the situation, and will suggest the proper options find the changes that must be made for a more. effective apostolate. That is, it will make our action not only tend in the right direction, but have some likelihood of continuing and succeeding; too. Some Practical Reflections on the General Congregation / 685 ¯ ---Sixth,~-we need~ close collaboration with others. A genuine insertion invites and produces such collaboration. It is a stimulus and an apt means for fitting into the overall pastoral plan and activities of other groups and sectors. -z-Seventh, we need pluralism. Insertion needs and introduces a broad pluralism in the sense that modes of service have to be different urider differing circumstances. Insertion is not limited to a particular social stratum, e.g., the poor, but takes in all worlds: intellectual, univei'sity, ~ ,.professional, cultural, infracultural, etc. ~ If all these conditions are verified, the insertion will be 'much more ef-fective, organic and "differentiated: W~ will avoidduplications--and 6mis-" sions--of projects and methods for ~vhich, others~ are better qualified; each one will ,produce to the maximiam, having found his plac.e in the overall pastoral' plan of the local and universal Church. This insertion can also resolve the tension betweenthose who learn and those who teach, because, as experience shows, p~articularly in times of rapid change, life and human contact, even with the less cultured and humbler," are a "marvelous school, in which we learn from others th~it very lofty science, the "science of man," which we can never acquire without this contact with reality and every-day life. Insertion will make us feel the need to be always in the posture of a disciple, which is indispensable .for the apostle working for contemporary man in the world of today. Eyaluation TO ~be able to make an objective and effective discernment, so we can give to our labors, 6ur projects and institutions a new orientation, we need not only conscientization iihd insertion, but an~evaluation of our activitie~ too. Decree 4 suggests this to us very clearly: "Where do'we live? Where do we work? How? With whom? What, in the final analysis, really is our in-volvement with, dependence on, or commitment tO ideologies, or to those who wield power? Is it only to the converted that we know how to preach ,Jesus, Christ? These are some Of the questions w~ should ask about ourselves individually, as well as about our commumtles and restitutions (4:74). It0is very important to evaluate~ our acti~'ities and our works. We are urged to make such an evaluation by Decrees 4, 6 and ]5: "Our Mission Today," "The Formation of Jesuits," and "Ceritral Government." Our evalu-ation would consist in analyzing the quantity and quality of the results we are obtaining, in relation to our.objectives, in, order to have some'idea of their effectiveness. Evaluation presupposes that we have'logically ~¢ell-defined goals, suffi-ciently recognized as such.- : o Unfortunately, the Society has not always stopped to evaluat~ its work, or at least it has not always done so with precision, scientifically. Usually, 6116 / Review ]or Religious, l/olume 35, 1976/5, it has.gone about this effort in an improVised and haphazard fashio.n, mak-ing obvious, superficial judgments that do not enable us to reach valid con-clusions. What is more, we seem to be afraid of such evaluations at least subconsciously, considering them a threat. When they are asked to rate their efforts, some feel threatened and called into question, as though such a re-quest implied a negative judgment or a challenge to the project in which they are engaged. But an evaluation is the indispensable means for being able to upgrade. our projects. If in certain cases it should turn.out that a certain project.ought to be revised or disappear completely because it no longer accomplishes its purpose,~ or because ~it blocks projects of ~greater importance, that is the moment for Ignatian indifference. Indeed, why should ~we keep a work going that once upon,a time was co~astructive, but now has become an ob-stacle? The sufferings we naturally feel when told to give up some work are not against indifference; they are an understandable human reaction, a normal manifestation of the love we feel for a project on which we' have ~pent.ourselves, perhaps for many years. But such an evaluation has to be made. The argument from authority comes into play here, since not only GC 32, but the Holy Father, too, wants such evaluations (Acta Romana XVI, 432). Moreover, experience a.nd the intrinsic value of making periodic evaluations also. urge us,to make them, if we want to be consistent with the Ignatian magis which bids us always to offer the greatest possible service of God. The 32nd General Congregation recommends, therefore, that "there should be a definite mechanism for the review of our ministries" (4:77). This mechanism is the indispensable condition,.for having an evaluation, and hence a rational "choice of ministries and sel~ting of priorities and pro-grams" (4:75). The congregation therefore added: "Now is a good time to examine critically how these arrangements are working and, if need be, to replace them by others that are more effective and allow for a wider participation in the process of communal discern, ment" (4:77). The data proyided by an evaluation of this sort will be most helpful and even essential for knowing thoroughly the works to be examined by an apostolic discernment, and they will enable u

Issue 32.3 of the Review for Religious, 1973. ; Review ]or Religious is edited by faculty members of the School of Divinity of St. Louis University, the editorial offices being located at 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. It is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute; St. Louis, Missouri. Published bimonthly and copy-right ~) 1973 by Review /or Reqgious. Composed, printed, and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. Single copies: $1.25. Sub-scription U.S.A. and Canada: $6.00 a year; $11.00 for two years; other countries, $7.00 a year, $13.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be accompanied by check or money order payable to Review ]or Religious in U.S.A. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent Review ]or Religious. Change of address requests should include former address. R. F. Smith, S.J. Everett A. Diederich, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor May 1973 Volume 32 Number 3 Renewals, new subscriptions, and changes of address should be sent to Review for Religious; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, Minnesota 55802. Correspondence with the editor and the associate editor together with manuscripts, books for review, and materials for "Subject Bibliography for Religious" should be sent to Review for Religious; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; St. Joseph's Church; 321 Willings Alley; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19106. The Anointing of the Sick Paul VI The following is an English translation of an apostolic constitution dated November 30 1972 but not made publicly available until January 18 1973. The constitution represents updated provisions for the administration of the sacrament of the anointing of the sick. Subtitles in the following have been added by the editor. The Catholic Church professes and teaches that the sacred anointing of the sick is one of the seven sacraments of the New Testament, that it was in-stituted by Christ, and that it is "alluded to in Mark (Mk 6: 13) and recom-mended and promulgated to the faithful by James the Apostle and brother of the Lord. "If any of you is ill," says James, "he should send for the elders of the Church, and they should anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord and pray over him. The prayer of faith will save the sick man and the Lord will raise him up again; and if he has committed any sins, he will be for-given (Js 5:14-5).1 Ancient Testimonies From ancient times testimonies of the anointing of the sick are found in the Church's tradition, particularly her liturgical one, both in the East and in the West. Especially worthy of note in this regard are two testimonies: The letter which Innocent I, our predecessor, addressed to Decentius, Bishop of GubbioZ; and the venerable prayer used for blessing the oil of the sick: "Send forth, O Lord, your.Holy Spirit the Paraclete," which was inserted 1Council of Trent, Session XIV, De extrema unctione, Chapter 1 (see also ibid., Canon 1): CT, VII, 1, 355-6; DS, 1695, 1716. ZThe letter Si instituta ecclesiastica, Chapter 8: PL 20, 559-61; DS 216. 465 466 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/3 into the Eucharistic prayer:~ and is still preserved in the Roman Pontifical? In the course of the centuries in the liturgical tradition the parts of the body of the sick person to be anointed with holy oil were more explicitly defined in different ways, and there were added various formulas to accom-pany the anointings with prayers which are contained in the liturgical books of the various Churches. During ~the Middle Ages there prevailed in the Roman Church the custom of anointing the sick on the five senses using the formula: "Per istam sanctam unctionem et suam piissimam misericordiam indulgeat tibi Dominus quidquid deliquisti" ["Through this holy anointing and His most loving mercy, may the Lord pardon whatever wrong you have committed"], followed by an adaptive addition for each sense.'~ Conciliar Teaching In addition, the doctrine concerning sacred anointing is expounded in the documents of the ecumenical councils, namely the Council of Florence and in particular the Council of Trent and the Second Vatican Council. After the Council of Florence had described the essential elements of the anointing of the sick,'~ the Council of Trent declared its divine institution and explained what is given in the Epistle of St. James concerning the sacred anointing, especially with regard to the reality and effects of the sacra-ment: "This reality is in fact the grace of the Holy Spirit whose anointing takes away sins, if any still remain to be taken away, and the remnants of sin; it also relieves and strengthens the soul of the sick person, arousing in him a great confidence in the divine mercy, whereby being thus sustained he more easily bears the trials and labors of his sickness, more easily resists the temptations of the devil 'lying in wait' (Gn 3: 15), .and sometimes re-gains bodily health, if this is expedient for the health of the soul.''~ The same Council also declared that in these words of the apostle it is stated with suffi-cient clarity that "this anointing is to be administered to the sick, especially :~Liber sacramentorum Romanae Ecclesiae ordinis amti circuli ed. L. C. Mohlberg, ~'Rerum ecclesiasticarum documenta, Fontes," IV, Rome, 1960, p. 61; Le Sacra-mentaire Gregorien ed. J. Deshusses, "Spicilegium Friburgense," v. 16, Fribourg, 1971, p. 172; and see La Tradition Apostolique de saint Hippolyte ed. B. Botte, "Liturgie-wissenschaftliche Quellen und Forschungen," v. 39, Miinster in W., 1963, pp. 18-9; Le Grand Euchologe du MonastOre Blanc ed. E. Lanne, Patrologia orientalis, v. XXVII1/2, Paris, 1958, pp. 392-5. 4See Pontificale Romanum: Ordo benedicendi oelum catechumenorum et infirmorum et conficiendi chrisma. Vatican City, 1971, pp. 11-2. '~See M. Andrieu, Le Pontifical Romain au Moyen-Age, v. 1, Le Pontifical Romain du Xlle siOcle, "Studi e testi," v. 86, Vatican City, 1938, pp. 267-8; v. 2, Le Pontifical de la Curie romaine au XIIle sikcle, "Studi e testi," v. 87, Vatican City, 1940, pp. 491-2. C'Decretum pro Armenis. G. Hofmann, Council of Florence, I/I1, p. 130; DS 1324f. ~Council of Trent, Sessio XIV, De extrema unctione, Chapter 2: CT, VII,. I, 356; DS 1696. The Anointing ol the Sick / 467 those who are in such a condition as to appear to have reached the end of their life, whence it is also called the sacrament of the dying.''s Finally, it declared that the priest is the proper minister of the sacrament.9 The Second Vatican Council adds the following: " 'Extreme Unction,' which may also and more fittingly be called 'anointing of the sick,' is not a sacrament for those only who are at the point of death. Hence, as soon as any one of the faithful begins to be in danger of death from sickness or old age, the appropriate time for him to receive this sacrament has certainly already arrived.''1° The fact that the use of this sacrament concerns the whole Church is shown by these words: "By the sacred anointing of the sick and the prayer of her priests, the whole Church commends those who are ill to the suffering and glorified Lord, asking that he may ligthten their suffering and save them (cf. James 5:14-6). She exhorts them, moreover, to con-tribute to the welfare of the whole People of God by associating themselves freely with the passion and death of Christ (cf. Rom 8:17; Col 1:24; 2 Tim 2:11-2; 1 Peter 4:13).''11 Revision ot the Rite All these elements had to be taken into consideration in revising the rite of sacred anointing, in order to better adapt to present-day conditions those elements which were subject to change?'-' We have thought fit to modify the sacramental formula in such a way that, in view of the words of St. James, the effects of the sacrament might be better expressed. Further, since olive oil, which hitherto had been prescribed for the valid administration of the sacrament, is unobtainable or difficult to obtain in some parts of the world, we decree, at the request of "numerous bishops, that in the future, according to the circumstances, oil of another sort can also be used provided it is obtained from plants, thus being closer to the oil de-rived from the olive. As regards the number of anointings and the parts of the body to be anointed, it has seemed to us opportune to proceed to a simplification of the rites. Therefore, since this revision in certain points touches upon the sacra-mental rite itself, by our apostolic authorit3~ we decree that for the future the following is to be observed in the Latin Rite. SIbid., Chapter 3: CT, ibid; DS 1698. 'albid., Chapter 3, Canon 4: CT, ibid.; DS 1719. 1°Vatican Council II, Constitutio Sacrosanctum Concilium, 73: AAS, LVI (1964), pp. 118-9. 11Ibid., Constitutio Lumen gentium, ll: AAS, LVII i1965), p. 15. ~See Vatican Council II, Consiitutio Sacrosanctunt Conciliutn, 1: AAS, LVI (1964), p. 97. Review ]or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/3 The Future Rite The sacrament of the anointing of the sick is administered to those who are dangerously ill by anointing them on the forehead and hands with olive oil, or, if opportune, with another vegetable oil properly blessed, and by saying once only the following words: "Per istam sanctam unctionem et suam piissimam misericordiam adiuvet te dominus gratia Spiritus Sancti, ut a peccatis liberatum te salvet atque propitius allevet" ["Through this holy anointing and His most loving mercy, may the Lord assist you by the grace of the Holy Spirit so that when you have been freed from your sins He may save you and in His goodness bring you relief"]. In case of necessity however it is sufficient that a single anointing be given on the forehead or, because of the particular condition of the sick per-son, on another more suitable part of the body, the whole formula being pro-nounced. This sacrament can be repeated if the sick person, having once received the anointing, recovers and then again falls sick, or if, in the course of the same illness, the danger becomes more acute. Promulgation and Conclusion Having laid down and declared these elements concerning the essential rite of the sacrament of the anointing of the sick, we, by our apostolic au-thority, also appi'ove the Order of the anointing of the sick and of their pas-toral care, as it has been revised by the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship. At the s, ame time, we revoke, where necessary, the prescriptions of the Code of Canon Law or other laws hitherto in forqe, or we abrogate them; other prescriptions and laws, which are neither abrogated nor changed by the above mentioned Order, remain valid and in force. The Latin edition of the Order containing the new rite will come into force as soon as it is pub-lished. The vernacular editions, prepared by the episcopal conferences and confirmed by the Apostolic See, will come into force on the day which will be laid down by the individual conferences. The old Order can be used until 31 December 1973. From 1 January 1974, however, the new Order only is to be used by all those whom it concerns. We desire that these decrees and prescriptions of ours shall, now and in the future, be fully effective in the Latin Rite, notwithstanding, as far as is necessary, the apostolic constitutions and directives issued by our predeces-sors and other prescriptions, even if worthy of special mention. Given at Saint Peter's in Rome, on the thirtieth day of November, in the year 1972, the tenth of our Pontificate. PAUL VI Candlemas Address to Sisters Paul VI I~[irihg the ceremony of the presentation of candles celebrated on February 2 1973, tHh Holy Father gave a talk on religious women presented here in the English trans-l~.[ ion published in Osservatore romano, English language edition, February 15 1973, pp. 3, I0. Oc~ursus, in Latin, Ypapant~, in Greek, was the name given to this festivity ifi ~he early Oriental Church. It meant the meeting, that is, the fact of meet-iO~ the infant Jesus, taken to the Temple of Jerusalem forty days after His bii:th, according to the law of Moses, to be offered to God, as belonging to Hiin. We all know that it was during this legal and religious rite that there tdok place the meeting with old Simeon, who, inspired by the Holy Spirit, r6~bgnized in Jesus the Messiah and proclaimed Him "a light for revelation t6 the Gentiles." Immediately afterwards there also took place the meeting with the venerable prophetess Anna, eighty four years old, who "came to give thanks to God, and spoke of the child to all who were looking for the r6demption of Israel" (Lk 2:38). A Me~;sianic meeting, therefore, which uil~s on prophetic significance and historical voice, and which publicly in-augurates the era of Christ, in-the very place sacred to worship of the one triJe God, and to the chosen People's awareness of its mysterious destiny. A Matter of Loyalties ,Well, let us begin our pious ceremony by giving the meeting, which gathers us here, the religious and spiritual significance which reflects, from s6ihe points of view, the one that the liturgy has us commemorate today. Ybh come here to carry out.an act of recognition of the mission entrusted t6 bur humble person, namely to implement and continue in time the mis- 469 470 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/3 sion of Jesus Christ, the light and salvation of the world. It is a meeting that expresses mainly two sentiments of yours, one of faith, faith in Christ, in His Gospel and His Church; the other of open adherence in filial respect to the Pope, your Bishop, to the apostle Peter, to whom the Lord entrusted the keys, that is, the authority of the kingdom of heaven, and at the same time the pastoral function over the whole Church. Aware of our human limits, we would be tempted to avoid this meeting, but the investiture of the apostolic office, transmitted to us in legitimate succession, forbids us to do so; in fact it lays upon us the important and sweet obligation to welcome it wholeheartedly. Yes, blessed by this meeting which offers us the welcome opportunity to have around us such a full, varied, and devoted assembly as the one that now surrounds us, which we ourself wished to see carefully arranged, in this monumental and holy basil-ica, not in our honor, but in yours, beloved and venerated sons. The meet-ing means unity, it means harmony, it means awareness of the hierarchial and organic society, which is at the same time religious and spiritual, that we together make up, love, and serve. The meeting means the Church, and here the Roman Church, the apostolic Church. Candle Rich in Symbolism This common awareness is made real and, as it were, experienced owing to the double fact of the presence of the representatives of so many ecclesial bodies, living in the same City, but not easily brought together in the same place and in the same ceremon3~; and the fact that each of these representa-tives comes bearing the offering of a candle, a symbo, l rich in multiple mean-ings, first and foremost the heartfelt bond whereby every institution repre-sented wishes to be connected in faith and charity with us, now brings us deep spiritual joy. We are honoring Christ together; together for Him and with Him we are honoring the Church. What else could make us so happy and bring us such consolation? We often think now that the great event, for which our century will be remembered, the Ecumenical Council recently concluded, was intended to serve, in the intentions of divine Providence, to revive, deepen, and harmo-nize that sense of the Church, which the conciliar doctrines have nourished with splendid themes, and which the evolution of the times requires to be more limpid and strong than ever. We are therefore full of joy and confi-dence when we have some almost tangible experience, however rapid and particular, of this "sense of the Church." How happy and moved we are to enjoy now with you, the ecclesial communion of our diocese! How easy it is for us to suppose that the Apostles, its founders, that its martyrs and its saints, with the Blessed Virgin, salus Populi Romani, are assisting us at this significant moment of spiritual meeting; nay more, to think of the mystery of the secret presence among us of Christ Himself, who promised to be in the midst of those gathered together in His name (Mt 18:20). Candlemas Address to Sisters / 471 Esteem |or Sisters We cannot fail to draw attention to a circumstance that characterizes this ceremony, and confers on it a splendid note of piety and solemnity. Do you see who has the larger and the better part in the Basilica today? It is the religi6us women. It is our sisters, it is the virgins and widows, consecrated to the Lord, living in Rome and belonging to our community. Greetings to you, beloved Daughters in Christ! You blessed religious, who have accepted our invitation to this meeting, whose purpose, as we said, is to gather us round the Messianic mystery of the presentation of the infant Jesus in the Temple and thus express the network of spiritual and canonical bonds which gives form and substance to religious and social unity in the Church of Rome. Why did we wish the "Roman" sisters (the fact that. they live or even are temporarily staying in our Diocese, qualifies them as such), to have a distinguished place in this assembly today? Oh! For many reasons! We will mention some of them. It is our wish that the diocesan community should have an opportunity for once to show its esteem and affection for these chosen daughters, humble and strong. They are not out on the fringe, no, they are the flowers of its garden. It is our wish that the style of their "evangelica testificatio," of their evangelical testimony, should be honored and vindi6ated in view of the devaluation of laicism which would like to secularize even the most ardent souls, those following most faithfully in Christ's footsteps. It is our wish that a reawakened gen-erous sensitivity of the community of the faithful should not forget the needs of the poorer sisters, often without the means of subsistence. It is our wish that the ascetic, contemplative tradition of religious life, or the active one, should be recognized by everyone, by the ecclesial community particular~ly, as valid and relevant updated as it must be according to the spirit of the recent Council and according to the norms suggested by the documents of this apostolic See, in conformity with ihe renewing effort that the individual religious families have succeeded in imparting to their own way of life, some-times wearisome and purely formal, by means of the wise revisions of their statutes, studied and carried out in their recent general chapters. It is our wish that the specific vocations which qualify religious institutes such as pray.er and penitence, isolation and silence for the purpose of more intense inner absorption in the pursuit of convers'ation wit'h God, or tireless dedica-tion in arduous and providential educational work, or in expert assistance to the sick or the various social needs, or with regard to the Catholic missions, and according to the inventive genius of their piety and their charity--it is our wish that these vocations should be given an honorable and organic place in the ecclesial structure, even, perhaps, by means of some sacred initiation. It is our wish, furthermore, to promote and perfect .the assignment of sisters, when they so desire and are qualified to do so, to cooperation in the pastoral ministry, particularly where there is a shortage of the clergy, or in parishes engaged in religious and moral assistance in popular districts and 472 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/3 poor suburbs, or in the desolate countryside. We want them to be together with the praying, teaching, operating, ~uf-fering, evangelizing Church, these generous and courageous daughters of ours, these pious and hard-working sisters of ours, these simple, dignified women, always exemplary, and, according to the title attributed to sincere members of the early Christian communities, holy! Following Mary's Way Oh yes! Beloved daughters of holy Church, let the spirit of communion by which she lives enter your houses, beyond the gates of your cloisters, into your souls, instilling the breath of the renewal desired by the Ecumenical Council, and giving you too, nay rather you especially, a vision of the great divine plans at work among mankind and marking its destiny with regard to its supernatural and eschatological salvation, just as they present to us our duties and our resources for the help necessary for the elevation of ~he world, its concord and peace. And here you have understood, blessed daughters, no less than eccles.ias-tics and laymen, and following the steps of the Blessed Virgin along the evangelic.al path interpreted by the liturgical rite we are celebrating, you come to the altar bearing, you, too, your symbolic gift, your candle. Y~ou make us think of the parable of the virgins of the Gospel of St. Matthew. You remind us of the many meanings that ritual and spiritual language at-tributes to the pure and primitive source of light, the candle. You give us the idea of recommending that you should make the candle the symbol of your persons" because of its uprightness and its sweetness, the image of innocen.c.e and purity; because of its function of burning and illuminating, for which the candle is destined, realizing in itself the definition of your life enti.rely destined for the one love, burning and complete, of the Father, for Christ, in the Holy Spirit, a fire-love. It is a love which, with prayer, example, action, providentially illuminates the room and the path of the Church and of the surrounding world. Finally, the candle is destined to consume itself in sile.nce, like your life in the now irrevocable drama of your consecrated heart: t~.he sacrifice, like Christ on the Cross, in a sorrowful, happy love, which will n.ot be extinguished on the last day, but surviving will shine forth forever in the eternal meeting with the divine Bridegroom. For you, for all those present, our Apostolic blessing, with affection_ate gratitude. The Supreme Court on Abortion' A Dissenting Opinion Patrick T. Conley and Robert J. McKenna Patrick T. Conley is associate professor in the Department of History at Providence College; Providence, Rhode Island 02918. His specialty is Constitutional History with degrees in both history and law. Robert J. McKenna is associate professor of Politics at Salve Regina College; Ochre Point Avenue; Newport, Rhode Island 02840. He is also a State Senator from Newport and is a specialist in Church-State relations. In the decade of the 1850s one of the most vexing constitutional questions concerned the status of slavery in the federal territories. For reasons which historians have not yet fully fathomed, this issue became a vent for the economic, emotional, psychological, and moral disputes generated by the institution of slavery itself. During this acrimonious debate three basic posi-tions emerged: ( 1 ) the pro-slave argument which held that Congress had a positive duty to protect a slave owner's property rights in the federal terri-tories; (2) a diametrically opposed view, advanced by anti-slavery Northern-ers, stating that Congress must ban slavery from the territories; and (3) the middle ground of "popular sovereignty" which left the decision on slavery to the residents of the areas in question. Then, in 1857, a Southern-dominated Supreme Court attempted toresolve this morally-charged dispute in what it considered to be a rational and impartial manner. The result was the Dred Scott Decision in which the Court novelly employed the procedural Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to vindicate the Southern position. But it did so in disregard of historical precedents which made that view un-tenable. To compound its error, the Court contended that Negroes could not attain citizenship because such status contravened the intent of the founding fathers. The Dred Scott Decision did not resolve the great moral dispute over slavery and the status of the Negro in American society. It was so patently 473 474 / Review ]or Religious, Volutne 32, 1973/3 unsound that it was overridden--both by subsequent events and by the less violent process of constitutional amendment. The Decision of January 22, 1973 On January 22, 1973, the United States Supreme Court, in magisterial fashion, undertook to resolve another moral controversy in the case of Roe v. Wade, and a companion decision, Doe v. Bolton. These decisions con-cerned abortion, and here a right more fundamental than citizenship was at stake--in issue was the right to life. The Dred Scott analogy to Roe v. Wade is not an exercise in hyperbole; not only was a more basic right in-volved, but a much larger class was affected. In 1857, approximately 4,100,000 blacks and their descendants were judicially attainted; in 1973 alone about 5 million living human fetuses will be shorn of their natural right to life for at least the first six months of their existence. Unlike the Biblical decree of Herod, however, Roe v. Wade does not mandate a slaughter of the innocents. The Court, in fact, explicitly denied the contention of appellant Jane Roe (a fictional name) that a woman's right to an abortion is absolute and that she is entitled to terminate her preg-nancy at whatever time, in whatever way, and for whatever reason she alone chooses. "With this we do not agree," said Justice Blackmun for the major-ity. His statement was echoed by the Chief Justice: "Plainly, the Court today rejects any claim that the Constitution requires abortion on demand," affrmed Mr. Burge'r. Even the libertarian Justice Douglas admitted that "voluntary abortion at any time and place regardless of medical standards would impinge on a rightful concern of society. The woman's health is part of that concern; as is the life of the fetus after quickening." But though the decision was not a total victory for the abortion advo-cates, it was a substantial victory nonetheless. In essence, the Court con-cluded that a state criminal abortion statute, like that of Texas, which "ex-cepts from criminality only a life saving procedure on behalf of the mother, without regard to a pregnancy stage and without recognition of the other in-terests involved, is violative of the Due Process Clau~e of the Fourteenth Amendment." Mother's Alleged Right of Privacy The so-called right which the Texas abortion statute allegedly infringed upon was the expectant mother's right of privacy. In deference to maternal privacy the Court then proceeded to formulate the following abortion schedule: (a) "For the stage prior to approximately the end of the first trimester [the first three months], the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman's attending physician; (b) for the stage subsequent to approximately the end of the first trimester [the second three months], the State, in promoting its interest in the health of the mother, may, if it chooses, regulate the abortion proce- Abortion / 475 dure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health; (c) for the stage subsequent to viability [the final three months] the State, in promoting its interests in the potentiality of human life, may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother." Such was the fiat of the Court--a formidable pronouncement indeed. Justice Blackmun's rationale and argumentation, however, were not sufficient to support the Court's foray into the legislative domain because the decision contained several dubious moral, logical, biomedical, and legal contentions. The Question of Life First, the Court explicitly admitted that it "need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins . the judiciary, at this point in the develop-ment of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer." Later it took notice of the fact that the Catholic Church, "many non-Catho-lics," and "many physicians" believed that life began at conception. In view of these considerations and the Court's candid admission of its own igno-rance, it seems incredible that the Court could proceed with confidence to schematize abortion according to the trimester system. It chided Texas for arbitrarily selecting conception as a basis for that state's abortion law, and then, in an equally arbitrary manner chose viability as the basis of its own formula. In effect, the Court said: "We do not know if human life exists prior to viability, but even if it does we choose not to protect it, and we bar the states from protecting it also." It has often been the practice of the Court when it could not resolve or define a key issue before it (like the nature of a "republican form of govern-ment") to declare the matter a political question and therefore nonjusti-ciable. If ever the doctrine of political question should have been invoked, it was when the Court asserted that the question of life's commencement was beyond its ability to resolve. To proceed in the face of that admission was reckless folly. It was, as stated by Justice White in his dissent, "an exercise in raw judicial power"; an "improvident and extravagant exercise of the power of judicial review." White could find "no constitutional warrant" for the Court's action, nor could he accept "the Court's exercise of its clear power of choice by interposir~g a constitutional barrier to state efforts to protect human life and by investing mothers and doctors with the constitu-tionally protected right to exterminate it." The Court did rush in, however, armed with its nescience regarding the origins of human life, and the results were disastrous. Rights of a Person and the Fetus Having thus disposed of the question of life, the justices examined four main theories regarding the point in time when the rights of a person at-tach to a human fetus, namely (I) conception, (2) quickening or first 476 / Review [or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/3 movement, (3) viability, or (4) birth. Justice Blackmun concluded that "the word 'person,' as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, does not include the unborn." Here the Court buttressed its contention with formidable but not insurmountable evidence. With equal effort it could have reached the opposite conclusion, especially in view of the fact that no evidence was adduced to show that the drafters intended to exclude the unborn when they utilized the word "person" in the various sections of the Constitution where it appears. In the absence of a clear constitutional intent, arising ho doubt from t, he fact that the particular problem raised in Roe v. W~ide never oc-curred to previous constitutional draftsmen, the Court should have exercised restraint. Compelling State Interest The Court has applied the "compelling state interest" standard to those legislative acts which have set up classifications or categories, the members of which have been deprived of equal protection of the law. In several recent opinions a majority of the Court asserted that the strictness of the standard for decision in cases involving classifications made by legislative bodies ¯ varies according to the nature of the right placed in jeopardy; the more fundamental the right involved, the greater was the judicial requirement to "carefully and meticulously scrutinize" thc classification in the light of the following principles: (a) As ihe right in jeopardy becomes more fundamental, the more perfect must be the relationship between the classification excluding a human group from the en-joyment of the right and the purpose for which the classification is made. (b) As the right involved becomes more ftmdamental, the more "compelling" the state or governmental interest must be in making a classification exc!iading certain human groups from the enjoyment of the right. In Roe v. Wade the Court has not practiced what it preached. In effect, it has established a judicial classification consisting of those unborn' humans who have not reached the stage of viability and has deprived thes6 individ-uals of their right to life by making them fair game for the abbrti0nist. Several learned anti-abortionists who presented an amicus curiae brief to the Court for its consideration made this valid observation. They argued that "because of the fundamental nature of life, the most compellin~ of all interests would have to be shown on the part of the Court in order to carve out such a classification, which would exclude the lives of unborn huinans from the protection of the law." The Court's Rationale The Court did, indeed, advance a rationale to justify its conclusions by claiming that "the right of personal privacy" is "broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy," though ad-mitting that the right was "not unqualified and must be considered against Abortion / 477 important state interests in regulation." When the Court tried to explain why this alleged right of privacy was fundamental enough to override a state's in-terest in the protection of fetal life, the shallowness of its value system was glaringly revealed. Justice Blackmun justified abortion on the grounds of privacy because "maternity, or additional offspring, may force upon the woman a distressful life and future," cause psychological harm, bring "distress for all con-cerned," or place a social "stigma" on the unwed mother. These were the "weighty reasons" for excluding the unborn from the enjoyment of the right to life. Justice Douglas, in a concurring opinion arising out of Roe v. Wade and its companion case involving a Georgia abortion law (Doe v. Bolton), went to more ridiculous extremes. Childbirth, said Douglas, "may deprive a woman of her preferred life style and force upon her a radically different and undesired future." She would be required "to endure the discomforts of pregnancy; to incur the pain, higher mortality rate, and aftereffects of child-birth; to abandon educational plans; to sustain loss of income; to forego the satisfactions of careers; to tax further mental and physical health . . . and, in some cases, to bear the lifelong stigma of unwed motherhood." One could scarcely imagine a more amoral and hedonistic rationale. For the highest. court in a land which professes spiritual values and claims foundation "un-der God" to use such criteria to justify the extermination of human life is a tragic occurrence in every sense of the word. Here is humanism incarnate-- man has become God. Selfishness and Self-love The Court and the absolute abortionists, who occupy a more extreme position than the high tribunal itself, are essentially concerned about the "quality of life." Adolf Hitler had the same concern. It is both ironic and appalling that many individuals and groups who vociferously deplored Hit-ler's misguided attempts to improve the quality of life in Nazi Germany are in the vanguard of the current genocidal attack upon the unborn. The justifications for abortion expressed by Justices Blackmun and Doug-las are the epitome of human selfishness and self-iove. The countervailing evils of easy abortion were thrust aside by the Court. Among these baneful effects, according to Dr. Paul Marx, are "the denigration of the traditional sexual morality distilled from centuries of wisdom, the abandonment of self-control as an indispensable human virtue, the substitution of subjective whim for the priceless heritage of human knowledge, the enthronement of ultili-tarianism over principled morality, the devaluation of life itself, the ruina-tion of the moral basis of natural human rights, and the obvious opening to euthanasia." A society that countenances the brutality of aborticn is one in which psychological ills, irreverence for life, and sexual promiscuity are likely to proliferate. In sum, therefore, we have paid an exhorbitant price to sustain a woman's right to per, sonal privacy. 478 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/3 Right to Privacy a Fiction That alleged right, however, is more a judicial fiction than a verifiable fact. Even Justice Douglas frankly confesses that "there is no mention of privacy in our Bill of Rights," nor is the type of privacy claimed in Roe v. Wade specifically mentioned in any other section of the Federal Constitution. The Court invented this right in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) when it held that a state law forbidding the use of contraceptives was unconstitu-tional in as far as the law applied to married persons. The Court advanced the so-called "penumbra" doctrine which held that various guarantees in the Bill of Rights impliedly create zones of privacy. In Roe v. Wade a woman's personal decision to abort her child was placed inside that judicially pro-tected private zone. In their attempt to vindicate this alleged right appellants used a scatter-gun approach by claiming that the Texas statute abridged rights of personal privacy protected by the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amend-ments. One of these random shots found its mark when the high court held that the right claimed by the appellants was "founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty." In recent years, the Court has developed a complex formula to protect those rights which it uncovers in the mysterious recesses of the Constitution from invasion by the states. The test traditionally applied to state social and economic legislation is whether or not the law (for example, the Texas abor-tion statute) has "a rational relation to a valid state objective." Had this test been employed in Roe v. Wade the state statute may have been upheld. How-ever, the Court devised a more stringent standard in Shapiro v. Thompson (1969) which held that as the right involved becomes more fundamental, the more "compelling" the state interest must be in passing a law which abridges that right. In Shapiro and subsequent rulings the "compelling state interest" standard was used only in situations involving the equal protection provision of the Fourteenth Amendment. Justice Harlan attacked this new criterion when he asserted in a Shapiro dissent that "when a statute affects only matters not mentioned in the Federal Constitution and is not arbitrary or irrational" the Court is not entitled "to pick out particular human activities, characterize them as 'fundamental,' and give them added protection under an unusually stringent equal protection test." Such action, concluded Harlan, "would go far toward making this Court a 'super-legislature.' " Yet the Court went even beyond this in Roe v. Wade--it not only held a woman's private right to abort her unborn child to be "fundamental"; it also expanded the stringent "compelling state interest" test in a novel way to embrace the Due Process Clause (shades of Dred Scott!). Dissenting Opinions The majority's decision regarding the fundamental nature of the particu-lar right of privacy asserted in this case was vigorously and persuasively at- Abortion / 479 tacked by Justice Rehnquist in a dissenting opinion: "The fact that a ma-jority of the States, reflecting., the majority sentiment in those states, have had restrictions on abortions for at least a century seems . . . as strong an indication as there is that the asserted right to an abortion is not., funda-mental. Even today, when society's views on abortion are changing, the very existence of the debate is evidence that the 'right' to an abortion is not so universally accepted as the appellants would have us believe," concluded Rehnquist. In support of this latter statement he could have cited with telling effect the results of the 1972 abortion referenda in Michigan and North Da-kota. In the former state the pro-life advocates polled 61% of the vote, while in North Dakota their total was an overwhelming 79%. The right of privacy asserted by the Court is not only absent from the express provisions of the original Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and later Amendments, it is not generally recognized by law, by custom, or by major-ity opinion. How could such an alleged right, therefore, be "so rooted in the traditional conscience of our people to be ranked as fundamental." The Court does not satisfactorily explain its startling judgment. It "simply fashions," says dissenting Justice White, "a new constitutional right for preg-nant mothers and, with scarcely any reason or authority for its action, in-vests that right with sufficient substance to override most state abortion statutes." Unalienable Right to Life The Court with equal effort could have "discovered" the unborn's right to life, invested it with "fundamental" status, and clothed it with judicial protection. This right is not explicit in any part of the Constitution, but, un-like the right to abort, it is recognized by law, by custom, and by majority opinion. It can also be inferred from the phraseology of no less a document than our Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Li[e, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." Traditionally the term "creation" is applied to conception rather than to the other definable stages of fetal life. This line of argumentation is at least as formidable as the privacy doc-trine which the Court concocted, but unfortunately the Court used its legal legerdemain to uphold the right of privacy at the expense of the unborn's right to life--a strange choice indeed, especially in view of the solicitude shown by the Court for criminals under a death sentence in Furman v. Georgia (1972). A Flaw in Argumentation Such was the decision of tile Court in Roe v. Wade and its companion Doe v. Bolton. Almost as an afterthought, however, the Justices alluded to a serious flaw in the arguments of those who sought to uphold state abortion 480 / Review [or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/3 restrictions. The state appellees in Wade and Bolton asserted that the un-born's right to life was constitutionally protected by the due process clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. Yet the state statutes which they defended, especially Georgia's more "modern" law, allowed abortion in special circumstances: (1) if the life or health of the mother were endan-gered (this was the extent of the Texas statute); (2) if the fetus would very likely be born with a grave, permanent, and irremedial mental or physical defect; or (3) if the pregnancy resulted from forcible or statutory rape. As Justice Douglas was quick to observe, the Georgia statute permits fetal de-struction in several instances without regard for due process or the develop-mental stage of the fetus. Justice Blackmun in a footnote in Roe v. Wade also spotted the dilemma. Despite a broad proscription on abortion, an exception exists in every state, at least to save the life of the mother. "But if the fetus is a person who is not to be deprived of life without due process of law, and if the mother's condition is the sole determinant, does not the Texas exception appear to be out of line with the Amendment's command," queried Blackmun, "and why is the woman not a principal or an accomplice" to the killing? This in-consistency can only be effectively resolved by recourse to the position that any direct taking of the life of the fetus is a moral and legal crime for all involved. Our dissenting opinion to the Court's abortion ruling would be merely an intellectual catharsis and an exercise in frustration if the Court's action could not be overriden. Our purpose thus far has been to show that the decision was patently unsound from either a logical, biomedical, moral, or legal perspective. Hopefully this knowledge of the decision's infirmity will provide an incentive to secure its reversal. Thus, in conclusion we offer guidelines for those who wish to challenge the ruling and vindicate the rights of the unborn child. Guidelines for Action At the State level the legislature has several plausible options. First, it can take advantage of the Court's failure to resolve "the difficult question of when life begins." It can declare as a conclusive presumption "that life commences at the instant of conception." This legislative finding of fact will reestablish protection for the unborn child, at least until the issue is settled as to whether or not the Court will accept a legislative determination in this area. Abele v. Markle (342 F. Supp. 800), in which this issue is raised, is now pending on appeal. Second, the legislature can memorialize Congress to adopt a constitutional amendment to protect the unborn child. Third, the legislature can petition Congress to call a constitutional convention to act on this issue and on others where the Court has overstepped its proper juris-diction. Fourth, it can require that the father's rights be protected in those cases where he does not agree to have his child killed. North Carolina has Abortion / 481 enacted such a provision. Fifth, it can and should provide that no person or institution shall be required to assist in any way with an abortion if such an act violates the values of that person or institution. Despite these State remedies, however, the most effective counter-mea-sures can be wielded by Congress. For example, the Congress can adopt and propose to the states a constitutional right-to-life amendment. While this is a time-consuming remedy it is also one that would be decisive and relatively enduring. It is the best course of action to pursue. Second, Congress can pass an act to establish the start of life at the instant of conception and thus answer the key question sidestepped by the Court. Third, the Congress can also remove the power of the Supreme Court to hear appeals in this area by altering the Court's appellate jurisdiction. There is precedent for such a move in the case of Ex parte McCardle (1869) and in the OPA cases of the World War II era. Such a course of action may seem drastic, but the Court's abortion ruling demands a vigorous and effective response. The Dred Scott Decision's denial of the Negro's right to citizenship was only overcome by the concerted and forceful effort of those who thought the Court's opinion morally, historically, and legally unsound; can we do less for those living yet unborn than to vindicate their right to life itself? How to Write Good Constitutions Ladislas M. Orsy, S.J. Ladislas M. Orsy, S.J., is professor of theology and canon law at Fordham University; Bronx, New York 10458. To write constitutions for religious communities is a difficult job. It requires a great deal of grace and common sense. No document with pious generali-ties would do; something more practical is necessary. No wonder that great and good constitutions for religious are few and far between. The following rules for writing good constitutions are not exhaustive, but they can be of some help to those who are wrestling with the task of finding new bottles for the new wine that is presently fermenting in the Church and in religious communities. 1. Good Constitutions Respond to Present Needs and Give Stability for the Future A basic rule is that constitutions should incorporate lasting values. The writers should look beyond the present and should design structures which will uphold the community's spiritual inspiration for many years to come. Sound organization brings stability without stifling natural evolution. Let us take an example from secular history. The crisis and upheavals that many European states suffered in modern history were due largely to their constitutional instability. Unsatisfactory and weak structures contrib-uted to divisions and unrest and did not allow for healthy evolution. The relative stability and continuity that the United States experienced from the beginning is the fruit of the wisdom of th~ founding fathers who gave the country a reasonable instrument of government, broad enough to accommo- 482 How to Write Good Constitutions / 483 date developments, yet strong enough to keep the nation togetherl While European states were changing and rewriting their constitutions with an alarming rapidity, the United States remained faithful to the original one. Surprisingly, the constitutions conceived for the emancipated colonies re-main an excellent instrument of balance for a modern powerful industrial nation. Had the first drafters been clearer about the relationship of the States to the Union, maybe the Civil War could have been avoided--or it would have been fought under other pretext than the issue of the right to secede. Yet, even though the Civil War happened, the fact stands: Substan-tial stability was given to the nation through a well-designed constitution which did not hamper good developments. To incorporate lasting values means to look beyond our own times. Much that is up-to-date and fashionable today will look hopelessly out-of-date to future generations. Constitutions should achieve a certain timelessness. This can be done only by those who have some knowledge of past history. By looking back they have another point of reference than the present; their horizon is broadened. Of course, I am not suggesting that the past should be copied or codified in the constitutions; but I am suggesting that those who know the present and the past are better forecasters and planners for the future than those who are limited by the narrow vision of the present. If you are on the high seas and have no other point of reference than the spot where the boat is, you cannot plan any safe course for your future journey. Writers of constitutions who do not know the history of religious orders are like navigators who did not absorb the common pru-dence and learning of their ancestors. They did not learn the trade; they may rock the boat. No one should conclude, however, that the constitutions should not be a response to present needs. They should--with an eye on the past and the future. 2. The Constitutions Must Reflect the Spirit of the Gospel but They Must Contain Specific Provisions for a Given Community It is easy to write new constitutions by paraphrasing the Gospels, and leave it at that. The trouble with such constitutions is that whatever they say, it has been said much better, and usually more concisely, by the evangelists. Why should anyone bother to go to second hand sources about Christian life when he can go to the original ones? Good constitutions cer-tainly reflect the spirit of the Gospel; they should not be soulless legal docu-ments. Yet what makes them constitutions is that they integrate spiritual principles with practical rules and structures suitable for a given community. Lofty doctrine should lead to sensible rules that free the community for the service of God and men, and create a harmonious human and Christian en-vironment. It is right to speak about the beauty of community life, but that beauty should not be lost in chaos and confusion when it comes to vital decisions. Down to earth practicality is the mark of good constitutions. 484 / Review for Religious, Volume 32, 1973/3 3. The Constitutions Should be the Codification of a Way of Life That Has Proved Itself, Not a Blueprint Conceived in the Abstract and to Be Imposed on the Community When we reflect on the beginnings of religious orders and congregations, we do not find that the founders first wrote abstract constitutions and then looked for some persons who were prepared to try them out. Rather, they first gathered a group for a specific way of life, for a particular apostolic task, and when it all worked out and the group was forged together into one community, they committed into writing what they lived and experienced so intensely. Therefore, a community should not be afraid of letting good customs de-velop without any kind of fixed rules. If the love of Christ is alive among them and they have enough common sense, such a process should be possi-ble. A good system of planned and controlled experiments is more important in these years than the writing of new norms. But the experiments should be controlled; there should be a good machinery for the critical evaluation of new enterprises. The whole process of experiments is meaningful in the context of an ongoing conversion only. If the members are not moving toward Christ, but are just asserting rights and liberties without reference to Him, what started as renewal can end up as disintegration. Freedom in Christ is necessary for developing sensible practical rules. 4. The Constitutions Should Contain a Balance between Light and Dark-ness, Joy and Sorrow, Life and Death; They Should Be Similar to the Gospels We explain this rule by contrasting two mentalities. The one wants to put into the constitutions all the negative sides of Christian life, such as mortifi-cation, abnegation, penance, and so forth. A most depressing document would ensue; enough to scare away any healthy individual. The other wants to speak about the positive sides only, such as peace, joy, exultation, and so forth. A most uplifting document would follow--with hidden deception in it. Both mentalities are one-sided. The right approach is in a harmony that we find so well expressed in the Gospel of St. John. The light is there, but so often it is surrounded by darkness. Life is there, but it must go through the baptism of death. Also, the harmonious blend of frustration and enrichment is manifest in the Sermon on the Mount: "Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." Poverty and wealth go hand in hand. Incidentally, such balance is necessary in our liturgical celebrations" too. There we commemorate the whole life of Christ, His death and His resurrec-tion. The uninterrupted, one-sided celebration of joy can become inhuman and unchristian; in this life we need the quiet rhythm of sorrow and joy, darkness and light, to prepare us for the great final acts of death and life. How to Write Good Constitutions / 485 5. Keep in Mind that Faith, Hope, and Love Have No Measure; Everything Else Must Be Measur~ed A Christian can n.eve,,r. '.'exaggerate" in faith, hope, and love. He knows no limits to believing in God, to trusting and loving Him, because these "vir-tues" are gifts of grac~ ari.d, they originate m God's boundless generosity. Of course a man can distorf'tlie meaning of the gifts, he can express them one- ~,' sidely, he can even refu.s:e.them. But if he is open to the Spirit, there is a movement in his heart ffia( has no limit; it can expand indefinitely. Faith, hope, and love have an affimty with God's infinityi their growth is not sub-ject to any human measure. In all other virtues arid" actions, there is a measure. There is no limitless progress. There is a point b'eyond which the movement of construction be-comes the demon of destruction. In other terms, change is not equivalent to progress. A community b~ifit on change regardless of measure will eventu-ally destroy itself. R~al~,[ogress consists in finding the right amount of change at any given tithe, ~d no more¯ There is an obvious comparison: If you drive and do not press the ac-celerator enough, you db hot move, you crawl; if you oress ~t too much you are heading for disa~t6r. Movement and speed alone do not guarantee safe arrival. The history of religious life would offer olentv of examples to illustrate this truth. Let us g~ve lU.~t One. St. Franms of Assxs~ certa.inly loved poverty. He went far m giving a@a~.y, what he had, even to the point of deposmng h~s clothes at the feet of his '~.]]gry father. He became a pilgrim with no shelter over h~s head. But he d~d not sell himself into slavery as he could have done w~th a little ingenuity. Nor did he give his time away; in fact, he jealously guarded it. He estabfi'~he~d ~a measure in poverty, his own measure no doubt, but a measure nonetti~le~.°]-lad he not done so, had he been bent on giving all by selling himself ~'tl~b infidels as a slave on some galley, he would not have been free enough to start a great religious movement, he ould not have had ume and leigure t6 wander around and compose the Canticle o~ the Sttn.! ~"" After Vatican Council 1I many religious communities made great prog-ress in renewal, but s~n6~of them never thought of finding the right measure in change. They become intoxicated with new things and the movement that began under the ~nsplranon of the Spirit may eventually carry them too far, to the very bnnk of d~s~ster. A good question }"o¯r "~a' "c~onstitutional assembly, or for a general chapter, concerning every single 'i~ss uce is: What is the right measure in this matter? The measure, of course, '~oes change from time to time; no community should become static. But even if the measure changes, there is always a measure. The rule should be.~. a~plied. . to community life, to prayer, to apostolic 486 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/3 work--to everything, except faith, hope, and love. In those three the com-munity should open itself to the Spirit of God who can fill the members with His gifts beyond their desire and expectation. 6. Remember That Rules Are Necessary, but Persons Give Life to a Community Paradoxically, we could say that good persons can prosper even if the constitutions are bad, or, that good constitutions lead nowhere without the right persons to apply them. This is not to demean good constitutions. They work marvels with good persons. And bad constitutions can harm people. Rather, the paradox is a way of stressing that persons, not rules, give life to a community. Many religious institutes worshipped their own structures before the Council; the slightest infringement to the rule was considered a disgrace be-fore God and man. Today they understand better that the rules are means to open our hearts to faith, hope, and love and therefore there is nothing ab-solute about them. But structure-worship does not change easily; mentalities survive longer than we care to admit. Much of the naive belief in the mysteri-ous saving quality of the rule has been transformed into a utopian trust in the redeeming strength of committees. Committees are all right, although with measure. The greatest inspira-tions in the history of mankind never came from a committee. Legend has it that the camel owes its shape to a committee that wanted to design a horse. Be that as it may, the camel is a useful animal if you want to cruise in the desert. Yet we would hesitate to entrust the reshaping of this creation to a committee; it is frightening to think what would happen to the graceful flight of the seagull, to the playful nature of the chipmunk, or the trunk of the elephant. Government by committees is not well suited to the care of .persons. Who can open himself fully to a committee? Person to person relationship is necessary in religious government. Not on the pattern of father and child, or mother and daughter, but on the pattern of a wise and trusted companion caring for another. Therefore, in religious life there should be a way of recurring to a person above and beyond all committees. Take the example of a religious who has a serious personal problem--not the type he cares to preserve on files. He needs a change, perhaps a different job, at a different place. How can be ex-plain it all to a personnel board? 7. Good Constitutions Assure Both Broad Consultation and Efficient Action Good government in apostolic religious institutes is based on broad con-sultation among the members and on efficient action by the one in authority when it is needed. There must be in the community an upward movement of ideas. Every member has a right and duty to contribute to the welfare of How to Write Good Constitutions / 487 all. Therefore, at the base there must be a structure to assure that each can speak his mind and is listened to with respect. The result of this initial con-sultation process will be a mixed bag of ideas. Some will be excellent, some harmless, some to be discarded; in all they will be a fair representation of divine inspiration and human limitation. Therefore, some way must be found to screen them. This happens through the system of chapters. At the pro-vincial chapter elected representatives choose some ideas and proposals out of many. Eventually, an even smaller group, such as the general chapter, selects the best suggestions and makes them into guidelines and constitu-tional rules for the whole institute. Why this complex procedure? Because each has a right to speak, and God can speak through the smallest ones. But religious life is inspired by un-reachable ideals; therefore you want to choose the best of all suggestions. The clue to succcss is a wise combination of democracy and selectivity. The whole upward movement of ideas is a slow process. It involves long con-siderations and discussions. It is the proper field for committee activity! The application of the abstract policies and of constitutional guidelines to concrete individual cases is a different matter. The movement should mostly originate at the top where a trusted person leads and presides; he is the superior general. He is there to translate the norm into everyday actions. He should act with prudence, with the help of qualified counsel, and he should be swift and e~ficient too. He deals with particular communities and with individual persons. They need decisions, and they need them without much delay. The superior general's government can be spoiled in two ways. First, by distrust. The community may impose the duty on him of endless consulta-tions and impose all sort of checks, all to avoid a mistake. The result is a hesitant temporizing administration. Second, by cluttering up the line of ex-ecutive government by committees. They are never good for action; they are necessary for sorting our ideas, for setting policies. The superior general should be accountable. He should be responsible to the general chapter and should give a full account of his stewardship when-ever it meets. He should be removable; but as long as he is in once, he should be. trusted and free to take intelligent risks. Sbme communities built so many safeguards around their superiors that no intelligent and inspired initiative can be expected from them anymore; the safeguards from real or imagined tyranny will assure mediocrity for some time to come. Authori-tarianism was bad enough, but slowness and indecisiveness on the executive" level does not promise well for the future either. Let us remember also that a bad decision given with speed is frequently better than a good decision given with delay. Decision means movement; if it is a bad choice it can be corrected as long as there is life. No decision means lack of movement and lack of life. It cannot even be corrected. In all, we propose a healthy cycle, intended mainly for apostolic corn- 488 / Review [or Religious, Volume 32, 197~,/3 munities. It begins with full consultations; it gives the ultimate power to the chap(er; yet it retains person to person relationships in government. But we do not propose this pattern with any rigidity. Its basic simplicity allows many variations according to the traditions and desires of different communities; it can even be combined with other systems. 8. Community Means Unity in Diversity; Diversity without Unity Destroys the Community How far can a community go in pluralism without destroying its cohe-sion? To answer this question, consider the unity in diversity that you find in an orchestra. The players have different instruments; they even play different melodies. Yet, the product is a symphony with depth and harmony. Har-mony is possible because there is a limit to this diversity. Pluralism in a religious community can be interpreted in two ways. It may mean differences that contribute to the unity of the group; or, it may mean differences, that do not have an internal finality toward unity. The former makes the community, the latter destroys it. It follows that before talk begins about pluralism and its extent, the com-munity must define the type of unity they desire to maintain. Once the mem-bers know how united they want to be in their life style, in their apostolic endeavor, they can determine how much pluralism they can allow. There is no general rule for the extent of pluralism a community can bear; the unity they need is the measure of it. 9. You Will Know the Tree by Its Fruit, but Remember Some Trees Take a Long Time to Bear Fruit The constitutions should provide for an ongoing evaluation of the com-munity, in particular of the new experiments. Chapters on local, 'provincial, and general levels can be good instruments of evaluation. Each session should begin with an examination of conscience: how far in fact the com-munity lived up to its ideals. Most chapters are looking into the future; they are planning sessions. They should give equal time to the past, not in the form of debate, but in the form of a prayerful examination of conscience. They should give a good critical look at the fruit that was recently produced. The word experiment underwent many changes. Often it is used for change, an illegitimate use. We all would gain by restoring its primal mean-ing which is "to test something under controlled circumstances so that the process can be judged and evaluated." If we need change, by all means let us have it, but we must not call it experimentation; if we need experiments, let us do them properly. But experiments in religious life are not the same as those performed by physicists. The stakes are high in religious life; the faith, hope, and love of the members can be affected. Besides, fruits mature slowly because the ulti-mate test for any experiment is its contribution to a climate in which the How to Write Good Constitutions / 489 community is more open .and receptive to the grace of God. Often many years will be necessary to know the value of an experiment. Early judgments can be rash judgments. Take the issue of formation. No one can fully evaluate a particular pro.gram of formation until those formed have gone through many tests and trio!s in their religious vocation. I0. Good Constitutions Cannot Be Composed under Stress Peace of mind and he.a.rt is a necessary condition for wisdom and inspira, tion. Polarization and division in the community is an obstacle to grace and to human creativity. The c_0mmunity must be healed before it can produce. A community not .at p.eace may be tempted to write constitutions by way of reaction to past or t.o pre.sent trends, or to search for a feasible compromise which will not represent any high ideal. A disturbed group should not write constitutions. Peace i~ ne~e~sary to receive the Spirit and to create good and lasting structures. A group's first duty is to create life in harmony and attend to the task of writing .afte.r they have found peace with God, with the C. hurch, and with each other. Conclusion Good constitutions a.re. a blend of spiritual wisdom and shrewd practical judgment. The form.e.r is given by God, the latter is the result of human creativity. Constitutions .c.a.,nnot take the place of faith, hope, and charity, but they can be a powev.f.ul instrument to keep the process of conversion alive in a community, The Nature and Value of a Directed Retreat Herbert F. Smith, S.J. Herbert F. Smith, S.J., a well known spiritual writer and director of retreats, is sta-tioned at St. Joseph's College; City Avenue at 54th Street; Philadelphia, Pennsyl-vania 19131. During the last decade there has been a rebirth of the directed Ignatian re-treat. The directed retreat is a marked departure from the familiar preached retreat in which we customarily spent some two hours a day hearing the word of God as it was spoken and interpreted by the retreat master. Origins in Experimentation The successful return of the directed retreat can almost certainly be credited to that widespread phenomenon of our day, the passion for experi-mentation. The experimental approach springs from a twofold conviction: that we can produce something better; and that, in an age wherein proliferat-ing options are overloading our decision-making powers, we must discover what is most relevant. We have all benefited from the experimental approach. Consider agri-culture. Ten years ago there was widespread talk of the impossibility of feeding the world's people. Today there is not. That is largely because, in the interval, agricultural experimentation was carried on in the Philippines to produce a new strain of wheat. The first objective was to produce a better wheat, one that would give a greater yield per acre. The second objective was produce a more relevant wheat, one hardy enough to flourish on poor land in cold climates. The result is 1R-3. It is revolutionizing the growth of wheat, turning traditionally wheat-importing countries to wheat exporters. In the field of religion, we have similar problems and similar inclinations. How can we raise up better Catholic Christians, people more in contact with 490 Directed Retreat / 491 God, more committed to Him, more faithful to the Church, more productive in the service of the kingdom? How can we form more relevant Catholic Christians, people who can responsibly handle the increased responsibility laid on each today? Enterprising men and women in the Church are pre-senting the directed lgnatian retreat as one answer. Is it? I think it is, but my objective here is not to give proof of that. My objective is rather to give information concerning the nature of a directed retreat. Judgments can come later. What is a directed retreat? I will proceed to answer that question by giving a series of progressively improving definitions until we ultimately reach the most illuminating definition I can provide. One-to-one Relationship The directed retreat is a retreat made neither alone nor in a large group; ]urthermore, it is made without the help of several talks a day. This incom-plete definition is meant to clarify the manner in which the directed retreat departs from the familiar preached retreat. The directed retreat involves one director and one retreatant operating in a one-to-one relationship. The di-rector may or may not be directing other retreatants simultaneously, but in any case he guides each retreatant as though he alone were on retreat. Of course, there may be some interplay between retreatants. They may cele-brate Mass together. They may do shared prayer. Smallest Possible Community The directed retreat is a concerted effort to seek God in the smallest possible community. In a directed retreat, everything is set up and directed to help the retreatant find God. All irrelevant and distracting persons and entities are withdrawn. That leaves us with the smallest possible community, a community of three, in the likeness of the Trinity. The community of three which results can be described in various ways. It can be seen as composed of the retreatant, God, and His Spirit; God is the goal, and the Holy Spirit is the agent. He guides the retreatant to God, and He is the Love between the retreatant and God. There is, from another viewpoint, the triad of the retreatant, the director, and the Holy Spirit. The retreatant and the director work out the retreat in concert, and the Holy Spirit is the one Guide of both. From a still more comprehensive viewpoint, the tripartite community is made up of the retreatant, God, and the Church (whom the director em-bodies and represents). The reason for setting up this smallest possible community is to promote the total personalization of the /etreat. All transactions are aimed directly at the one retreatant and his unique personal needs here and now. While it is true that God always can and does work as personally with an individual in a group as with an individual off by himself, the retreat director cannot. And conversely, the retreatant cannot. The fact that God can is the saving grace Review ]or Religious, Volume 32, 197~//.~ of group retreats. The fact that retreatant and d~tector cannot is the reason there is at times no substitute for a directed retreai; The tiny directed retreat community favors ~nt,~ate contact that helps the retreatant to come to know his God, himself, and .his Church in an intimate new way. By intimacy I mean an attentive, h~!thy, open, and receptive relationship with another that is productive of a ifilJ~aal identification in joys and sorrows. Directed to Spiritual Exercising The directed retreat is the engaging in sptr~tua.l exercises under the daily guidance oJ a di'rect6r who h'as the twoJold rDi~ ol retreat director and spiritual direc'tor. The function of the retreatant ~ ~o do spiritual exercises. The function of the director is to guide and mo,ri~tor the exercises. In the directed retreat, there is emphasis on ttlE aiztivity of the retreatant. We have all seen the retreat master of the prea@fid retreat deliver his four and five talks a day, hear confessions, hold interviews, and stagger out of the house exhausted six days later. The directed r~ii:Eat, bn the contrary, de-mands much more of the retreatant and focuseg bn what the retreatant is doing more than on what the director is saying. !f tti( rctreatant's activity still involves a great deal of active listening, it i~ ndt a human being he spends a lot of time listening to, it is God. St. Ignatius himself stresses the activity of th~ i'etr~atant, whom he calls the exercitant. He introduces his little book for r~ii'eat Jig "spiritual exercises Which have as their purpose the conquest of self iind t~ie regulation of one's life in such a way that no decision is made under: th~ influence of any in-ordinate attachment" (#21 ). The director gives the retreatant daily guidani~i~. Generally, the two meet once a day. The director provides spoken or writieh ~5oints for meditation, and they are generally given very briefly. If the iziirEctdr has more than one retreatant, he may give points in common to savd time, where this is not to the disadvantage of the retreatants. The retreatant gives the director a faithful afifi~Sufi~ of the inner experi-ences and responses which take place in the coti~se 6i' his meditations. He tells of joy or sadness, peace or unrest, hope 0i: [6ai'; and so on. This ac-count of one's personal experiences is always gi~,(h ili a private interview. This account is at the heart of the directed retiE~ii, as is the response the director makes to it. The practice of making ttiis reiSort develops the re-treatant's ability to discern the movements of ~.Sbd ~ind evil that play in man's mind, heart, and feelings. The guidance dt~ [he ~tirector helps the re-treatant learn how to distinguish between the godi:l ~iri~i evil influences more successfully. Most important, it helps him distili~iiist] the divine call from every other influence on him. This knowledge frdE~ iaiih from old slavery to whims and emotions and nagging feelings of guilt: ii h61ps him to put on the mind of Christ. Directed Retreat / 493 Functions of the Director From what has just been said, it becomes manifest that the director of the directed retreat has two clearly distinct functions. First, like the director of a preached retreat, he provides the retreatant with input for the meditations. Let it be added that, both in the brief way he provides this material and in the selection of the material he provides, he himself is guided in a general way by his source material, The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. The director feeds in this input in harmony with the retreatant's actual accomplishments, thus moderating the advance and flow of the retreat in a fully personalized way. The director is fully aware that the graces sought in each meditation are necessary graces which have to be built up in their proper order like the parts of a building: sorrow for sin is the excavation, forgiveness the founda-tion, and so forth. This careful control of the process of the retreat is cer-tainly one of the great advantages of a directed retreat. Second, the retreat director is the retreatant's spiritual director. The great religions of the world, even in their most mystical traditions, all teach the need of a guide, be he a guru, a starets, a roshi, a spiritual director. Without a director, there can be no making of the Spiritual Exercises, as a reading of the introductory observations will establish. Without a director there has not been set up the necessary mini-community described in the second definition. The Discerning Process The director helps the retreatant to discern the mysteries of the interior life in a practical way that is meant to lead to practical decisions and practi-cal service of Christ. The retreatant himself is always the primary discerner, and the director the auxiliary discerner. Only the retreatant is present to his own inner experiences. Unless he gives a good and faithful report, the aux-iliary discerner cannot give the help he is meant to give. The retreatant, then, is the subjective discerner. The director is the objec-tive discerner. As objective discerner, he interprets the experiences of the retreatant in accord with the Biblical and doctrinal expressions of revelation as it is guarded and developed and handed on by the whole Church. If the retreatant too is learned in theology, and sometimes even if he is not, he may be able to interpret his experiences quite authentically himself. But in accord with the wisdom of the Church and of revelation, the People of God do not rely on themselves individually, but depend on one another in the effort to understand the meaning of God's communications, even the individual and personal ones. If the retreatant is guided by the Holy Spirit to come to a cer-tain decision, the director can hope to be guided by Him to confirm the decision. The Priest-confessor and the Retreat Director The role of the director as auxiliary discerner is made even clearer if we consider the distinction between the role of the priest-conJessor and the role 494 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/3 of the retreat spiritual director. The confessor in the sacrament of penance is concerned primarily with the moral order, with the person's conscious, sin-ful rebellions against God's will. The retreat spiritual director is concerned with the retreatant's inner experiences, his moods, attractions, and repulsions, even before he has made any deliberate free responses to them. The con-fessor wants to know what a man has done of good and evil. The director wants to know to what seeming good and what seeming evil the retreatant is being drawn through his inner experiences in prayer and meditation. St. Ignatius himself makes this distinction, and even makes it clear that the retreatant' should feel free to go to a confessor other than the director: While the one who is giving the Exercises should not seek to investigate and know the private thoughts and sins of the exercitant, nevertheless, it will be helpful if he is kept faithfully informed about the various disturbances and thot~ghts caused by the action of different spirits. This will enable him to propose some spiritual exercises in accordance with the degree of progress made and suited and adapted to the needs of a soul disturbed in this way (#17). It might be pointed out here that the director need not be a priest. He or she need only be a spiritually gifted person experienced in living the spiritual life, possessing the developed capacity to guide others, having a good knowl-edge of the faith, and knowing the Spiritual Exercises through exercise in them. This is a fact,to be underscored, since if the one-to-one retreat is to proliferate, many directors will have to be drawn from religious men and women and other members of the laity. Sisters and laymen are in fact al-ready active in directing retreats. The retreatant needs openness and courage to give his director the neces-sary account. Still he does not need to steel himself to bare his whole soul, as he sometimes finds it necessary to do with his regular spiritual director, and certainly finds it necessary to do with his confessor. Direct Communication with God .4 directed retreat is a retreat in which one is guided by a director to do spiritual exercises which will purge him, illumine him, and dispose him Jor direct communication and communion with God, direct guidance Jrom Him, and the readiness to do His will. This final definition gives a comprehensive idea of the directed retreat. The Ignatian directed retreat is divided into four parts or weeks. It was Ignatius' hope that the retreatant would really spend a whole month, apart from all other business, in making his retreat. Thirty-day retreats are being conducted today. More often, however, the retreat is condensed and made in a period of eight days. The first week provides spiritual exercises of purgation. The second week provides spiritual exercises of illumination which call the retreatant to a more wholehearted commit-ment to Jesus. The third and fourth weeks invite one to share Jesus' ex-perience of passion and resurrection as a preview of one's own future in His Directed Retreat / 495 service and life. In everything, Christ is the retreatant's life, his light, his salvation, his motivation. The directed retreat is a search for direct communication and communi-cation with God. To miss this would be to miss the meaning of the directed retreat. The preacher of the preached retreat is not really replaced by the director. He is replaced by God who Himself gives His message to the re-treatant here and now. The retreatant hears God, not by words in his ears, but by the various movements in his inner life which have been described in this article as the experiences which call for discernment. To come into a retreat with this expectation calls for deep faith in both the director and the retreatant. No doubt this faith frequently falters in both, perhaps most when they are least aware of the fact. Some directors may not even have the conviction that this direct communication and communion with God should take place, but then they are betraying their trust, for it is inescapably clear that this is the expectation and absolute conviction of the author of the Exercises. He writes: The director of the Exercises ought not to urge the exercitant more to poverty or any promise than to the contrary, nor to one state of life or way of living more than another. Outside the Exercises, it is true, we may lawfully and meritoriously urge all who probably have the required fitness to choose continence, virginity, the religious life, and every form of religious perfection. But while one is engaged in the Spiritual Exercises, it is more suitable and much better that the Creator and Lord in person communicate Himself to the devout soul in quest of the divine will, that He inflame it with His love and praise, and dispose it for the way in which it could better serve God in the future (# 15). What Ignatius expects is that the retreatant will, by making the Exercises, repeat some of his own experiences of God guiding him. Those experiences were so vivid that Ignatius called God his "Schoolmaster." Let me point out here by way of example that we customarily describe the attraction to the priesthood as a "vocation," a "call" from God. St. Ignatius is simply broadening the base of that belief by affirming that God calls us directly to many things, to little things, every day, if we can hear His voice and if we will respond to it. God's call is experienced through the inner movements of love, joy, peace, attraction to a better way, and so forth. According to Karl Rahner, S.J., this is a case of grace breaking into consciousness. In essence, therefore, the directed retreat is meant to be a mystical retreat. It is a series of spiritual exercises and prayers and contem-plations in search of the experience of God and the reading out of His will. It is a transcendental relationsh!p breaking into consciousness. Directed versus Preached Retreat It should be of help to add a brief comparison of the directed and the preached retreat. The directed ~'etreat is the authentic presentation of the 496 / Review [or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/3 Spiritual Exercises. This is a fact of history, but it also stands from an ex-amination of the introductory observations in the Spiritual Exercises. Still, that does not mean that the directed retreat is always best for everyone, in every set of circumstances. St. Ignatius makes it clear in the Exercises them-selves that not everyone is suited for them or ready for them. Nor are they necessarily better for anyone, year after year. They have a certain inherent advantage in that they guide the retreatant to listen directly to God Himself. On the other hand, there are times when God Himself sends us to men, as He did Paul after his conversion experience. Many factors must be weighed in determining which type of retreat will be best: the level of human ma-turity; the level of religious maturity; the personal needs at the moment, such " as the need of making a decision concerning a state of life; the level of gen-erosity, of restfulness, of vitality. The preached retreat remains of immense value when it is well con-ducted. I support this simply by appeal to the years of experience which most of us have had in making such retreats and which some of us have had in con-ducting them. Furthermore, preached retreats are excellent opportunities for hearing the word of God, and men always remain bearers of that word. There is no substitute for the preached word of God, iust as there is no sub-stitute for the inner experience of God. Then, too, the preached retreat is an opportunity to share the personal faith vision and synthesis of the retreat master who can often communicate his experience with the help of some specialized theological, sociological, or psychological competence. What it comes to is that the preached and the directed retreat are two species of retreat. Each has its own unique value, and each addresses itself to unique needs. 3-he directed retreat is of unsurpassed value for times when serious decisions have to be made. It is also of unsurpassed value in provid-ing a guided and formative experience in living the interior life. It has great value in helping a person find direct communication with God and in coming to other primary religious experiences. The preached retreat is especially valuable for broadening .and articu-lating our knowledge and vision of the faith. This helps us overcome our per-sonal limitations and biases, so that we can formulate a more comprehensive response to God. It helps us supply for our personal lack of initiative in over-coming our deficiencies. It can stir new faith in us, for belief is communi-cated by believers; and it can stir new love of God in us, for love is com-municated by lovers. In brief; the preached retreat is especially valuable in those times when for one reason or another, we need the word of God preached to us through the agency of men. Editor's Note: For other treatments of the directed retreat and of the Spiritual Exer-cises of St. Ignatius Loyola, see Sister Margaret Baker, H.V.M., "My Experience of a Directed Retreat," Review Jot Religious, July 1972, pp. 573-7: William A. Barry, SJ., Directed Retreat / 497 If this information and these norms do not yet make it clear which retreat you should prefer, I would offer one piece of advice. Experiment. Try th~ one you haven't experienced. For St. Ignatius, the need for experimentation was one of the fundamental principles of the spiritual life. "The Experience of the First and Second Weeks of the Spiritual Exercises," Review ]or Religious, January 1973, pp. 102-9; William Connolly, S.J., "Story of the Pilgrim King and the Dynamics of Prayer," Review ]or Religious, March 1973, pp. 268-72; and William A. Barry, S.J., "Silence and the Directed Retreat," Review ]or Religious, March 1973, pp. 347-51. Father Smith's present article, "The Nature and Value of a Directed Retreat," is available (at 20 cents per copy plus postage) from Review for Religious; 612 Hum-boldt Building: St. Louis. Missouri 63103; a previous article by the same author, Method for Eliminating Method in Prayer," is also available from the same address at 25 cents a copy plus postage. The Healing of Memories Francis Martin Father Francis Martin, a member of Madonna House; Combermere, Ontario KOJ 1LO; Canada, is presently completing his doctorate in Scripture in Rome. Our memory is a mysterious thing. St. Augustine, in his Confessions (Bk 10) spoke of "the fields and vast palaces of memory," and "the huge court of my memory." In his Treatise on the Trinity, Augustine saw man as an image of the Trinity because in his one interior being there were the three realities of memory, understanding, and will. Memory is compared to God the Father because it is an image of eternity, because it is the point out of which spring understanding and love, and in relation to these it has no be-ginning. Growth in Spirituality and Growth in Memory The vast universe of inner being has its spiritual origin in what we call today "awareness" or "consciousness." It is this that St. Augustine called "memoria." In some ways his term is better than ours since it points to the mysterious fact that memory is the principle of continuity. In my awareness of myself, I know myself to be the same man who yesterday lived through a certain series of experiences--I answer to the same name; and the reason for this is memory. Thus, awareness of ourselves always involves knowing "where we come from" not only in the sense of our past, but also in the sense of our Source, our Creator. We come from our past since we are at any moment of our lives the person who has lived through and been affected by a whole concatenation of experiences which we recall only imperfectly. We come from God since He has made us and at this moment is present to us, holding us in existence, though we are most often unaware of this. There is a way, then, in which it is true to say that growth in spirituality is growth in memory: it is an increasing awareness of where we come from. 498 The Healing o] Memories / 499 A deep awareness of God present to us, creating, saving, and sanctifying us, is an intimate and essential dimension of self-awareness, just as, on the other hand, our memory of the experiences which have made us who we are is a necessary part of our total awareness of who we are in God. Since this is so, there come moments in our lives when those experiences which have hurt us and twisted us somewhat must be brought to awareness and healed so that our life of prayer may deepen and our presence to God be-come more conscious. This process is called the healing of our memories or the healing of our inner being. Memory as the Sacrament of God's Presence It is not that memory only serves to retain those wounds of the past that are imperfectly healed. Our memory also carries deep within it those effects of God's action in our lives, those moments that in a special way make up our own salvation history. In allowing ourselves to enter once again into those recesses of our being where the awareness of God's action is still a living thing, we put our present experience into perspective. Deeper than this, through this memory, this action of God still living in us as a sacrament of His presence, we enter into a knowledge of where we come from: our past itself becomes the chalice containing our awareness of God. The Psalmist sings: "God, you are my God; 1 long for you, my soul thirsts for you . Upon my bed 1 remember you, in the watches of the night I dwell on you. Yes, you are my Help; in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy. My soul clings to you, your right hand holds me" (Ps 63: 1, 7-9). The remembering of God brings us to songs of joy as we find ourselves protected by the vast expanse of His overshadowing wings. In this sense our memory is our access to awareness of the presence of God: He who has made us and saved us, for whom there is no time, and who is at this moment holding us in existence and giving us His life, is He who "is and was and is to come" (Rev 1:4). Our memory of what God has done brings us to the awareness that the effects of His saving acts exist in us by the mystery of His presence. Thus, though we name God by what He has done, we are speaking to Him who is present, and we know that when we shall see Him as He is, we will recognize Him as He who has always' been with us. The command of Jesus in connection with the Eucharist applies to all prayer both in com-mon and in the secret of our own heart: "Do this in memory of me." Obstacles to Living Memory But what are the obstacles to this living memory of the past upon which faith is founded, and this living memory of the future which is the inner face of hope? The greatest obstacle is our inability to "remember" because our memory is protecting itself from the wounds it carries within it. The wounds inflicted by others and the effects of our own sins still lie hidden in our inner being. These wounds are like so many "black and blue marks" on 500 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/3 our psyche: they are areas too sensitive to touch and yet they impede our movement. Our Lord wants to heal those wounds, either by taking them completely away or by taking away our fear of them enabling us to live in simple acceptance of our weakness and limitation. No matter what the source of these wounds, they can be the means of our union with Jesus whose wounds still shine gloriously in heaven. Even now our weakness makes the glory of God all the more manifest: "About this thing, I have pleaded with the Lord three times for it to leave me, but he has said, 'My grace is enough for you: my power is at its best in weakness.' So I shall be very happy to make my weaknesses my special boast so that the power of Christ may stay over me. " (2 Cor 12:8-10). Consciousness and Forgiveness This healing from inner wounds and from the fear of them, this healing of our memories, takes place most often through a process of consciousness and forgiveness: consciousness removes the protective but smothering layers of forgetfulness and opens that area of our being to the light and air of God, and forgiveness is a healing balm that eases pain and fosters restoration. We should speak about this process for a minute. We are aware, sometimes more forcefully than others, that there are ob-stacles that prevent us from being at ease with the Lord. We attribute this uneasiness to our sinfulness, especially to those sins and infidelities of which we are conscious. We know, really, that having sinned is no obstacle to find-ing joy in the Lord's presence: we often quote to others and to ourselves those incidents in the Gospels where Jesus goes out of His way to "welcome sinners and eat with them" (Lk 15:2). We have the constant testimony of the lives and words of the saints, and we see many people around us who bear this same witness. Still, when we are alone with the Lord, we are un-easy. Sometimes, even in deep prayer when we are aware of our Lord draw-ing close to us, we can find our minds starting to wander, almost trying to create distractions because of a fear of His presence. There can be many reasons for this, but basically we instinctively know, as we do in any love relationship, that unconditional love once accepted from the beloved obliges us to the same commitment, and we are afraid. We fear for ourselves in a commitment that takes from us the control over our own lives and future: when once we admit that we are so loved, we are no longer "free." One of the fears occasioned by charismatic manifestations of our Lord's presence is precisely this: that the Lord, through these signs of His nearness and His love, becomes too real and too obviously committed to us to be kept at a distance by our careful rationalizations and our well-apportioned times for prayer. Such initiative on the Lord's part demands conversion from us. We are called to receive the kingdom of God like a littlc child (see Mk 10: 15), but we prefer that illusion of autonomy we have so carefully created for ourselves. The Healing o] Memories / 501 However, for most of us, our Lord exercises too great an attraction to be put completely behind the bars of our self-centered caution. As we become more familiar with His presence and a little more faithful to His Spirit in us, we are less uneasy. But we must go further. Very soon in a serious life of faith we must renounce our bondage to darkness, we must be freed from our attachment to those things that hold us back from a pure surrender to the action of God in us. We must live out totally those renunciations we made at our baptism and which we ratify at every Easter Vigil. And it is here we find great difficulty and meet with the obstacles of selfishness, sensuality, ambi-tion, resentment, pride, fear, and so forth. Healing Our Memories Now the source of some of these blocks that we notice in ourselves, some of that fear of God and shame before others, as well as our attempts to com-pensate for these feelings, can be traced, as has been said, to unhealed wounds left in our inner being by incidents of our past. Of some of these we are conscious, of some but half-conscious, and of others we may be no longer conscious at all. How does one proceed in allowing our Lord to heal these memories? There are three things to be done: inner prayer; a sharing, in some degree at least, with another; and faith contact with the Body of Christ. In other terms we could describe these three this way: we enter into the sanctuary of our inner being and allow our wounds to become conscious; we pray with another who, as bearing within himself the mystery of Christ and His healing power, can be an instrument of peace; and we open ourselves, through forgiveness of others and the discipline of authentic personal re-lationships within the sacramentalized context of a truly human community, to the truth that sets us free. The first step is individual prayer; the second is confession which achieves a particular power if it is sacramental; and the third is community whose deepest source and most powerful presence is the Eucharist. Renouncing Our Resentments Let us begin with inner prayer. When we are alone at prayer, we should quite simply and directly ask our Lord to heal our memories. This may be a very general prayer at first, and may remain so for many days as we re-peat this request in our prayer. Our prayer may go something like this: "Lord Jesus, may You be praised for the love and mercy You have shown me all my life; I praise You and I thank You for that love with which You died for us and with which You share the radiance of Your risen life. Lord, You see into the depths of my soul; You know that I am wounded. The reality of evil has touched me in my own sin and in the sins and imperfec-tions of others. Lord, heal me of these wounds, let the power and beauty of Your life shine in me. I renoun(e attachment to my resentments, I forgive anyone who has ever hurt me, and I pray for them. Jesus, I join myself to 502 / Review for Religious, Volume 32, 1973/3 that act of forgiveness in which You died, and I love all those people who have entered my life; I embrace them with the same love and tenderness You have for them. I hold them up before Your face, O Lord, that You may bless them and be kind to them." It may happen during this prayer that certain people or incidents arise in our memory, and we re-experlence all the hurt and anger we first knew when the event occurred. It may be our parents or some other adults during our younger years: teachers, priests, some authority figure. It may be someone in our mature years: friend, husband, wife, employer, .superior, someone who betrayed us. Or it may be something quite abstract: "the system," the Church, my education, society, though these latter abstractions are usually evasive symbols covering a person we do not wish to think about. In any case, when someone particular comes to mind, we should stop our prayer and gently, without forcing ourselves, take this person into our heart. Do not be surprised at the degree of repugnance such an interior gesture meets with. Go gently, but firmly. Resolve very quietly that you will to be de-tached from this resentment. It is better to go gently over a period of a few days with a clear awareness of the issue and a determination to share Jesus' love for this person, than to make a violent, emotional "act of the will" that only harms your own heart and is but counterfeit love for the other. When this person is in your heart, then look at Jesus and say in the name of both of you who have now become one in love, "Lord have mercy." In such a gesture, we admit our need for mercy and pray for the other person with the same desire for their well being as we have for our own. The Lord always hears this prayer. Offering the Fullness of Forgiveness It is very important in this prayer that we do not waste our time in some sort' of amateur self psychoanalysis. We are praying for our own healing with the faith-knowledge that we can never be healed without the healing of our relationships and this includes, of course, desiring that others be healed. A large part of our own personality is made up of our relations to others. We are truly and maturely persons when both the individual and the social dimensions of our being are in contact and harmony with Jesus Christ. It was this realization that led Origen to posit among the seven ways that sins are remitted, "that we forgive our brothers their sins." For, as this great teacher goes on to say: "Our Lord and Savior himself told us this when he said, 'If you forgive others their offences, your heavenly Father will forgive you, but if you do not forgive others then neither will your Father forgive you your offences.' Then too, the Lord taught us to say in prayer, 'Forgive us our debts as we have forgiven those who are in debt to us' " (Homily 2 on Leviticus). There are many emotional blocks to the fullness of the forgiveness we offer to others as they dwell in our hearts, but with prayer, honesty, and The Healing o] Memories / 503 gentleness with ourselves our Lord can heal these. This sanctification of our emotional relationships is an aspect of the way the Body of Christ "builds itself up in love" (Eph 4: 16). Since this healing pertains to the mystery of the Church in its reality as a divinization of that complex web of relation-ships by which all men are, in some deep way, linked to one another, it often happens that our Lord's action within us as we pray alone leads us to see that for deeper healing we should go and pray with another. In and through this other human being, we contact Christ, and thus also every other person in this world. We should go to someone in whom we have confidence and share with that person our burden to the degree of explicitness that the Lord leads to, as both of us pray. This is one way that we carry out that injunc-tion of St. Paul to "serve one another in love," and is a practical realization of that mutual care for one another that he describes as "carrying one anothers' burdens" (see Gal 5: 13, 6:2). Sharing Our Wounds with Others Early Christians often went to the holy men to share with them the wounds of their soul and to receive their blessing and their prayers for heal-ing. In ancient monastic life thig "manifestation of thoughts" (both good and bad) to one's spiritual father was a daily practice. Other Christians went to these men of th.e Spirit for a confession of healing whenever they felt the need. Often, but not necessarily, these spiritual fathers were priests. For, be-sides those upon whom the Church has conferred in a special and explicit way the power given her by the Lord for inner healing, there are many other people who receive this gift from the Lord by another kind of action of the Holy Spirit: "There are different ministries but the same Lord" (1 Cor 12:4). While it is always possible to share our burden with friends and pray with them for healing and have them lay hands on us, there are times when we should go to someone whom the Lord seems to have endowed in a particular way with gifts of discernment and healing. Such people, accord-ing to the unanimous witness of tradition, are recognizable by their humility, their gentleness and patience with others, and their chaste, other-centered love. In the early Church we find them described as "someone who encour-ages the brethren" or again, "a pool where the liv.ing waters ofGod's love for man are gathered." In their hearts, the love of Christ has worked a puri-fication which has brought the gift of understanding hearts and of healing them to a certain stability and power. Other Facets of the Obstacles in Our Souls As someone with whom we have shared our burden begins to pray with us, we may become aware of many other facets of the obstacles in our soul, blocking us from true freedom with the Lord. We should quietly renounce attachment to these obstacles; this is especially importantin the areas of sen-sual pleasure, anger, and resentment. Again, let the truth be strong and 504 / Review for Religious, Volume 32, 1973/3 undiluted in our soul, but let the truth come from theLord and not from our self-hate, fear, or shame. Perhaps our Lord will enlighten us by giving words of prophecy to the person or persons praying over us. Most often these words have an intensely personal content for us, unsuspected by the other: his message shows us our attachment to sin or calms and heals our fear. In either case, when it is the Lord who is acting, we experience the liberation and strengthening of hearing "the truth in love." Though most of the time the healing takes place through a certain remembering of past incidents that have wounded us and a consequent conferring and receiving of forgiveness, this is not always the case either in private prayer or in prayer with others. Sometimes the Lord heals us without bringing the wound to consciousness at that moment, or at all. This is why it is so important we do not attempt to force things from our memory, but simply be willing to see and acknowl-edge anything, no matter how painful or embarrassing, that occurs to us as we pray in this way. Mark the Hermit, in one of his maxims, reminds us that unhealthy concentration on our past sins "brings sadness and banishes hope." This is true of undue preoccupation with our weaknesses and inner wounds: that ceaseless "search and destroy" drive we find in ourselves does not come from the Lord. As a matter of fact, to spend time in anxious worry and endless self-investigation is to act as though our Lord did not really appreciate how weak we are and could not help our compromised honesty to a greater degree of simplicity and truth. When we ask the Lord for healing, we are asking the Lord to heal us. He will usually do this by working in us a greater con-sciousness of our wounds and deeper capacity to trust Him and love and forgive others: our role is to agree to the action of God in us as He answers our prayer. His healing will be an inner touch and sometimes also an exterior word of discernment, encouragement, or revelation of what lies in our heart. Forgiving Sins by Healing Them The ancient Church in Syria reminded a bishop on the day of his ordina-tion that because he had been given the Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of sins, he had been constituted a "healer of the Church of God." In the Byzan-tine rite of today there is mention of healing in the prayer for the ordination of both bishop and priest. This is but another reflection of the deep connec-tion the Eastern Church has always seen between ordination and the min-istry of healing. Origen advises his listeners to think carefully about "the doctor to whom you should make known the cause of your illness." He should be someone who "knows how to be sick with someone sick, to weep with one who weeps; who knows the discipline of grieving and suffering with another," and who can decide wisely whether or not "your illness should be brought out and healed in a meeting of the whole Church, so that others can be built up and you canbe healed the more easily" (Homily 2 on Psalm 37). The Healing o] Memories / 505 Healing and the Sacrament of Penance The above passage has its difficulties, but given the whole context of the accent on healing in connection with the forgiveness of sins in the Eastern Church, and other statements of Origen's elsewhere, we can see that the priest was looked upon as being able to forgive sins by healing them in their source and prescribing the proper remedy. This same thinking is reflected in many early commentaries on our Lord's words as reported in John 20:22-3: "He breathed on them and said, 'Receive the Holy Spirit. For those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; for those whose sins you retain, they are retained.' " The link between the Holy Spirit and the for-giveness of sins was found in the active presence of love, and this in turn was manifested in the wisdom shown in healing the wounds of God's people. Healing is an act of the Spirit who is described in the Roman rite, in one of the Masses during the former octave of Pentecost, as being "Himself the forgiveness of sins." Thus, "therapeutic confession" and the presentation of one's sins before the bishop or his appointed representative in order to be re-integrated into the community by public penance, were not considered as completely dis-tinct. These two roles tended to blend, especially in the Western Church as the centuries progressed and, unfortunately, the legal preoccupation domi-nated. However, in the intuition of the faithful, it was most probably the desire for an inner healing that inspired people to practice regular confes-sion. This desire was only dimly realized and poorly expressed, but it was there. Today, a deeper understanding, on the part of both priest and peni-tent, of the healing power of penance could mean a greater presence within the Church of a ministry of inner healing. Father Michael Scanlon in his recent booklet, The Power in Penance (Ave Maria Press) has performed a great service in suggesting practical ways to exercise this ministry. Priests must pray deeply for a revitalizing of the healing power conferred on them at ordination. They must strive in their own lives to be mature men, those "seniores" described by the Rule of St. Benedict as men who "know how to cure their own and others' wounds without disclosing them in public" (Ch. 46). The Eucharist and Inner Healing Now that we have touched upon the sacramental dimensions of inner healing, it would be worthwhile to meditate, just briefly, on the role of the Eucharist in inner healing. The celebration of the Eucharist is the "source and summit of the whole work of preaching the gospel" according to Vatican 1I (On Priests, par. 5). It is in this reality that the Church expresses her own inner nature and realizes it ever more perfectly. If the community is truly gathered in love, then the mystery of the Church is vitally present: there is a sacred and living space of divine love, another pool where healing waters are gathered for all to drink. The authenticity of our mutual love and desire 506 / Review Jot Religious, Volume 32, 1973/3 for reconciliation with God and with all men, and our praise of God and our prayer for ourselves and others, must be given a real and human expression. God expressed His love for us in a human way, and he does not expect us to be more "spiritual" or "interior" than He is. The deepest reason why the liturgy remains dead and unable to make present the mystery of Church is not so much a lack of faith, though this is an operative factor, as the fact that our human expressions of what the Spirit is working in and through us remain superficial, stilted, and dominated by human respect. Not only the sacraments, but the whole sacramental dimension of the Church exercises a causality by signifying something. When there is no sign at all, there is no sacrament--no bread, no Eucharist--and when the sign is not assimilated in faith but is merely something performed by rote, then the signifying power of the sacramental dimension is reduced to such a point that for most people nothing transpires at the conscious level of their being. On the other hand, when there is a living and beautiful human expression of what the Church as the primary sacrament really is, then the power of this mystery radiates to all, touching and transforming them. Christian Affection and Reconciliation In such a context, the dynamics already well perceived by psychology as necessary for human growth are caught up in a healing action of the Spirit. Love, thoughtfulness, acceptance, forgiveness, song, joy, friendship--all these become the mud and spittle rubbed on our eyes, so that when we wash, we see. The intimate union between body and soul has been so consecrated by the Incarnation that Tertullian could call the flesh "the hinge of salva-tion." For just as the water touching our body awakens our whole being and opens it to receive the action of the Spirit, so the psychological and physical reality of a true Christian community is an instrument of healing. To ignore the depth and power of true and chaste Christian affection and yet to expect the community gathered for worship to possess and confer an authentic reconciliation is like trying to baptize without water. In this atmosphere of love, we confess our sins, we praise God and pray for all men, and we hear in an intimately personal way those prophetic words that are contained in the Scriptures for all the Ch. urch for all time. The .words of the Scriptures enlighten, point out sin, encourage, and heal when they are heard with a heart that has already learned to set aside its fear and believe in the love of the Lord as He is expressing it through people gathered together. Memory and the Reception of Christ's Body And then we receive the Body of Christ. This is not only a touch with that flesh of Christ that healed so many, even,before the Resurrection and is now transformed by the fire of the Spirit; it is also an intimate, a mystical, union with all those who make up the Body of Christ. When our hearts are The Healing o[ Memories / 507 open, we receive and are reconciled in Christ to everyone in this world. Men may pray over us for the coming of the Spirit; Jesus enters into our body, and He is the source of the Spirit. This is the moment when our memories of the past blend with the passion of Jesus, and we forgive as He does; and we live, as He does, a life that is "unto God." Then memory becomes experi-ence of a healed past and a transformed future, somehow already present. Our inner being begins to know already the power of the Resurrection; the knowledge of where we come from, both as past and as God, becomes fused in a present awareness of Christ living in me. My memory becomes a living image of eternity where the name of God is uttered in awe and praise and the great deeds of God are proclaimed in the assembly of the faithful: "Yahweh, your name is forever; Yahweh, the memory of you is from gen-eration to generation!" (Ps 135: 13). A Community for Today and Tomorrow M. Basil Pennington, O.C.S.O. M. Basil Pennington is a Cistercian monk of St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Massachu-setts 01562. His most recent previous article in Review ]or Religious was "Christian Zen Retreat" in the September 1972 issue, pages 710-3. On my way to the annual Cistercian Studies Conference at Kalamazoo last May, I took the opportunity to visit the True House Covenanted Com-munity at Notre Dame. It was a very wonderful and gracefilled experience and I would like to try to share a bit of it with you. What I found and experienced at True House was quite different from what 1 expected. The press, Kevin Ranaghan's book, the annual conferences create a certain image, a good image, of Notre Dame, but something quite different from what one finds when he has the privilege of stepping into the True House Community. The popular image, at least as it strikes some of us back here in the East, leads one to expect a rather large movement, one made up mostly of students, a rather enthusiastic but changing scene. I was therefore surprised to find that the True House Community is a rather small group, including many non-students, quite structured and stabilized, and, apart from the annual conference which takes over the Notre Dame Campus when the students are not there, having relatively little apparent impact on campus. But what I "found, I must say, deeply impressed me. Quality of Life First of all and most fundamentally what impresses one is the quality of life. Here are men and women of different ages and backgrounds, truly committed in a very stable way to living as full Christians. Prayer is very much in the fabric of their lives. The Lord Jesus truly lives in them, in 508 A Community for Today and Tomorrow / 509 their hearts, in their households. Their day begins with prayer together. Or even before that, it begins with a personal get-together with the Lord as they slip, one by one, into the chapel to spend a few moments or an hour or two there before the household morning Office. Grace before and after meals is not a perfunctory duty fulfilled but a time--and time is really given to it--to praise the Giver of all good things. And in this community all strive to gather in the early evening to celebrate together a daily Eucha-rist. For one who comes from a scene where he hears mostly of people try-ing to break away from structures and tradition, it is a surprise to discover this charismatic community firmly holding on to the traditions of the Church universal. Apart from the beautiful outpouring of praise, thanksgiving, and petition at certain moments, a Catholic traditionalist would be delightfully at home with the morning prayer and evening Mass offered in the com-munity. Perhaps it is because of the immense freedom they have in the Spirit (which frees them from the need to react against structures to ex-perience freedom) and the satisfactory outlets which are wisely and with good order provided within the liturgy and at the prayer meetings, that the community feels no need to throw over the established structures. But I sensed something more positive present among them. There is alive in the community a wonderful sense of belonging to th~ Church. And, I be-lieve, they have a real need and desire to experience themselves as praying with the Church, spread across the world and through the centuries. Praise the Lord! This quality of life was not only present in their prayer and worship, it was evident in their whole way of life. "See how these Christians love one another"--and the stranger, or rather fellow Christian, who suddenly appears in their midst, like myself-~was a thought that constantly echoed in me during my visit with them, as it would again later when I was priv-ileged to spend a couple of days with the saints at Ann Arbor. As one moved about on the campus there was always a special quality presevt when one encountered and greeted another from the community. Sitting around the supper table, playing volley ball, or having a sandwich together at noon, there was present in the fabric of the very ordinary human give and take a weave of genuine love and reverence for a fellow Christian. Christ was always present. Praise Him! Structures I was perhaps most surprised to see how quickly and to what extent the charismatic community had been structured. But this is a very realistic thing. Men need structures to live together in justice and love. I only hope this and all charismatic communities, as they do realistically structure them-selves, learn at least one lesson from the traditional religious communities and never allow their structures to solidify and, instead of serving life, begin to dominate it. We must ever retain, even in our needed structures, the 510 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/3 freedom of the sons and daughters of God. This is a quality that is. visibly present in the True House Community. The community is divided into households. When ! was there there was the single men's household,, the single women's, the sisters, one married household, and a few on campus. New households, married and single and for guests, were in the planning. Each household off campus lived in an ordinary house, shared meals and chores, had a common exchequer, prayed together at different times during the day, and had its doors wide open to all the other members of the community and the community's guests. To their special contentment at least one of the households had the privilege of hav-ing their Lord live in their midst in His Eucharistic presence. The households on campus consisted of perhaps four, five, or six men living in the same dorm, who gathered daily for prayer and meals. As I have already men-tioned, the whole community gathers each evening for the Eucharist. Loving Concern The members of each household realize a special responsibility toward each other, one of very special loving concern. When the household is large, as the single men's household of ten, this breaks down into sub-groups, the three or four who share the same room. Herein it seems to me the True House ~ommunity is finding one of its special apostolates, or missions in the Church, one very much needed today. A vast number of our young people today have been hurt, damaged by the home they come from, with i~s lack of self-giving love and security. There needs to be healing before these young men and women can become fully mature and free Christians. And this healing can be brought about only by love. Within the context of a true Christian community this self-giving love can be administered. To effect this healing the love has to be very personal, direct, constant, and even in some real sense intimate. This the households and their sub-groups can make possible. In such a climate of concerned love, wounds are healed, a fully free Christian emerges. Then he or she can maturely and freely choose to follow the Lord and His way in marriage or in singleness for the Lord, in the community or elsewhere within the family of the People of God. Often today when a young man or woman graduates from college he or she is not yet ready for life decisions, and yet social pressures tend to demand them of them. The community provides a context where one, free from such pressures, can continue to grow as a free person in the Lord, until he is truly ready for such a decision. I think True House in its mission of healing through love and providing a context for Christian maturation is fulfilling and exemplifying an apostolate that is desperately needed in the Church today. The Sisters in the Community True House is singularly blessed in its leadership. In Jim Byrne it has a A Community [or Today and Tomorrow / 511 truly charismatic leader, one who inspires, in a very humble and Christlike way, real confidence and loyalty. I was privileged to spend a good bit of time with him and they were gracefilled hours. He is supported by real collaborators, men and women who are really with him. The community is especially blessed with the two sisters who form one of the households. I think, perhaps without their realizing it, they have something important to say to many religious today. One thing I would note in passing. The sisters are perhaps a full generation older then most of the community (Sor-ry to mention that, Sisters!), yet there is no trace of the well-known genera-tion gap. More important the sisters are playing a very important role in the heart of the community. I do not know if I can really express it accurately, and I probably will not express it the way they would; but as one looking from the outside in and seeing the whole, I might see it better than they. I think because they do stand as members of the community who do have a special consecration to the Lord, and in their particular household in some special way live this, without in any way withdrawing from full membership and participation in the life of the community, they say some-thing, minister something, more by life than by words, to the rest of the community. And I ask myself if they are not pointing toward the way in which in the future religious, other than those called by the Lord to go apart to seek his Face in monastic solitude, will find their place and fulfill their role in the Church by becoming fully integrated, yet specially conse-crated members of local Christian communities. The sisters have struggled to find how practically and meaningfully to live their commitment to two communities, the local community of True House, and their religious com-munity- and they seem to be succeeding well. The Priest and This Type of Community No word on True House Community would be complete if it did not speak of a man who is not officially a member of the Covenanted Com-munity yet is very much a part of it. I am sure that under God the quality of life at True Housc is due in great measure to the effective presence in their midst of a truly holy priest, Father Ed O'Conner. His ministry to the community at the daily Liturgy and through the many regular hours of personal spiritual direction is made powerful by the inspiring example of what he is and by his complete openness to

Issue 32.4 of the Review for Religious, 1973. ; Review ]or Religious is edited by faculty members of the School of Divinity of St. Louis University, the editorial offices being located at 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. It is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute; St. Louis, Missouri. Published bimonthly and copy-right © 1973 by Review ]or Religious. Composed, printed, and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. Single copies: $1.25. Sub-scription U.S.A. and Canada: $6.00 a year; $11.00 for two years; other countries, $7.00 a year, $13.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be accompanied by check or money order payable to Review [or Religious in U.S.A. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent Review ]or Religious. Change of address requests should include former address. R. F. Smith, S.J. Everett A. Diederich, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor July 1973 Volume 32 Number 4 Renewals, new subscriptions, and changes of address should be sent to Review for Religious; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, Minnesota 55802. Correspondence with the editor and the associate editor together with manuscripts, books for review, and materials for "Subject Bibliography for Religious" should be sent to Review for Religious; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; St. Joseph's Church; 321 Willings Alley; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19106. The Testament of Unmeasured Love Congregation [or the Discipline o[ the Sacraments The following is an instruction on the Eucharist dated January 29, 1973, but not publicly released until March 29, 1973. The Latin title of the instruction is lntmensae caritatis; the translation is that which appeared in the English edition of Osservatore ro/~ltltlo. Christ the Lord has left to the Church, His Spouse, a testament of His im-mense love. This wonderful gift of the Eucharist, which is the greatest gift of all, demands that such an important mystery should be increasingly bet-ter known and its saving power more fully shared. With the intention ot~ fostering devotion to the Eucharist--the summit and center of Christian worship--the Church, moved by pastoral zeal and concern, has on more than one occasion issued suitable laws and appropriate documents. Present-day conditions however demand that, while the utmost reverence owing to such a Sacrament~ is constantly maintained, greater access to Holy 1See the Council of Trent, Session 13, Decretutn de SS. Eucharistiae Sacramento, c. 7; DB 880 (DS 1646-1647): "If it is not fitting .for anyone to approach any sacred functions except in a state of holiness, then certainly to the extent that the holiness and godliness of this heavenly Sacrament is more and more known to the Christian, all the more must he take care that he does not come to receive it without great reverence and holiness, especially because of the fearful words of the Apostle which we read: 'A person who eats and drinks without recognizing the Body of the Lord is eating and drinking his own condemnation' (I Cor 11:29). Thus the following precept should be recalled to the one desirous of receiving Holy Communion: 'Let a man so examine himself' (1 Cor 11:28). Ecclesiastical custom declares that the proving of one's self is necessary so that no one, conscious of having committed mortal sin, though considering himself contrite, should approach the Holy Eucharist without first having made a sacramental confession. This Holy Synod declares that this must perpetually be observed by all Christians, even by priests whose duty it is to celebrate Mass, as long as there is an availability of confessors. If in the case of urgent necessity 721 722 / Review for Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 Communion should be made possible so that the faithful, by sharing more fully in the fruits of the sacrifice of the Mass, might dedicate themselves more readily and effectively to God and to the good of the Church and of mankind. First of all, provision must be made lest reception become impossible or difficult owing to a lack of a sufficient number of ministers. Provision must also be made lest the sick be deprived of such a great spiritual consolation by being impeded from receiving Holy Communion because of the law of fast, which they may not be able to observe, even though it be already very moderate. Finally, it seems appropriate to determine in which circumstances the faithful who ask to receive sacramental Communion a second time on the same day may be permitted fittingly to do so. After a study of the recommendations of episcopal conferences the fol-lowing norms are issued in regard to: 1. extraordinary ministers for the distribution of Holy Communion; 2. a more extensive faculty of receiving Holy Communion twice in the same day; 3. mitigation of the Eucharistic fast for the sick and elderly; 4. the piety and reverence owing to the Blessed Sacrament whenever the Eucharist is placed in the hand of the communicant. Extraordinary Ministers of Communion There are various circumstances in which a lack of sufficient ministers for the distribution of Holy Communion can occur: --during Mass, because of the size of the congregation or a particular difficulty in which a celebrant finds himself; --outside of Mass, when it is difficult because of distance to take the sacred species, especially the Viaticum, to the sick in danger of death, or when the very number of the sick, especially in hospitals and similar insti-tutions, requires many ministers. Therefore, in order that the faithful, who are in the state of grace and who with an upright and pious disposition, wish to share in the Sacred Banquet, may not be deprived of this sacramental help and consolation, it has seemed appropriate to the Holy Father to establish extraordinary ministers, who may give Holy Communion to themselves and to other faithful under the following determined conditions: I. Local ordinaries have the faculty to permit a suitable person indi-vidually chosen as an extraordinary minister for a specific occasion or for a time or, in the case of necessity, in some permanent way, either to give a priest will have celebrated without previous confession, he is to make a confession as soon as possible." See also Sacred Congregation of the Council, the decree Sacra "Tridentina Synodus (December 20, 1905), AAS, v. 38 (1905-1906), pp. 400-6; Sacred Congregation for the Do(trine of the Faith, Normae pastorales circa absolu-tionem sacramentalem generali modo impertiendam (July 31, 1972), Norm 1, AAS, v. 64 (1972), p. 511. The Testament of Unmeasured Love / 72:1 the Eucharist to himself or to other faithful and to take it to the sick who are confined to their homes. This faculty may be used whenever a) there is no priest, deacon, or acolyte; b) these are prevented from administering Holy Communion because of another pastoral ministry or because of ill health or advanced age; c) the number of faithful requesting Holy Communion is such that the celebration of Mass or the distribution of the Eucharist outside of Mass would be t~nduly prolonged. II. Local ordinaries also have the faculty to permit individual priests exercising their sacred office to appoint a suitable person who in cases of genuine necessity would distribute Holy Communion for a specific occasion. III. The above-mentioned local ordinaries can delegate these faculties to auxiliary bishops, episcopal vicars, and episcopal delegates. IV. The suitable person to whom numbers I and II refer shall be desig-nated according to the following order: lector, student of major seminary, male religious, woman religious, catechist, Catholic man or woman. This order, however, can be changed according to the prudent judgment of the local ordinary. V. In oratories of religious communities of either sex the office of dis-tributing Holy Communion in the circumstances described in number I can fittingly be given to a male superior not having major orders or to a woman superior or to their respective vicars. VI. If time permits, it is fitting that the suitable person individually chosen by the local ordinary for administering Holy Communion, as well as the person appointed by a priest having the faculty spoken of in number II, should receive the mandate according to the rite annexed to this instruc-tion; they are to distribute Holy Communion according to the liturgical norms. Since these faculties are granted only for the spiritual good of the faith-ful and for cases of genuine necessity, priests are to remember that they are not thereby excused from the task of distrib.uting the Eucharist to the faith-ful who legitimately request it, aid especially from taking and giving it to the sick. The person who has been appointed to be an ~xtraordinary minister of Holy Communion is necessarily to be duly instructed and should distinguish himself by his Christian life, faith, and morals. Let him strive to be worthy of this great office; let him cultivate devotion to the Holy Eucharist and show himself as an example to the other faithful by his piety and reverence for this most holy Sacrament of the Altar. Let no one be chosen whose selec-tion may cause scandal among the faithful. Communion Twice in the Same Day According to the discipline currently in force, the faithful are permitted to receive Holy Communion a second time: 724 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 ---~n the evening of Saturday or of the day preceding a holyday of obli-gation, when they intend to fulfill the precept of hearing Mass, even though they have already received Holy Communion in the morning of that same day'-'; --at the second Mass of Easter and at one of the Masses celebrated on Christmas Day, even if they have already received Holy Communion at the Mass of the Paschal Vigil or at the midnight Mass of Christmas:~; ---likewise at the evening Mass of Holy Thursday, even if they have re-ceived Holy Communion at the earlier Mass of the Chrism." Since, beyond these circumstances which have been mentioned, there are similar occasions which suggest that Holy Communion might fittingly be received twice in the same day, it is necessary here to determine more pre-cisely the reasons for the new faculty. The norm which the Church, a most provident Mother, has introduced according to venerable custom and included in canon law by which the faith-ful are permitted to receive Holy Communion only once a day remains in-tact nor is it permitted to be set aside merely from motives of devotion. To a simple desire for repeated reception of Holy Communion it should be an-swered that the power of the Sacrament by which faith, charity, and the other virtues are nourished, strengthened, and expressed is all the greater to the extent that one more devoutly approaches the sacred table.~ For, from the liturgical celebration the faithful should go out to the works of charity, piety, and apostolic action so that "they may hold fast by their conduct and life to what they have received by faith and the Sacrament.''" Special circumstances, however, can occur when the faithful who have already received Holy Communion that same day, or even priests who have already celebrated Mass, may be present at some community celebration. They may receive Holy Communion again in the following instances: 1. at those Masses in which the Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, Anointing of the Sick, Sacred Orders, and Matrimony are administered; also at a Mass at which First Communion is received~; 2. at Masses at which a church or altar is consecrated; at Masses of religious profession or for the conferring of a "canonical mission"; '-'Sacred Congregation of Rites, the instruction Eucharisticum mysterium (May 25, 1967), n. 28, AAS, v. 59 (1967), p. 557. :qbid. q.bid.; see also Sacred Congregation of Rites, the instruction Inter oecumenici (Septem-ber 26, 1964), n. 60, AAS, v. 56 (1964), p. 891; and the instruction Tres abhinc annos (May 4, 1967), n. 14, AAS, v. 59 (1967), p. 445. ~See Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 3, q. 79, a. 7 ad 3; and a. 8 ad 1. ~Sacred Congregation of Rites, the instruction Eucharisticum mysterium (May 25, 1967), n. 13, AAS, v. 59 (1967), p. 549. rSee Missale romanum, "Institutio generalis Missalis romani," 329 a; p. 90 in the "editio tipica" of 1970. The Testament of Unmeasured Love / 725 3. at the following Masses of the Dead: the funeral Mass, the Mass celebrated after notification of death, the Mass on the day of final burial, and the Mass on the first anniversary; 4. at the principal Mass celebrated in the cathedral or in the parish on the feast of Corpus Christi and on the day of a parochial visitation; at the Mass celebrated by the major superior of a religious community on the oc-casion of a canonical visitation, of special meetings, or of chapters; 5. at the principal Mass of a Eucharistic or Marian Congress, whether international or national, regional or diocesan; 6. at the principal Mass of any congress, sacred pilgrimage, or preach-ing mission for the people; 7. in the administration of Viaticum, in which Communion can also be given to the relatives and friends of the patient; 8. also local ordinaries may, besides those cases mentioned above, grant permission "ad actum" to receive Holy Communion twice in the same day, as often as they shall judge it truly justified by reason of genuinely special circumstances, according to the norm of this instruction. Mitigation of the Eucharistic Fast Above all it remains firmly decreed that a person to whom Viaticum is administered in danger of death is not bound by any law of fasting,s Like-wise remaining in force is the concession already granted by Pius XII whereby "the sick, even if not confined to bed, can take non-alcoholic drinks and medicines in either liquid or solid form before the celebration of Mass and the reception of the Eucharist without any restriction of time."" In the case of foods and drinks taken for the purpose of nutrition, that tradition is to be respected according to which the Eucharist should be re-ceived, as Tertullian said, "before any food""' so as to indicate the excel-lence of the sacramental food. In order to appreciate the dignity of the Sacrament and to prepare with joy for the coming of the Lord, a time of silence and recoliection before the reception of Holy Communion is opportune. In the case of the sick, how-ever, it will be a sufficient sign of piety and reverence if, for a brief period of time, they turn their minds to the greatness of the mystery. The period of time of the Eucharistic fast or abstinence from food and alcoholic drink is reduced t+ approximately one quarter of an hour, forthe following: 1. the sick in hospitals or in their own homes, even if they are not con-fined to bed; 2. the faithful advanced in age who must remain at home because of age or who are living in a home for the aged; ~See canon 858, § 1. 9Motu proprio Sacram Communionem (March 19, 1957), n. 4, AAS, v. 49 (1957), p. 178. ~OAd uxorem, 2, 5; PL, v. 1, 1408. 726 / Review for Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 3. sick priests, even if not confined to bed, and elderly priests, who wish to celebrate Mass or receive Holy Communion; 4. persons looking after the sick and the aged as well as those relatives of the sick and aged wishing to receive Holy Communion with them, when-ever they are unable to observe the fast of one hour without inconvenience. Reverence During Hand Reception Since the instruction Memoriale Domini was published three years ago, some episcopal conferences have sought the faculty from the Apostolic See to allow the minister of Holy Communion to place the Eucharistic species in the hands of the faithful. As that instruction recalled, "the precepts of the Church and the documents of the Fathers amply testify that the deepest reverence and the greatest prudence have been shown with regard to the Holy Eucharist,''11 and should continue to be shown. Especially in this man-ner of receiving Holy Communion some points indicated by experience should be most carefully observed. Let the greatest diligence and care be taken particularly with regard to fragments which perhaps break off the hosts. This applies to the minister and to the recipient whenever the Sacred Host is placed in the hands of the communicant. Before initiating the practice of giving Holy Communion in the hand a suitable instruction and catechesis of Catholic doctrine is necessary con-cerning both the real and permanent presence of Christ under the Eucharistic species and the reverence due to this Sacrament.lz It is necessary to instruct the faithful that Jesus Christ is the Lord and Savior and that the same worship and adoration given to God is owed to Him present under the sacramental signs. Let the faithful be counseled there-fore not to omit a sincere and fitting thanksgiving after the Eucharistic ban-quet, such as may accord with each one's particular ability, state, and duties.1:' So that participation in this heavenly table may be altogether worthy and profitable, the value and effects deriving from it for both the individual and the community must be pointed out to the faithful in such a way that their familiar attitude reveals reverence, fosters that intimate love for the Father of the household who gives us "our daily bread,''1'~ and leads ~lSacred Congregation for Divine Worship, the instruction Metnoriale Domini (May 29, 1969), AAS, v. 61 (1969), p. 542, which remains in force. lzSee Vatican Council II, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Con-cilium, n. 7, AAS, v. 56 (1969), pp. 100-1; Sacred Congregation of Rites, the instruc-tion Eucharisticum mysterium (May 25, 1967), n. 9, AAS, v. 59 (1967), p. 547; and Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship, the instruction Memoriale Domini, which states: ". all danger of the spreading of irreverence or false opinions concerning the Holy Eucharist is to be avoided," AAS, v. 61 (1969), p. 545. 13Paul VI, the address Ad membra Consilii Eucharisticis ex omnibus nationibus con-ventibus moderandis habita, AAS, v. 64 (1972), p. 287. 14See Lk 11:3. The Testament of Unmeasured Love / 727 to a living relationship with Christ of whose flesh and blood we partake.'~ The Supreme Pontiff Paul VI has approved and sanctioned this instruc-tion by his authority and directed that it should be published, decreeing that it should enter into force on the day of its publication. Given in Rome, at the Sacred Congregation for the Discipline of the Sacraments, 29 January 1973. A. Card. SAMORE Prefect ¯ J. CASORIA Secretary l~See Heb 2:14. Documents on the 1975 Holy Year Paul VI At the general audiences of May 9, 1973, and of May 16, 1973, Pope Paul VI an-nounced a Holy Year for 1975. Previous to May 9, 197'3, a set of directives for the celebration of the 1975 Holy Year had been drawn up and was published in the English language edition of Osservatore romatto, May 16, 1973, page 11. On May 9, 1973, Monsignor Enrico Bartoletti and Monsignor Wladislaw Rubin gave a Vatican Press Conference on the 1975 Holy Year. These four documents are given below in the translations published in the issues of May 16 and May 24, 1973, of the English language Osservatore romano. ALLOCUTION OF MAY 9 Today there is something we would like to tell you, something which we believe is important for the spiritual life of the Church. It is this: After having prayed and meditated we have decided to celebrate in 1975 a Holy Year when the interval of twenty-five years fixed by our predecessor Paul II in the papal bull inefJabilis providentia of April 17 1940 will haveexpired. The Holy Year, which in canonical language is known as the "Jubilee," meant in the Biblical tradition of the Old Testament a year of special public observance, with abstention from normal work, a return to the original distribution of land, the cancelation of existing debts, and the freeing of Hebrew slaves (see Lev 25: 8ft.). In the history of the Church, as you know, the Jubilee was instituted by Boniface VIII in the year 1300 for a purely spiritual purpose. It consisted in making a penitential pilgrimage to the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul. Dante was among those who took part in it and he gives a description of the crowds thronging the city of Rome (see Inferno 18, 28-33). Later in 1500 there was added to the Jubilee the opening of the Holy Doors of the Basilicas which were to be visited. This was intended not only to facilitate the influx of penitents but also to sym-bolize easier access to divine mercy through the gaining of the Jubilee indulgence. 728 Documents on the 1975 Holy Year / 729 We have asked ourself if such a tradition should be continued in our times which are so different from times gone by and so conditioned both by the style of religion given to ecclesial life by the recent Council and by the practical lack of interest .of many parts of the modern world in the ritual expression of other centuries. We have, however, been convinced that the celebration of the Holy Year not only can be consistently fitted in with the spiritual line adopted by the Council itself which it is our responsibility to develop faithfully-~but can also be very well harmonized with and con-tribute to the tireless and loving efforts being made by the Church to meet the moral needs of our time, to interpret its deepest aspirations, and to ac-cept honestly certain forms of its preferred external manifestations. Essential Concept of the Holy Year In view of the variety of purposes it is necessary to stress what is the essential concept of the Holy Year. It is the interior renewal of man: of the man who thinks and who in his thought has lost the certainty of truth; of the man who works and who in his work has realized that he is so extro-verted that he no longer fully possesses communication with himself; of the man who enjoys life and who so amuses himself and has so many exciting ways to gain pleasurable experience that he soon feels bored and dis-illusioned. Man must be renewed from within. This is what the gospel calls conversion, penance, and a change of heart. It is the process of self-rebirth. It is simple, like a clear and courageous act of conscience and at the same time complex like a long, instructive, and reforming apprenticeship. It is also a moment of grace, and usually one does .not obtain grace without bowing one's head. And we do not think we err in detecting in modern man profound dissatisfaction, satiety coupled with insufficiency, unhappiness produced by false formulas for happiness with which he is intoxicated, and dismay at not knowing how to enjoy the thousand and one pleasures that civilization offers him in abundahce. In other words, man needs an interior renewal such as that hoped for by the Council. The Holy Year is oriented precisely to this personal and interior renewal, which under certain aspects is also exterior. It is an easy and at the same time extraordinary therapy which should bring spiritual well-being to every conscience and indirectly, at least to some extent, to the attitude of society. This is the general theme of the next Holy Year which, however, will also be centered upon another and special theme that is oriented to practical living: reconciliation. Reconciliation The term, "reconciliation," evokes the concept opposite to that of a break. What break would we have to mend in order to reach that recon-ciliation which is the condition for the desired renewal of the Jubilee? What break? But is it not perhaps enough to use this word reconciliation, which 730 / Review 1or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 involves a whole program, to realize that our life is disturbed by too many breaks, too much disharmony, too much disorder to be able to enjoy the gifts of personal and collective life according to their ideal finality? We need above all to reestablish a genuine, vital, and happy relationship with God, to be reconciled with Him in humility and love, so that from this first basic harmony the whole world of our experience may express a need and acquire a virtue of reconciliation in charity and justice with men to whom we im-mediately give the new title of "brothers." Moreover, reconciliation takes place in other vast and very real areas: within the ecclesial community it-self, in society, in the relations among nations, in ecumenism, in the sphere of peace, and so forth. If God permits us to celebrate the Holy Year, it will have many things to tell us in this regard. Local Churches First Let us now limit ourselves to pointing out an important aspect of the structure of the next Holy Year. According to the centuries-old custom, the Holy Year has its focal point in Rome. And it will still be so, but with this innovation. The conditions prescribed for acquiring special spiritual benefits will this time be anticipated and granted to the local churches so that the whole Church spread throughout the world may be able to profit immedi-ately from this great occasion of renewal and reconciliation. In this way the entire Church will be better able to prepare for the climax and conclu-sion of the Holy Year, which wil~ be celebrated in Rome in the year 1975, and which will give to the traditonal pilgrimage to the tombs of the Apostles its traditional~ meaning for those who are able and wish to make the pil-grimage. And this important and salutary spiritual and penitential move-ment, which involves the entire Church and which will be accompanied by the granting of special indulgences, will begin on the coming Feast of Pentecost, June I0. On former occasions, the extension of the Holy Year came after its celebration in Rome; now this extension will precede the cele-bration in Rome. Everyone can see how this innovation also includes an intention of honoring with more evident and effective communion the local churches which are living members of the one universal Church of Christ. This will suffice for the present. But by the grace of God we shall have many other things to say on this matter. May our Apostolic Blessing be with all of you. ALLOCUTION OF MAY 16 Last week we announced to our visitors at the general audience that there will be a Holy Year in 1975, but with an opening in the local churches, that is, in the various dioceses and therefore in the individual parishes and ec-clesial communities, on the forthcoming Feast of Pentecost on June 10 [1973]. In this way all the faithful in the world will have the time and the opportunity to take part in this great exercise of religious and moral renewal Documents on the 1975 Hoiy Year / 731 even before it is celebrated in Rome in the year that has been established. Thus the spiritual benefits can be obtained even by those who will not have the happy possibility of coming on pilgrimage to the tombs of the Apostles in, the "Eternal City." Interest in the Event The announcement has aroused great interest in the world as a fact which, because of its extension, concerns in various ways the entire earth. It has. also, as is natural, aroused great interest in the Catholic Church. It is an event which concerns every one of her members, renewing in her the spiritual vibrations of years and centuries of her past history and bringing back the tide of renewal of the recent Council. It provides a motive and a strength for her perennial evangelizing discussion with human society, per-vaded in our days by deep and restless changes. This first welcome of the sound of the Jubilee trumpet (the term, "Jubilee" refers in fact to the trumpets with which the seventh, or sabbatical year, and the beginning of the fiftieth year were announced among the Jews in ancient times) gives us great pleasure and reason to hope for the positive outcome of this recurring ecclesial initiative. Among many voices, we must single out as highly significant and authori-tative that of Cardinal Marty, Archbishop of Paris, who on his own behalf and on 'behalf of all the French bishops, w~lcomes our decision with jo~, and makes it ~his own, all the more willingly in that it coincides with his own pastoral concerns. So too we warmly thank the Italian Episcopal Conference for having at once echoed our invitation with its fervent and promised support. We tell you this, beloved Brothers and Sons, and dear Visitors, and together with you all those who may hear of this comment of ours on the announcement of the forthcoming Holy Year, to exhort all of you to give this announcement its due importance. It must really be taken seriously. It does not concern a fleeting moment of our journey in time; it concerns an orientation of our modern life at the end of the twentieth century. It does not refer to a particular aspect of our mental and moral behavior but invests our entire way of thinking and living. Two Principal Realities It is a question, in other words, of an overall examination of our out-look with regard to two principal realities: the religion that we profess and the world in which we live. Religion and the world; faith and mundane experience; the Christian conception of life and a conception without light, principles, duties, and hopes transcending our journey in time which leads inexorably to temporal death. The time has come to measure our adherence to Christ in the conflict which it must wage with forms of thought and action that disregard the gos- 732 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 pel and its salvation. The moment is ripe for a complete act of conscience about supreme values and subordinate values; it is time for a choice that is not only practical and submissive, but also pondered and binding about the general character we wish to imprint upon our existence: Is it Christian or is it not? And this means ultimately, is it really human or not? We could prolong this interrogation by proposing so many other alternatives, or rather so may other antitheses, such as: Do we want to be real followers of Christ or just mere names on the' register of the baptized and therefore freewheeling hypocrites condemned by the principles and exigencies that we ourselves claim to profess? Do we want to make God and Christ the center that conditions and harmonizes our fife with its drama of redemption and its un-failing present and final happiness, or do we wish to place in ourselves, in our absorbing and fallacious selfishness, the hinge of our every movement? Do we want to embrace in love and solidarity our brothers, near and far, or do we wish to close the circle of our social outlook within narrow self-interest, walled up in a bitter individual or collective selfishness, and there-fore armed with hatred and struggle, incapable of real love? And so on. A New Synthesis We wish that this the Holy Year may constitute a general balance sheet of our ideas, of our conception of our higher duties, and our real interests, and that it may guide us to a new synthesis of our ancient faith, living and necessary, and the pressing program of modern life, not so much in a supine compromise, but rather in an intelligent Christian harmony, admittedly demanding certain renunciations and austerities but yielding fruits of sincere humanity and authentic happiness. In a word, it is the philosophy of life that is at stake, that which recog-nizes, with Bergson, that the greater the progress of scientific, technical, economic, and social development today, the more man needs a "spiritual supplement" in order not to fall victim to his own conquests. It is the theology of life as outlined by the Council which, ten years after its conclusion, challenges our faithfulness to its renewing word and our capacity to reconstitute our personal conscience and our society in justice and peace. For the moment we thank the Lord who breathes upon the world, upon the Church, and in our souls these majestic thoughts; and we pray to Him that they may enlighten and bring life to you, to everyone, according to His Spirit. And we bestow on you our Apostolic Blessing. DIRECTIVES FOR THE 1975 HOLY YEAR On May 9 the Holy Father will make the preliminary announcement of a Jubilee Year for the interior renewal of men. In Catholic tradition going back to the year 1300, the Holy Year has a purely spiritual meaning and Documents on tJ~e 1975 Holy Year / 733 has always been seen as a manifestation of profound piety and of the unity of the Church expressed especially in the widespread practice of going on pilgrimage to the tomb of Peter in Rome. Particularly in the difficult periods of the Church's history, it constituted a privileged time of concord and an occasion of abundant grace offered to the People of God. In the present circumstances the coming Holy Year takes on a special significance in that it coincides with the tenth anniversary of the closing of the Second Vatican Council, which was meant as a solemn appeal of the Church to all her members to undertake for the salvation of the world a profound renewal of spirit, structures, and pastoral organization. This indeed was the message of the constitution Lumen gentium which recalled that Christ has made us sharers in His Spirit in order that we may continually be renewed in Him. It reminded us also that although the Church is, through her divine calling, holy and without spot, she is in her members defectible and "continually in need of conversion and renewal" (no. 8). For this reason she misses no_opportunity of calling to penance, in order that she may remain the "worthy spouse of her Lord" with the aid of the Holy Spirit "so that through the cross she may attain the light that knows no setting" (no. 9). Necessily of Penance The Church is aware that a return to God is indispensable in order to also attain the reestablishment of Christian unity and in order to give peace to all men who are striving for tranquillity in the midst of disquieting events. She therefore invites everyone, non-Catholics included, to have re-course to the sources of salvation; and "she does not cease to pray, hope, and work, while exhorting her children to purify and renew themselves in order that the image of Christ may shine forth more clearly in her counten-ance" (no. 15). She likewise asks mankind to turn "with renewed spirit to true peace" (Gaudium et spes, no. 77) since the "reform of hearts" remains the principal path for the attainment of this reform. The Second Vatican Council has inculcated the necessity of penance so that man, by freeing himself from evil, may cling wholeheartedly to Christ, "the model, master, liberator, savior, and lifegiver" (Ad gentes, no. 8). The apostolic constitution Poenitemini of Pope Paul VI has expla.')ned the meaning and the truly Christian value of penance in the affirma,'~ion that only through "the profound affd total transformation of the whol~ man, in all his feelings, judgments and acts" is it possible t'o reach the kingdom pro-claimed by Christ (Poenitemini, no. 5). By virtue of these salutary messages and in order to ascertain in what measure they have borne fruit, the coming Holy Year will have as its funda-mental purpose the Christian's commitment to an act of profound conver-sion, metanoia, that brings him closer to God and affects the ecclesial com-munity and temporal communities as well. It will be a great penitential act 734 / Review for Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 involving the whole People of God and leading it, through meditation, prayer, and the celebration of the Eucharist to a deeper and hoped for personal and community reform. This testing of the genuineness of one's personal life of faith, the fruit of a total interior change in the voluntary exercise of acts of penance "over and above the renunciations imposed by daily life" (Poenitemini, no. 12), will lead to reconciliation at all levels. This is meant to be the central and operative theme of the entire Holy Year. Levels of Reconciliation Evangelical conversion and every penitential practice that accompanies it lead essentially to reconciliation with God in Jesus Christ and to recon-ciliation with one's brethren. They lead to reconciliation within the Catholic Church herself and in her relationships with the other Churches, to recon-ciliation in society among all men, over and above every difference of class, race, nation, and degree of economic, social, and cultural development. They lead to reconciliation as the path to that unity which is realized in Christ, the restorer of all things on earth, the unifier of heartg through the sacrifice of His Blood, the unfailing fount of life and salvation (see Eph 2:11-4). The Holy Year will offer to all men the opportunity for genuine reflec-tion upon the basic values of life directed towards a new seeking for Christ. The Holy Year will be concerned more with the interior life of the spirit than with external manifestations; it will be directed towards the world that the Church wishes to serve, that the world may believe: ut mundus credat: It will call for and promote works of piety, penance, and charity as signs of renewal in faith and as the condition for gaining the indulgences granted in the name of and as the gift of the infinite and almighty saving mercy of the Lord. With this a{m in yiew, the coming Holy Year will be conducted in such a way as to offer the greatest possible number of people the chance to share fruitfully in the Jubilee. Therefore, unlike previous Holy Years, which were celebrated in Rome and then extended to the other communities and dioceses, it will be first proclaimed for all the local churches in harmony with the spirit of the Second Vatican Council'and finally to avoid the situa-tion in which it would become a privilege of the category of people who have the means to go to Rome. Pilgrimages to Rome As the culmination of the whole process of reflection and as the fruit of the work of renewal carried out in the local churches, pilgrimages to Rome will be held in 1975. This will constitute the final point and conver-gence of the penitential activity. The influx of the faithful to the Eternal City should be representative of the local churches from which the various groups come; these latter will Documents on the 1975 Holy Year / 735 be aware of the spiritual burden which they fraternally undertake. They will have contact with the most significant traces of the ancient Church; and they will meet the Church of Rome and above all its bishop, the pope, to whom they will give the witness of their faith in his evangelical mission and in his primacy. In the pope they will see the one who by confessing the divinity of Christ, the indispensable foundation of the Christian faith, has become, by Christ's mandate, the living cornerstone of the entire divine economy, the rock of the Church. Of this, St. Leo the Great gives the follow-ing illustration: "In the whole Church Peter daily says: 'You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God' and every tongue which confesses the Lord is filled with the teaching of this voice" (Serrno 3; PL, 54, 146c). In the pope they will find the bond of unity of all the local churches, the safeguard of the plurality of their pastoral and cultural experiences, and the animator of the universal charity of the Church which today more than ever before is concerned with the evangelization and integral development of peoples in the spirit of charity because "only love is worthy of trust." The Holy ~Year and the Local Churches In order that the Holy Year may have the hoped for results, it will be appropriate, as soon as the Holy Father makes the announcement on May 9, for the local churches to give thought to the immediate initiation of ac-tivities directed toward this movement of conversion and renewal on a parochial, diocesan, and national basis. Each church must seriously employ its resources at all levels to stir up in the faithful a serious and authentic penitential act. The episcopal conferences shall seek ways most suited to the mentality of their peoples of ensuring that they understand the ecclesial importance of the event and realize what interior and exterior results are expected from it. The objectives of the work to be done would seem to be especially the following: 1. To explain the purpose of the Holy Year proclaimed by the Holy Father and the documents which will be issued on this theme. 2. To prepare the faithful sp.iritually with extensive preaching in all its forms of the Word of God for personal and communal penitential acts which will be promoted to bring about reconciliation in Christ. 3. Toorganize appropriate liturgical celebrations in accordance with the Second Vatican Council for promoting the sense of prayer in the com-munion and participation of the graces of the Holy Year. 4. To select the churches where the Jubilee indulgences can be gained, inserting the indulgences into an integral process of interior renewal and hence of sanctification. The cathedral is to be preferred since it is the meet-ing point of various liturgical and pastoral movements so that it may be clearly seen that the entire ecclesial movement has as its center the bishop 736 / Review for Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 who is coresponsible with the pope for the spirtual renewal of the whole People of God. 5. To point out the connection--in the ways that the episcopal con-ferences deem most suitable and effective--between the movement of spiritual renewal, which will culminate in the Holy Year in Rome, and the reflection of the ecclesial community on the theme of the next general as-sembly of the Synod of Bishops (1974): "Th~ Evangelization of the Modern World." 6. As far as possible to secure the participation of the separated brethren in the initiatives undertaken for the celebration of the Holy Year in order to have cooperation in the areas of piety, charity, and penance. It is in these spheres that there is more easily found, through the conversion of hearts, unity in Christ, and thus reconciliation in the Church comes to maturity (see the decree Unitatis redintegratio, no. 7). Similar attention shall be given to those belonging to non-Christian religions. 7. Care shall likewise be taken to give to the celebration of the Holy Year a radiating expansion reaching the widest sectors of humanity, includ-ing those Who do not believe, by involving them at least in those initiatives that have as their common purpose reconciliation and peace. 8. The pilgrimages to Rome in 1975 shall be carefully prepared. Central Committee for the Holy Year These initial directives will be followed by others. A Central Committee for the Holy Year will be set up which will maintain close contact through the episcopal conferences with the local churches in order to inform them of the various initiatives which will be promoted in the doctrinal and liturgi-cal fields and in order to provide possible clarifications. THE VATICAN PRESS CONFERENCE OF MAY 9 Remarks of Monsignor Enrico Bartoletti At the general audience today the Holy Father announced the proclamation of a Jubilee Year which will have its culmination in Rome in 1975. The peculiar characteristics of this Jubilee Year which the Holy Father outlined do not sweep the Holy Year off the course of its centuries-old tradition but wisely gear it to the modern socio-cultural context and set it better in the framework of the ecclesiology of Vatican II. Tl~e first and most conspicuous variation that characterizes this Holy Year is that it will take place first in all the particular churches or dioceses scattered all over the world and then conve~:ge and culminate afterwards at Peter's See in the Church that is the mother of all the churches. The difference from the past may seem only an exterior one. Previously, the Jubilee was celebrated in Rome for the whole of the Holy Year, and only there could the Jubilee indulgence be obtained. Only at the close of Documents on the 1975 Holy Year / 737 the Holy Year were the spiritual favors extended to the whole world, thus reaching those who had not been able to enjoy them. Now, on the contrary, the Jubilee year is to be celebrated first all over the world, later reaching its conclusive climax and the fullness of its signifi-cance at the tomb of the Apostles Peter and Paul. The difference, therefore, is not just an exterior one, on the purely chronological and organizational level. It deeply modifies the meaning of the Holy Year and highlights its value as a spiritual and ecclesial move-ment intended to involve the whole of the Lord's Holy Church or, as people prefer to say today, the whole People of God on its pilgrimage in the world. The particular churches and all the ecclesial communities of believers and of the baptized are thus highlighted and urged to renewal, while unity of faith and fellowship is reaffirmed and solicited in the convergence upon Peter's See which is their permanent source and foundation (see Lumen gentium, no. 18). Conversion and Reconciliation In this way the Holy Year takes on the configuration of an intense and universal Church movement, not triumphalistic but pastoral and spiritual, personal and communitarian, aimed at realizing and checking that process of continual and permanent "conversion" which is the fundamental message of the gospel and which was admirably echoed by Lumen gentium and the whole of Vatican II. The goal and purpose of this ecclesial movement is indicated in the very theme of the Jubilee Year: Reconciliation; The itinerary to reach it, which the whole Church is invited to follow, is that of "metanoia," that is, repentance or change of mentality, effort of purification, commitment of charity. It is, in fact, along this path of repentance that man, in Christ, by virtue of the Holy Spirit, is reconciled with God and becomes capable of reconcilia-tion with his brothers. It is this brotherly reconciliation, ecclesial and human and therefore also civil, which becomes at once the fruit and the verification of reconciliation with God, while it is in many cases the premises and beginning of it. And it is in this sense that the Holy Year takes on a value and a dimen-sion that is not only intraecclesial but also ecumenical and universal. Thus the connection of the Holy Year with Vatican Council II becomes not only chronological and exterior but also deep and consequential. On the tenth anniversary of the closing of the Second Vatican Council, the theme of the Jubilee Year and the itinerary of repentance that must characterize it will be nothing but a renewed ecclesiological reflection and a renewed commitment to carry out what the Spirit told the Church of our times at the great Pentecost of the Council. From Lumen gentium to Gaudium et spes, from Pacem in terris and 738 / Review for Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 Poenitemini to Octogesima adveniens and the Synodal documents of 1971, the pressing appeal to the Church has constantly been that of conversion and reconciliation. The celebration of the Holy Year, ten years after the Council, will be a verification and a common examination of conscience of the whole Church with regard to the fruitfulness of those salutary messages and the faithful-ness of our response to the voice of the Spirit. The Holy Year and Evangelization There is a clear connection also between the celebration of the Holy Year, especially in the particular churches, and the subject of the next Synod ---evangelization in the modern world--which will also have to stimulate the reflection, the effort and the commitment of the whole People of God. Monsignor Rubin, the Secretary General of the Synod, will explain in detail the convergences of content and commitment. Let it be enough to point out here that the whole spiritual movement of the Holy Year will be a process of evangelization inside and outside the Church, in the awareness that she exercises her evangelizing mission not only through what she says but also through what she is. Holy Year in the Local Churches and in Rome Witness, especially in the secularized world, is an integral part of evangelization. The first phase of the celebration of the Jubilee Year will take place, therefore, in all the particular churches. The solemn announce-ment will be made by the pastors in those churches on Pentecost Day (June 10) and the spiritual and organizational movement will be started. The center of convergence of the various catechetical, liturgical, and pastoral initiatives will preferably be the cathedral. There it will be possible to obtain the Jubilee indulgence; there the ecclesial movement will find in the bishop its visible center and foundation of unity and fellowship with the universal Church. The climax of the whole pro.cess of renewal, the sign and seal of recon-ciliation in the unity of faith and in the charity of fellowship, will be the pilgrimage to Rome which will take place from December 1974 throughout 1975. The crowds of the faithful who will flock to Peter's See will have to be representative of the particular churches. Therefore, more than pil-grimages of individuals or groups, it will be diocesan and regional pil-grimages or the pilgrimages of whole episcopal conferences with their pas-tors that will be of importance. The need for representativeness and the necessary sign of ecclesial and brotherly charity will prompt initiatives of mutual help so that the less well-to- do, the sick, and the young will be present in large numbers in the pil-grimages to the Church of Rome which in her bishop "presides over charity." It will also be necessary for the pilgrimage to °Rome to be distinguished from Documents on the 1975 Holy Year / 739 the tourist trip. Regaining its old meaning as a Christian pilgrimage, it should be a real spiritual itinerary to find again in Peter's successor "the one who everyday proclaims in the Church faith in Christ, the Son of the Living God." In this way the particular churches will find once more in the pope the bond of their unity, the guarantor of their itinerary of faith, the animator of their charity. Remarks of Monsignor Wladislaw Rubin The "essential features of the central theme of the Holy Year" stress the existence of a connection between the movement of spiritual revision dictated by the Holy Year and the reflection of the ecclesial community on the subject of the next General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops (in 1974): "The Evangelization of the Contemporary World." The Holy Year and Evangelization It is useful to indicate the reasons for this connection: 1. The first link to emphasize is the one with the growing participation of the episcopate in joint responsibility toward the universal Church and her task in the world. The Synod of Bishops is a particularly evident expression of this collaboration since it is the central ecclesiastic organism in which ¯ the world episcopate expresses its concern to cooperate with the sovereign pontiff for the solution of the most serious problems 'that emerge and challenge the ecclesial community, It is, therefore, the place of confluence and convergence of the local churches which live in an attitude of listening comparison, adherence, and availability for the influences of the Holy Spirit and the service of the good of the universal Church. ,The approach to the Holy Year--different from the traditional and cen-turies- old approach of preceding celebrations--which consists in initiating the celebration with the local churches and giving the world episcopate more direct participation in the celebrations in Rome corresponds to the line of renewal that the institution of the Synod of Bishops represents in the Church. 2. Then there exists a deeper link between the idea of the Holy Year-- which is repentance--and that subject chosen for the next Synod, that is "The Evangelization of the Contemporary World." It can be said that the reflection of the ecclesial community on the subject of the Synod is, from this point ofview, preparation for a correct celebration of the Holy Year. The Synod of Bishops, proposing the subject of evangelization in all its radical instances, will urge believers to an inner conversion which is indis-pensable to be able to prove one's readiness to follow Christ and to com-mune with Him. We all know the Gospel text which directly connects the proclamation of the gospel with the appeal for repentance: "Repent, and believe the gospel!" (Mk 1:15). Repentance. therefore is necessary for conversion and 740 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 adherence to Christ, as the Second Vatican Council says. Repentance is the first stage of evangelization, of conversion of the heart, and of the renewal of the individual and of mankind for which all men of good will long. 3. The celebration of the Holy Year--as we read in the "essential fea-tures"-- offers all men the possibility of genuine reflection on the funda-mental values of life, open to a new search for Christ; it is addressed to the world that the Church wishes to serve in order that it may believe: ut mundus credat. Renewal of Faith The Holy Year, therefore, wishes to be a "renewal of faith." Never, perhaps, in the history of the celebrations of the Holy Year has the ecclesial community felt this need so strongly as now. In modern society, space for God's word is constantly and progressively reduced and it does not reach its efficacy; it is listened to little, understood and lived little. It is necessary, therefore, to revise method and contents thoroughly and to multiply efforts in order that God's word may have its place and its role of primacy in the chorus of men's messages. The subject of the next Synod, "The Evangelization of the Contem-porary World," commits the whole ecclesial community to careful and deep reflection on the message of Christ, liberator and savior, to be communi-cated with every effort and every means to the men of our times. It is to be hoped that the effort of the Synod of Bishops will be sup-ported by a deep awareness of the whole People of God, accompanied and followed by a multiplicity of initiatives capable of bringing to maturity reflections and exigencies in vital terms of faith. 4. The specific subject proposed by the Holy Father for the 1975 Holy Year, that is, reconciliation, meets one of the main concerns of the episco-pate expressed in the preceding Synods which aimed at ensuring constant progress for the Church and for mankind in an atmosphere of peace and love in conformity with the teaching of the gospel. The world episcopate is the qualified witness of all the peoples it repre-sents who suffer from the conflicts and lacerations that exist on the political, social, and religious planes. The Synod, which will have to study how to bring the gospel of love and peace to the world of today, will aim at reaching, through evangelical con-version, this reconcilation with God and with our human brothers. Address to. Religious Women Paul VI On May 12, 1973, Pope Paul VI gave an audience to the women religious partici-pating in the General Assembly of the Union of Major Superiors in Italy. On the occasion the Holy Father delivered the following talk printed here in the translation given in the English language Osservatore romat~o, May 24, 1973, page 3. It is a happy and refreshing parenthesis for us today, willingly agreeing to your request, to receive you, the major superiors of Italy, who have taken part in the General Assembly of the Council of Presidency and of the Cen-tral Council of the Union. We greet the newly elected superiors, and those who have ended their term of office; and we welcome all of you, as well as your fellow sisters whom you represent. Be Confident We are glad to pause, if only for a short time, among you because you bring before our eyes the image of the ranks of Italian religious women who, on all fronts--teaching, support for the priestly ministry, missionary cooperation, physical and spiritual works of mercy, and so forth--offer the Church irreplaceable assistance and the community of brothers a continual lesson of kindness, disinterestedness, and self-sacrifice. We thank you for this "evangelical witness'~ given as it is with total fervor; and we address you a word of consolation: Be confiden!! At this moment when many things are questioned, though in the praiseworthy in-tention of rediscovering and following your own "identity" in conformity with the gospel and with the origin of each religious institute, there is need of a higher certainty to guide and illuminate this effort of absolute au-thenticity. 741 742 / Review for Religious, l/olume 32, 1973/4 Confidence in the Religious Vocation Yes, be confid~nt! 1. Be confident in the choice of the religious vocation which you made in full freedom and in serene response to God's grace by g!ving the highest and deepest significance to Christian life. What is religious life if not the carrying to their extreme consequences--death to sin and its roots, dedica-tion to God, union with the risen Christ--of the instructions of baptism? Is it not the bringing to complete maturation of the seeds received in that decisive sacramental meeting with the Trinity that loves us and saves us? This was the ancient teaching that the recent Council recalled when it said that in religious life every member of the faithful "in order to derive more abundant fruit from this baptismal grace intends by the profession of the evangelical counsels in the Church to free himself from those obstacles which might draw him away from the fervor 6f charity and the perfection of divine worship. Thus he is more intimately consecrated to divine service" (Lumen gentium, no. 44). You, therefore, with faithfulness to the gospel taken literally indicate that the realities that count, the ones that will remain beyond the contingent flux of time are the spiritual ones. Religious life is a sign and a presence of the eschatological reality of the kingdom of God. In this l!ght your lives as consecrated women take on full significance in their forms, in their essen-tial commitments represented by the three vows, in their strong, happy, sacrificed, loving, welcoming style, guided only by the thought of the love of God and of your brothers, particularly those most abandoned, as well as in spiritual growth fed at the crystal clear fountainheads of prayer and union with God, of silence and contemplation, and especially of the Eucharist and the liturgical life according to the points that we developed in the apostolic exhortation Evangelica testiJ~catio. We invite you to meditate on this docu-ment more and more because .it was dictated solely by the desire to facilitate that renewal of religious life which was among the most conspicuous fruits of the Second Vatican Council. Confidence in the Church 2. Then be confident in "Mother Church" who has given you her full confidence in the first place. You have a particular relationship of love for the Church, as you have for Mary. The .mystery of Mary and that of the Church are closely linked and illuminate each other: "The Church . . . be-comes herself a mother . For by her preaching and by baptism she brings forth~ to a new and im. mortal life children who are conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of God. The Church herself is a virgin who keeps whole and pure the fidelity which she has pledged to her Spouse. Imitating the Mother of her Lord and by the power of the Holy Spirit, she preserves with virginal purity an integral faith, a firm and sincere charity" (Lumen gentium, no. 64). Address to Religious Women You are closely linked to these realities which, mysteriously, must be reproduced and continued in your consecrated lives. Hence you must al-ways feel moved to a particular love for the Church. The fervor of ecclesiological studies, in the light of the teaching of the Council, and, above Jail, personal reflection in the life of prayer must stimulate in all sisters a new esteem, a new reliance, a new confidence in the Church. All in-stitutes, becoming more and more open and available, should be animated to seek new services so that the Church may reach everywhere in the world, bringing it the sacrament of love with which God meets mankind in Christ and save it in every age and in all latitudes. Confidence in Our Times 3. And finally be confident also in our times, so full of aspirations and tensions, greatness and wretchedness, needs and hopes. The conciliar con-stitution Gaudium et spes highlighted them in a precise synthesis which must be kept in mind by all those in the .Church who wish to serve the needs" of the world. Your vocation puts you in a special relationship with the world which has, as you know, so many sufferings and sores but which also possesses so many secret richeswin the advance of new generations, in the faithful-ness of families, in the sacrifices of workers, in the sorrows of the sick and the old. Before them you must be "sign posts." .And in this you have a great responsibility. People watch you and judge if your faithfulness to the gospel is genuine and sincere. For them you must be in the world the sign that the gospel is alive, that the kingdom of God is amongst us (see Lk 17:21). Moved by this concern, we called you to this commitment of witnessing in our recent exhortation when we wrote that "this world needs, today more than ever, to see in you men and women who have believed in the Word of the Lord, in His Resurrection and eternal life, to the extent of committing your earthly life to bear witness to the reality of this love which is offered to all men . Is not this gra.ce, for the man of today, a kind of life-bringing breath from the infinite, a kind of liberation from himself, in the prospect of eternal, absolute joy?" (Evangelica testificatio, no. 53). The Coming Flame of Light and Grace In this triple invitation to confidence, then, we wish the Union a renewed effort in order that these instructions may be lived with growing awareness by all Italian sisters. This is demanded by the state of consecrated life; it is required by the duty of the hour when a great flame of light and grace is about to pass over the local churches in preparation for the Holy Year. Be in the front line in the work of reconciliation and inner renewal as well as of revision of your own social life in the kind of reaction which we expect from all the faithful of good will. The forthcoming Pentecost will be the beginning of a new effusion of the Spirit upon the whole Church: Get ready 744 / Review for Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 for it and help in a special way the various categories of persons you serve to understand this hour of grace and to give it their support. We thank you; and in token of the special protection of the Holy Virgin, an incomparable model of complete dedication, we willingly impart the special Apostolic Blessing to you and to your fellow sisters in your institutes. Prayer and Life Edward Carter, S.J. Father Edward Carter, S.J., is associate professor of theology at Xavier University; Cincinnati, Ohio 45207. There is an intimate connection between prayer and life. It can be no other way. Prayer, a function of the Christian life of grace, has an undeniable con-nection with the human condition because the Christian life itself does. The Christian is not one-half natural and the other half supernatural. Although grace and nature are distinct, they do not exist separate from one another as if grace is placed atop nature like a kind of,superstructure. Karl Rahner observes: "The nature of a spiritual being and its supernatural elevation are not opposed to each other like two things which lie side by side, so that they must be either kept separate or confused. The supernatural elevation of man is, though not due to him, the absolute fulfillment of his being . Grace and the Authentically Human The Christian is one graced person. The Christian life does not in any way destroy or lessen anything which isjauthentically human. Rather the Christian life gives human nature a deepened capacity for fulfillment. In our elevation through grace, we possess a deepened capacity for love, for joy, for suffering, for peace, for happiness. Whatever we do, as long as it is authentically human, is also meant to be Christian. St. Paul reminds us: "The fact is that whether you eat or drink--whatever you do~-you should do all for the glory of God" (1 Cot 10:31). The Christian life, then, is divinized human life. It is man and wife deeply and tenderly loving one another. It is friend sharing with friend. The Christian life is a nurse caring for the sick, a mother rearing her children, 1Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations, Volume 4 (Baltimore: Helicon, 1966), p. 183. 745 746 / Review for Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 a businessman serving his customers, a teacher communicating with his students. Life in Christ is sharing a meal with loved ones, enjoying a movie, taking a refreshing swim, quietly watching the falling white snow gently covering the hillside, or being buoyed up by the greenness of spring. The Christian life is the thrill of being loved, the ioy of success, the satisfaction of completing an important task. It is a concern for one's neighbor, an at-tention to his needs. The Christian life is experiencing failure, being mis-understood, feeling unloved, experiencing the slight pains of life, but also occasionally the deep suffering which makes one weep. No, there is nothing really human which is alien to our graced existence in Jesus. Jesus Himself has gone before us indicating the connection between the human condition and the life He came to give. Jesus redeemed us, not by fleeing the human condition, but by relating to it properly according to His Father's will. Jesus loved life, and He beautifully used human existence to give us the possibility of becoming more perfectly human. As Jesus achieved objective redemption within the framework of the human condition and His own human existence, so also must we assist Him in the ongoing work of subjective redemption. We receive the life Jesus came to give us within the human condition and the confines of our own humanity or we do not re-ceive it at all. This is also the way we help give this Christic life to others. Prayer and Human Life Prayer, since it is a very important exercise of this Christian life we have been describing, has an obvious relationship with the human condition. Prayer is deeply interrelated with life. From experienci.ng life I am led to seek prayer, and frbm experiencing prayer I am led to seek life. Thomas Merton, because he was a Trappist monk, was not directly involved with certain aspects of the temporal order. But in the manner his Trappist voca-tion permitted, he was deeply immersed in life. He was deeply interested in his fellow human beings. He was deeply concerned with the agonizing prob-lems of modern man. Precisely because he was a man of profound prayer, he understood contemporary man and the human condition go well, and his writings are a legacy of wisdom helping modern, man to achieve successful and happy living. In one of his books he i'eminds fis of the connecti6n which must exist between prayer and life: A false supernaturalism which imagines that "the supernatural" is a kind of Platonic realm o~ abstract essences totally apart from and opposed to the concrete world of nature, offers no real support to a genuine lif~ of meditation and prayer. Mediation has no point and no reality unless it is firmly rooted in liJe.,,Without such roots, it can produce nothing but the ashen fruits of disgust, acedia, and even morbid and degenerate introversion, masochism, dolorism, negation. Nietzsche pitilessly exposed the hopeless mess which results from this caricature of Christianity.''z 2Thomas Merton, Contemplative Prayer (Garden City: Image, 1971), p. 39. Prayer and Li[e / 747 Prayer is intimately bound up with life in that it helps us to find our-selves and our role in life. Prayer shows us how to live. Prayer helps us achieve self-identity, and in achieving self-identity we see what our relation-ship to God and our fellowmen should be. One of the gravest issues facing contemporary man is the problem of alienation. Modern man feels alienated from himself, from God, from the society of men. Prayer helps cut across these inroads which alienation has made. As prayer develops self-awareness, it develops and deepens one's love relationship with God and the society of men. Prayer and the Quest for Self-identity We have said prayer aids in the quest for self-identity. The contempo-rary man of i~ndustrial-technological society to a large extent finds himself in a very ironical position. With his fantastically advanced knowledge, he has increasingly controlled and shaped his material world. He has achieved knowledge to a highly precise degree of what we might call the identity of the material world. But modern man's own self-identity more and more elud6s him. In directing so much of his quest for knowledge at the material world outside himself, he increasingly has become a stranger to his own self. He has failed to look within. He has failed to know himself. Some, in a desperate attempt, as it were, to make quick amends for modern man's failure to know himself, have taken the misleading route of psychedelic, drugs in the quest for self-identity, inner unity, and integration. But this is an abortive attempt, because it violates the laws of gaining true self-knowledge and integration. In prayer, self-awareness is not achieved in an isolated, self-enclosed fashion. Self-identity is achieved through encounter with God. The psy-chologist Sidney Jourard tells us: "And it seems to be another fact that no one can come to know himself except as an outcome of disclosing himself to another person.'''~ If I need an encounter with a human person in order to grow in self-knowledge, much,~much more do I n~ed encounter with God in prayer to achieve self-identity and self-integration. God is the origin of my life. He is also the goal of my life. He knows and understands me per-fectly, so much more intimately than I know and understand myself. He has created me. He has created .me unique, and therefore, there is no one who can tell me more about my unique self than God. There never has been anyone like me in the pasl~. There is not now, and there never will be any-one like me. God has c~'eated me in His own image, and I reflect Him more perfectly the more I become myself, the more I develop my God-given uniqueness. The God-life, the grace-life, which is given in baptism, deepens ~Sidney M. Jourard, The Transparent Sel! (2nd ed.; New York: Van Nostrand Rein-hold, 1971), p. 6. 748 / Review for Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 my uniqueness. The more Christian I become, the more unique I also be-come, and the more I become myself. I become more God-like, more Chris-tian, more myself in, with, and through Jesus. Jesus mediates God's gift of a share,in Trinitarian life, and He mediates our response, our living this life. There is no other way I can develop my graced uniqueness except in Jesus and according to the pattern of His life. Rahner states it very succinctly: "And yet every grace has analogously the same structure as its source, viz. the structure of the Word become man . In prayer God shows me all this. He shows me all this as He allows me to realize that He loves me. I begin to really be, really to achieve my true self-identity when I begin to realize how much God loves me. God helps me achieve my self-identity and self-integration by showing me what I uniquely am, what I am called to be. He shows me through the light of prayer that my existence and quest for self-identity must be rooted in a love-relationship with Him. He tells me that the more I open myself to His loving Self-communication and the more I respond with a love of my own, the more I become myself, the more my self-image becomes finely honed, the more I become what He wants me to be. Prayer and My Evil Dimension Achieving self-identlty through encounter with God in prayer is not a completely painless task. The light of prayer shows me my uniqueness, my particular talents and gifts, the good I have already achieved, and the future possibilities for further growth in Christian holiness. But God, through the light of prayer, also shows me my evil side. He shows me how I have failed Him, how I have wasted opportunities to love Him and others, how much my search for self-integration and union with Him has been obstructed be-cause of my selfishness. How deeply the light of prayer can penetrate one's being and uncover the unpleasant side of nature is graphically attested to by some of the saints. As they grew in prayer, the ligtit of prayer illumined pockets of selfishness and pride that had previously escaped their awareness. The light of prayer, then, helps one achieve self-identity and self-integration by illuminating both the good and evil dimensions of one's existence. Finally, this illuminating encounter with God in prayer always has a thrust of bring-ing me into closer union with Him. The light of prayer shows me my unique self, shows me more what I should become, shows me that I am made for God, shows me how lovable this God is--and all this is intended to deepen my love relationship with God. In turn, as I come closer to Him, I become more myself. I achieve a greater existential hold on my true self-identity. 4Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations, Volume 2 (Baltimore: Helicon, 1960), p. 33. Prayer and Lite/ 749 Some say that this encounter with God in prayer is a risk. They say that if we really pray we do not know what might be asked of us. If prayer is a risk, it is a risk for happiness. God gradually, and tenderly, and lovingly, shows me myself and shows me Himself so that I may be increasingly ful-filled. Of course, as God shows me myself and Himself in prayer, as He shows me how to become more myself as directed by His loving will, all this will involve a certain suffering. A price is asked of me if I am to grow. There is no other way. But what God asks of me in prayer is always aimed at my greater fulfillment and happiness. Again, if prayer is a risk, it is a risk for happiness. In one of his earlier writings, Thomas Merton observed: "It is becoming increasingly evident that the only men in the world who are really happy are the ones who knowhow to pray.''~ Prayer and Immersion in Life As God shows me myself .and Himself in prayer, and shows me how my quest for self-identity is rooted in a loving relationship with Him, He shows me how the process of self-integration is connected with life. He shows me how it has a relationship with daily living in all its myriad and diverse di-mensions. He shows me that I must become more my unique self--lay greater existential hold on my self-identity--through authentic immersion in life. This immersion in life can differ so widely--from that of the inner city worker to that of the Trappist contemplative--but immersion in life there must be. Prayer, then, thrusts me into life. Authentic prayer gives me a taste for life, a desire to be and to become by situating myself properly, and ac-cording to my uniqueness, in the world of men. Conversely, my immersion in life thrusts me back to prayerful encounter with God. The more honest I am with myself, the more clearly I see that if I am properly to be and to become through my encounter with life, I need the light and strength of prayer. There is this cycle of prayer and life, then. From experiencing prayer I am led to seek life, and from experiencing life, I am led to seek prayer. Much of my imme~:sibn in life concerns itself with my relationship with human persons, both in a general manner and in a more particular way re-garding those relatively few individuals with whom I am especially close. Not unexpectedly, then, prayer shows me how my being and my becoming are inextricably bound up with loving relationships with my neighbors. God inexorably shows me through the light of prayer that my achieving self-identity through a love relationship with Him is inescapedly connected with my love relationship with my fellowmen. The light of prayer gradually, gently, but so persistently, increasingly engrains upon my being those well-known words of St. John: ~Thomas Merton, "The Contemplative Life: Its Meaning and Necessity," Dublin Review, v. 223 (1949), p. 32. 750 / Review [or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 If anyone says, "My love is fixed on God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. One who has no love for the brother he has seen cannot love the God he has not seen. (1Jn 4:20) Prayer and lhe Love of Neighbor Prayer sustains me in the gift of myself to my fellow human beings. The light of prayer allows me to see the priceless dignity of each individual. Prayer shows me how each person is truly made in the image and likeness of God, how each has been touched by the redemptive blood of Jesus. Prayer not on!y shows me this; it also gives me the strength to live accord-ingly. Prayer sustains me especially when it is so difficult to live according to this faith vision--when others do not love and appreciate me, when some even hate and ridicule me. Prayer enlightens me and strengthens me in the daily struggle to be generous in my service of others at those times when self-interest and self-comfort pull me the other way. And as indicated earlier, prayer shows me that if I am to love others properly, I must love them as they are actually situated in this real world of ours, a world with so much beauty, but also with a great deal of ugliness; a world with so many great accomplishments and future possibilities, but also a world with a staggering number of the gravest problems. Prayer also shows me that if I truly love my neighbor, I have to be concerned with all this according to my vocation, my talents, and my opportunities. Prayer and Close Relationships ~ In God's providence, the love of neigl~bor leads one to relatively few close relationships. To cite certain examples, husband and wife, parents and children, friend and friend, are engaged in a particular kind of intimacy that is absent from their general encounters with others. This closeness can be the occasion of simple joys and the greatest happiness, but it can also give rise to frustration, anger, disappointment, and even deep anguish oc-casionally. Prayer is a great source of light and strength relative to these close relationships. It sustains a person in working at the proper development of these encounters--to enjoy them as one should, to profit from them ag one ought. Prayer sustains a person when he or she is tempted immaturely to flee the suffering involved in these relationships. Prayer keeps one there, enables one to endure the pain, enables one to see the value of these rela-tionships for Christ and the world. Pray6r shows the person that the pain properly endured and assimilated will lead to a greater love. Prayer and Life / 751 Conclusion The Christian, then, seeks the solitude of prayer not in order to flee the presence of others. Among the reasons he seeks out the quiet of prayer is that he may better find people. He seeks prayer so that he may be for them more, become for them more, suffer for them more, do good for them more. He seeks prayer so that he may simply love them more. Prayer and life, life and prayer--these are inseparably interwoven. As I pray, and grow in prayer, I see this connection with deeper penetration and conviction. Prayer shows me that it can be no other way. Prayer leads me to seek life, and life leads me to seek prayer. The Five Steps of Prayer Manuel J. Costa Father Manuel J. Costa is the pastor of St. Bernard's Church; Post Office Box 999; Eureka, Calil~ornia 95501. Many people in the post Vatican II Church are feeling estranged from God. They do not experience the same secure closeness to Him that they had in former days. A number of times just this past year I have had parishioners complain to me in words like these: "I reach out for God, but He doesn't seem to be there anymore. I want to be in better touch with Him, but I don't know how." Doubtlessly, we have all been distressed, perhaps more often than we care to admit, by a sense of God's absence from our lives. But the way to feel His presence is not so much to "reach out" for Him as to reach in. We must learn to take the inner journey of prayer to find the living God who dwells within us. We can be so concerned about trying to find Him that we miss Him where He is--right under our noses: "The kingdom of God is within you" (Lk 17:21). A religious philosopher little known in Catholic circles, Henry N. Wieman, has written a brief but illuminating analysis of prayer, which is quoted in the anthology, The Choice Is Always Ours, edited by Phillips, Howes, and Nixon (Harper and Row, 1948). Wieman sees prayer as hav-ing five steps and speaks of it as a means of "reshaping ourselves in such manner that we as personalities with all our behavior can serve as connect-ing links between disconnected parts and thus enable the integrating process of the world to fulfill itself" (p. 206). In prayer, he says, we become "circuit-closers" and find the way to join ourselves with God in His work of wider and richer integration. 752 The Five Steps of Prayer / 753 Waiting for God The first step in prayer, according to Wieman, is "to relax and to be-come aware of that upon which we are dependent, that which sustains us in every breath." As I begin prayer, then, I should not strive to ttiink about anything in particular, but should rather enter into an attitude of waiting for God, of letting Him fill me with a consciousness of His all-encompassing, sustaining, integrating Being. So this first step can be described as tuning into the Presence; being open to the Other; acknowledging that which is beyond myself; letting go of my many preoccupations in order to focus on Him who is the Source and Ground of Being; clearing the circuits on my interior switchboard, moving, Advent-like, into the darkness and waiting for the Light; becoming aware of the integrative process, both within me and outside me, that God has already started. God as Working for the Good Wieman's second step in prayer is "to call to mind the vast and un-imaginable possibilities for good which are inherent in this integrating process called God." Before I can actualize these possibilities for good in my life, I must first renew my faith that they exist, that God is truly mov-ing both the world and myself forward--slowly, painfully, but surely. In this moment of prayer, I try to become intensely aware that God is working in ways that I do not understand and, in fact, cannot even imagine. I affirm the reality of unimaginable possibilities for growth and wholeness. Just what these possibilities may be remains unknown to me; all that is re-quired now is that I acknowledge them. This kind of openness to what the day wants to be in me will demand a radical willingness to change what needs to be changed, to stretch, to choose, to struggle, to let go of my egocentric patterns in favor of larger values. During this second step in prayer, I make a positive decision to opt for whatever will be growth-producing this day without seeking to determine now just what that will be. I resolve to choose as consistently as I can for life, to seize each opportunity to become more than I am, to help others to become more than they are, and to do all this now, since today with all its particular circumstances will never again exist for me. But if I am to be as open as I can to the unknown, "vast and un-imaginable possibilities for good," I must face whatever in me prevents the thrust forward. In other words, what are the Ways in which I am most pulled by a disintegrative process rather than the integrative process that Wieman speaks of? Might it be that I let myself get overinvolved in busy work and trivial things that make me stay on the surface of life rather than plumb into its depths? Am I always responding to outer events and demands in order to avoid confrontation with my own inner depths? Or perhaps I permit my-self to be sucked into role expectations, doing what I think others want me 754 / Review for Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 to do rather than what I see is really best for me. Maybe for me the dis-integrative pull takes the form of saying, "I can't do that" or "why put out the effort--it won't do any good anyway" or "I'm too tired" or "I'll do it tomorrow when I have more time." Or is it that I am unwilling to sacrifice pleasure,and comfort for truth and growth? Do I crowd my days so much with people and things and work that I fail to leave breathing spaces for reflective evaluation and prayer? Do, I, fall into the trap of making up my mind beforehand that someone or some event is superficial or unimportant and thereby miss the meaning that they could proffer? Am I just plain lazy about cultivating an interior life, about trying to conceptualize and give expression to what I think and feel? It is extremely important that I seek to understand as much as I can about the God I be-lieve in and the process by which He works in me and in my world. I have a better chance of joining in with the process if I know what it is: "Blessed is he who knows what he does." Facing My Problem Wieman's third step in prayer is "to face the chief problem with which we are struggling., in its entirety and get it in its true perspective." If I do not take time to pray and to bring my problem before the Lord, then I will very likely be distracted by some pressing detail of the difficulty rather than face it in all its fullness. I will get taken in by what only looks like the main problem. This third step helps me to relate my problem to the total situation of my life, to look at it objectively, to assess all the data about it that I possi-bly can. For every problem has a body of facts to it that I must examine, sift, and integrate. I must creatively explbre the possibilities for good and for growth in my problem. I must be convinced that it really does have all kinds of positive possibilities and that I can join even my problem to the integrative process called God that is hard at work in me and in the entire universe. Prayer gives my problem a wider frame of reference. It stretches my perception so that I begin to see that what is bol~hering me contains some light and goodness in addition to darkness and evil. I can then begin to ac-cept that my problem has an aspect of mystery to it, that it is not so neatly packaged as I had previously thought. When I enter into this movement of prayer, I can. take a religious atti-tude toward whatever is troubling me. I will learn to regard it as an "inner brother" to whom I must first go and be reconciled before I offer my gift at the altar (see Mt 5:23-4). When I deal with my problem in this reconcilia-tory way, I rob it of its power to be infectious on the day and on its possi-bilities for good. The Five Steps o] Prayer / 755 Changing Myself Wieman presents the fourth step in prayer as "self-analysis to find what change must be made in our own mental attitudes and personal habits." Usually I expect the people around me, or my environment, or some aspect of my problem to change. Prayer enables me to see that I am the one who has to change. In prayer I come to see where the outer and inner problems lie.~Then I can decide where I ought to go. During this fourth step I can ask myself: "What are the facts of my life today? What am I to be present to?" Then I invoke God's help and strength so that I can adjust my attitudes and habits to meet the reality of the moment. Reality as it actually exists is the only arena in which I will meet the Lord. Prayer enables me to discern what my reality is, to discover what changes are required of me in order to live in that reality, and to work those changes in me. Prayer helps me to develop right attitudes. From these will flow right behavior. Verbal Formulations of Readjustments The fifth step in prayer is "to formulate in words as clearly and com-prehensively as possible the readjustment of personality and behavior which I have discovered is required of me if I am to close the circuit between cer-tain disconnected factors in the world around me." Wieman emphasizes that this verbal formulation should be affirmative, not negative, for in prayer "we are not primarily trying to break a connection but to establish a con-nection." When I can put my resolution into words, I concretize and channel my prayer experience. Otherwise, it may easily remain vague and undefined, with the result that I may lose much of the power that could come from my encounter with the Lord. Taking the time and trouble to put a feeling or an insight into words makes that feeling or insight more truly my own. It brings them to fuller and more explicit consciousness. Words do much more than label a reality; in a very true sense, they c~'eate the reality. The philospher Martin Heideg-ger says that man does not create language; rather language creates man. The effort required in expressing an inner experience in words makes that experience arise out of unconsciousness into consciousness. In this way, I am "created," that is, more integr~ated and more whole. Besides, it is good for me to make myself say things, even if only to my-self. For when I actually say them, there is, the terrible danger that I will really hear them and do something about them. So, for example, if during my period of prayer I discover that I am acting too much because of role expectations, or for "image" reasons, I may formulate my resolve in this way: "I will strive to act in accordance with the truth of a situation and in relationship to the Source of truth who is within me." Wieman suggests that we repeat our resolution often during the day. Such repetition wild gradually establish the needed readjustment of our at- 756 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 titude deeply and firmly in our beings. And in this way our conscious thoughts, feelings, and behavior will be more surely connected to God and his integrating process in the world. We will become thereby better instru-ments of wholeness both in ourselves and in our environment. Conclusion While certain similarities are obvious between Wieman's five steps and more traditional Catholic methods of meditation, like the Jesuit and Sulpi-cian forms, the originality and uniqueness of the five steps seems to lie in the effort to join ourselves with God in his work of integration. It is a form of prayer which has its unifying insight that each of us can serve as con-necting links between the disconnected parts within ourselves and in our world. We thereby consciously press ourselves into the service of our God who ever seeks to make all things one in Him. Intercession and Community Development Anthony ).° Kelly, C.Ss.R. Anthony J. Kelly, C.Ss.R., is the chairman of the Department of Theology at the Yarra Theological Union in Melbourne and lives at the Redemptorist Monastery; Majella Court; Kew, Victoria 3101; Australia. In recent times we have seen the emergence of many quite sophisticated techniques and exercises for the development of community. These have been applied with considerable effect to religious communities and other Christian groups. A greater intensity and variety of involvement in decision making, shared programs of learning, sensitivity and encounter groups have been commended. All this is the outcome of a genera[ effort to promote growth together, to promote acceptance of healthy diversity within the genuine community. Emotional and intellectual conflicts have been sifted out into more manageable proportions. Conflict itself, once located, identi-fied, and properly handled, has been appreciated as a positive factor in com-munity development. Then, and most of all, there is the almost over-developed theology of community which continues to inspire and challenge. In such an ongoing context of community endeavor, the following re-flections on intercessory prayer are offered. I will commend intercession as a basic form of belonging, creating and redeeming all our other relation-ships to those with whom we share the life of the community. Intercession and Our Relationships First, there is a general remark to be made. The value we put on the prayer of intercession depends on the way we see our relationships with others. For instance, do we grasp ourselves "from the beginni.ng" to be in-volved together, "chosen in him before the foundation of the world" (Eph 757 758 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 1:4)? A prior appreciation of our co-humanity in Christ disposes us to believe that we are governed by quite surprising laws of solidarity. How-ever, if there prevails another kind of understanding of the human world that would divide humanity off into self-enclosed monads where each one is goaded into building risky bridges to the rest of the world, the value of intercession cannot be expected to have much antecedent weight. It is too general and facile. Community suffers violence, and only the violent will achieve it. The correct theological emphasis would be in the direction of a great original solidarity. We are already together "in Christ," already irrevocably ¯ part of the one ultimate world. Such a unity has been offered as a gift, not attained as the outcome of an effort. To be realistically open to this more gracious view of reality would mean an attunement to intercession as a deeply obvious and elemental feature of our existence. We have received grace together; and the first grace is this being together in Christ. Aware-ness of our given co-humanity would mean that intercession follows as a natural ecstasy of our being whereby we make ourselves and others more receptive to the grace at work in our world. Intercession of Christ The above general remark invites us to enter the form of the prayer of Christ in whom we are called. St. John reveals Christ to us as the One who is related to us in the power of prayer, His priestly prayer for Unity: ". that they may all be one, even as thou Father art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us" (Jn 17:20). The unfailing answer to Christ's prayer is the emergence of the Church. The unity of the Spirit embraces our union with Christ as it does His with the Father. As the risen Christ "lives to make intercession for us" (Heb 7:25), the force of His whole new humanity is to be for man, that we might all grow in the unity 0f the Spirit. Our inter-cession derives from the intercessory existence of Christ Himself. It is enter-ing into His risen consciousness, participating in His colnmunicative ex-istence, we come to share in the power of His risen life by being for others in the way He is for them. With Him, the Christian who prays for others breathes the Spirit that unites, heals, and enlightens. Intercession is in the interests of a more abundant life for all. Intercession of the Church The presence of the Church to the world is basically intercessory, being for the world by praying for it. St. Paul gives his pastoral injunction in the letter to Timothy, to pray for the world, "first of all": "First of all then, I urge that supplications, prayers and intercessions and thanksgivings be made for all men . . . this is good and acceptable in the sight of God.our Savior who desires all men to be saved" (1 Tim 2:1-5). There are a lot of people who work for the world, but there is only the Church to pray for it. The Intercession and Community Development / 759 stress on the intercessory presence of the Church to the world does seem a little odd today. All of us as Christians feel the need for a deeper, more active, perhaps even violent engagement to aid the underdeveloped, to find some kind of justice for the oppressed, in doing to death all forms of dis-crimination on the basis of color, sex, race, ideology, and so forth. How-ever, it is precisely at this point that the Christian approach to intercession bears some thought. There is no need to introduce a cleft stick that will eventually snag our thinking. Clearly, there is always going to be some kind of praying for others, some kind of charity, some kind of particularized ser-vice. The point is to find the most comprehensive and creative activity that governs our being in the world. How does Christian love most radically express itself? Community and Interaession Let us now reflect more directly on the community implications of inter-cession, now that we have indicated a certain theological perspective. It is hardly original thinking to note that many of our problems of com-munication are the result of not being honestly and reverently open to the reality of "the other." What dominates communication is a fixed and truncated image of the unknown reality of the other person. If such a domi-nating kind of communication prevails, dialogue is destroyed. Communica-tion must therefore be approached more redemptively. The affirmation of the existence of the other is the vital factor. It reduces to having a real hope for' the other, in accepting the other person as finite, indeed, yet unfinished. A creative relationship to the other must imply that he or she can change and that we are willing agents of such a growth. We need to transcend all our preconceptions about the other for the sake of an acceptance that allows for this person as the outcome of a particular past and on the way to a spe-cial future in which we are involved. It is a question of consenting.to their total existence, not of abridging it in some way as though they had been finished by the past, or were locked irreversibly in the present. In respect to such an affirmative attitude, what does intercession imply? What basic stance am I taking up in relationship to the other? When I truly pray for you, what do I mean by "you"? Openness 1o lhe Mystery of the Other The activity of intercession is not any kind of affirmation or openness. It is the positing of a religious act: I pray to God for you. The divine di-mension is the living space of this ~elationship of praying-for. In this sense, it is the most open kind of bpenness, the most total kind of affirmation of the other person. To pray to God for someone else is to affirm, accept, and hope for the existence of theother, not as defined by my-self, but by' the gracious freedom of God. The beginnings and end of those for whom we pray are lost in the divine mystery, in the expanse of God's 760 / Review for Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 creative love that bursts our preconceptions and transcends our categories. When I pray for others, I accept them as related to the ineffable mystery of God Himself. At least, then, prayer for others means this: we avoid summing people up, and affirm the fact of their future. It is not some kind of neutral open-ness, but a hopeful acceptance of the mystery of the other even if I cannot grasp it. Though I do not know the real name of the other person, though "it has not yet appeared" what he or she will be, I want this other to have a name and to enter into the fullness of a particular personal existence. Hence, prayer is an expression, a religious expression of respect for the other, and a total kind of acceptance. It is a readiness for dialogue and realistic communication. Intercession and Self-Statement If praying for others means that we are saying something about them, it also means that we are stating something about ourselves. Intercession as a sincere personal act will lead to its own moment of truth. For we are affirming something irrevocably about ourselves: we belong with those for whom we pray. There is an identification implied; a belonging in God; a co-humanity. Before intercession wants anything or makes any petition, it affirms our desire for communion, that we belong with those for whom we pray in the unity of the Spirit. Intercession must mean that we have time for this other. seemingly trite aspect. But the triteness will vanish when we how seldom it is that we really make time for others in the of their existence. Even if we are doing something for them, often distracts us from them. But when we pray for them, we are really making time for them, having time for them. Intercession of its nature does not admit a distraction from the reality of the other since it is such a deeply personalized activity. There is no "something to be done" to cloud the pres-ence of the other to me. It is being-for the other in an intense manner. Now this is a ask ourselves total mystery - the something The Seriousness of Intercession There is a deeper aspect. We pray to God for others. This is to say that we are relating to them in the deepest seriousness of our being as we stand before God. Before God we are "with" them. Whatever words we speak to them in the ordinary circumstances of life, whatever we do for them or to them, however we affect them, it is through intercession that we enter into the most all embracing and deeply founded relationship. To pray for others is an act of relational existence. When we intercede we are caught up in the dynamism of Christ's being-for others. He is ever giving Himself for the many. His flesh and blood, the symbols of His whole being are ever available to men. He is the food and drink of real life. For us to be united to Christ as we enter into His being-for others through intercession means Intercession and Community Development / 761 that we too begin to nourish the existence of others with what we are our-selves. It is true that intercession does not always appear to have such a grandeur and intensity about it. Considering it, nonetheless, as a central value in Christian life, we are invited to sense the shape of Christian ex-istence as Christ reveals it, and thus to enter more deeply into what we should be. What we call "praying for others" often enough is a rationaliza-tion for doing nothing for our neighbor. But this is not authentic interces-sion: being-for others in the unity and power of the Spirit is always action and always leads to further action and service. It is,-after all, entering into the prayer of Christ. Intercession and Our Work for Others There are' many ways in which this prayer of intercession may be an-swered and appear as an effective force in Christian existence. Perhaps the most obvious result of praying for others is our enablement to act more creatively and sensitively towards them. It would take a brave person to state categorically that his or her service for others, be it pastoral care, teaching, nursing, administration, or social work, was utterly selfless. Are we capable of being quite so certain about the authenticity of our existence-for- others? We know a good deal today about the subtle dynamisms of manipulation and rationalizing. So often our "selfless" work aims at ex-tending our own little empire of dependents. We need to affirm our position of power and status. We need others to need us. Prayer for others works to redeems us from the frailty of our not quite selfless service. When we pray for others, especially those we work for, we are "purifying our motives" as the old phrase had it. We are building into our service of others that total kind of self-giving already referred to. That special kind of being-for-others in prayer gradually pervades our more ex-ternal activity. It makes that strange forgetfulness of the other less likely, because in praying for them we are concerned with the ultimate mystery of their being. A service of others that is nourished by intercession is much more complete. In short, intercession makes our work for others more open, sensitive, creative, and free: open in that we are drawn out of our limiting precon-ceptions; .sensitive because we are concerned with the real mystery of the other; creative because we are putting ourselves in the position to see ever greater possibilities of service and support; and free in the sense that we are not turned in on ourselves in our activity but concerned for others in a Christian kind of love. Intercession and Witness There is a second grace following from intercession. It is that of a more effective witness. No doubt, there is a certain discretion implied in one's 762 / Review [or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 prayerful concern for others. However, this can be overdone. It is surely part of the confession of our faith to give some expression to our interces-sion for others. The problem is often our own lack of conviction rather than the reaction of the people for whom we might pray. Whatever the case, the experience of the prayerful concern of others for us is a beautiful aspect of our experience of grace. When we hear someone saying with sincerity and simplicity, "I am praying for you," we sense something of the real delicacy and power of Christian love. The one who prays for us reveals himself as concerned with the most fundamental and hopeful affirmation of our being. In the horizon of our ultimate development, someone is with us and for us. The redemptive love of God finds a simple and tangible expres-sion in this intercession made for us. There remains the main question of the efficacy of ihtercession. It changes us in relation to the other for whom we pray. It is a strong yet delicate witness of love. But is it more effective, and if so, how? The Effectiveness of Intercession The effectiveness of intercession is bound up with the effectiveness of all prayer. It is part of the deep Christian question of how our asking is always receiving, of how our searching is always finding, of how our knock-ing is always admittance into the home. The assurance of the gospel is there. It is this extraordinary assurance that theology always seeks to penetrate in an effort to understand the inner dynamic of prayer. The best explanations bear on a thorough acceptance of the 'two ele-ments, the sincerity of God's gift and the genuineness of man's freedom. The Spirit makes us more active and open in our great desires. We are led to consent to the grace of God and make ourselves receptive to it~ There is no question of changing God who has already done His utmost, but of being changed ourselves, of becoming receptive to the gift of God: "If you but knew the gift of God!" It is man who is limited in his redeptivity to God, and so part of the experience of grace is to ask, to seek, to knock to en-large our responsiveness to the availability of the Lord. There is no need to employ a completely different explanation to come to some understanding of the effectiveness of intercession. For it is still a matter of man becoming more open to God, but now the setting is com-munitarian. We share a solidarity with one another in Christ, a communion of saints that bears on the personal fulfillment of each of us as individuals. We are bound together in the new humanity in the unity of the Spirit and in mediation. When I pray for others, I am acting out my solidarity with~them in Christ. I am recovering a fundamental dimension of my existence. Inter-cession is not some unwarranted intrusion into the life of the other, but the affirmation of our mutual belonging in Christ. Christ is not~only the mediator between man and God, but also between man and man. Intercession and Community Development / 763 Our free acts of praying for the other are, in the design of God, the condition of the Spirit's deeper penetration of ore" world. Salvation can come to us only insofar as we accept it in faith and prayer. By our inter-cession our world is made less impervious to the grace of Christ, more open to his healing redemption. We do not in any sense constrain the liberty of those we pray for. The ultimate effect of our prayer must be understood to serve the mystery of God's dealings with each individual: it is ultimately part of the mystery of God coming to the personal mystery of each of us. The practical point for our present reflections is that our intercessory concern with others makes our one world more open to the healing and transforming power of grace. Clearly, then, intercession must be a depth dimension of the vitality of any Christian community. The deepest kind of relationship to the other is that of praying-for, because it is an explicit relationship in God. Through the Spirit of Love we abide in God and in one another. Thus, we are prepared to express more particular relationships of communication. We are redeemed from the brittle, limited, forcing aspects of our communica-tion: mutual acceptance is grounded in its real foundation; our fiope for each other is enlarged to its real dimensions. A sharing of intercessory prayer heals polarizations and provokes honest, respectful communication. Intercession and Dialogue And so true dialogue becomes a possibility. It is not only a question of the community that prays together staying together. Doubtless, there is much merit in this hallowed dictum. Our more precise point is this: a community can begin the patient exercise of dialogue and open out a whole spectrum of redemptive relationships only when there is an atmo- Sphere of intercession. This means that not only does the individual pray for the community and the individuals in it, not only does the community pray for the individual, but that this attitude and activity is seen and felt. Then, the particularized relationships of mutual support and the psychological attitudes of accepta,nce and lov~ have their foundation in the most fundamental kind of co-humanity, that based on our common life in Christ, in the love of the Spirit that unites us: "Pray at all times, asking for what you need, praying in the Spirit on every possible occasion. Never get tired of staying awake to pray for all the saints . " (Eph 6: 18-20). The Vowed Life" Call, Response, Mission Anthony Tambasco, S.M.M. Father Anthony Tambasco, S.M.M., teaches in the Department of Theology of St. Louis University and lives at 3927 McPherson Avenue; St. Louis, Missouri 63108. One of the basic doctrines inculcated in religious life is that the vows are a deepening of-~the baptismal promises and a perfecting of the life of baptism. At this present time in the Church when stress is put less and less on religious life as a "more perfect way," and more and more on the vocation of every Christian to perfection, the religious begins to wonder what value there is in his vowed life. What can be added to the richness of baptismal life? Does not a "perfectifl'~,~ of baptism imply that baptism is really not quite enough for wholehearted sanctity? And implied behind these questions is often the unspoken, "What am I doing as a religious ~'hat I could not be doing as a good Christian lay person in the community?" Perhaps the answer to these questions lies in reappraising what has always been our basic affirmation concerning vows and in reconsidering how they relate to baptismal life. lncarnational Dimension The crux of our study will focus on the incarnational dimension of the three vows. Poverty, celibacy, and obedience do not add anything to the baptismal commitment as such, nor do they even deepen the essential commitment of baptism. Man is and .always remains given to the Lord in virtue of baptism, and that sacrament itself is a constant source of power, growth, and maturity of life. The value of the vows is not in adding to baptism, but rather in facilitating the full power of the sacrament, Their value lies in their incarnational witness, that is, they put into flesh and blood realities, into everyday human experiences, all that the sacrament 764 The Vowed Lile: Call, Response, Mission / 765 of baptism is trying to achieve. This is by no means an insignificant point. Man operates in the flesh. The more he can function as an enfleshed spirit, the more can the whole man penetrate the richness of life. Baptism is itself incarnational, since that is the very nature of a sacrament. The vows are intended to extend that incarnational dimension. They do not replace baptism or supersede it. They remind us of what baptism is doing. They point to it and thus facilitate its activity and creativity. It remains for us now to show how all this comes about, which leads us to consider the key words in the title for this article. They are chosen as summary themes behind what is really going on in baptism, and conse-quently as summaries also of what the vows should do. Before we focus in on the vows themselves, we should convince ourselves once again of just what baptism is doing. Let us take a few moments, then, to sum up the activity of baptism in terms of call, response, and mission. Baptism as the Call of God It is a common place of Biblical theology that all of salvation history begins with the divine initiative. This is most often expressed in the call of key figures at each stage of that history. Salvation events do not occur because man sees fit to undertake them, but because God has seen fit to call men to them. Now the same principle applies to each individual's salvation history. It all begins with the call of the Lord. This is the first basic .reality expressed by giving baptism. It signifies the call, the divine initiative in man's life. We may find numerous reasons for being Chris-tian: part of our heritage, the influence of some fine Christian friend, random hereditary selection, and so forth. All of these are not the ultimate source; baptism makes it clear that there is ultimately and continually an invitation of the Lord to new life in Him. A search through Biblical history reveals that there was not an epoch of that history which did not involve at the same time the call of significant personages by Yahweh. Most of the events could undoubtedly be explained by the natural flow of normal history; most were ordinary events of their time. But the Bible stresses constantly that the underlying truth was the call of God behind all the events. This remains the underlying truth expressed in baptism. By it, we hear the call of the Lord. Baptism and Response to God If this basic truth of baptism is clear, there is still another. No call is really effective if there is no response. Once again we see it clearly in all Biblical history. God breaks nobody's arm. Man remains free. In every epoch God awaits man's reply and consent. It is interesting to see the re-actions of various individuals in the Old Testament. Isaiah is overcome with awe at the encounter with the transcendent. His exclamation is "Woe is me!" Jeremiah is defensive and much concerned about his inability to 766 / Review Jor Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 meet his vocation. His reply is: "I am too young, Lord, send another" (Jer ,1:6). Ezechiel, on the other hand, is delighted with his call. When the Lord asks him to take in his words--to eat the scroll--the prophet says they are sweet as honey (Ez 3:lff). One is probably ~able to find the gamut of human reactions to the Lord's call in the various people of Old Testament history, including the reactions found in oneself. One thing is clear, nevertheless. Each man worked through his reactions to a total re-sponse to the Lord. The exercise of freedom was different in different men, but it was exercised. The response came through different attitudes and over different obstacles, but the Lord awaited a response. This same reality is present in baptism. The sacrament is designed as a response as well as a call. For one thing, the new rite begins with a request for baptism, and there is ample provision for man's reply to all that the Lord is doing and asking in the sacrament. In fact, every baptism requires an act of faith, at least on the part of the Church in the name of the person if the one baptized cannot do so himself. Baptism, then, becomes the beginning of man's re-sponse to the call of God. It is the beginning of faith life. Baptism and Mission A complete view of baptism demands one other theme or key word, that of mission. The very baptismal ceremony expresses an incorporation into a Church. It puts us in essential need of one another. It tells us that we cannot even hear the call of the Lord except with and through others, nor can. we respond except with and through others. Baptism begins and ends with a Church, a community within which one lives, and which one strives to share. A Christian is automatically a missionary; he has no choice, He has received his call and made his response through others, and he qn turn is the instrument for the call and response of others. No man is an island. The continual reality of baptism is hearing the call and making the response as a shared experience with others. There is call and response, but that is already mission. We have dwelt somewhat at length on what seems obvious, but the ob-vious is often what is overlooked. At any rate, if we can summarize baptism in terms of these three basic themes, then we have a convenient outline for seeing how the vows facilitate these functions of the sacrament. They become the incarnate realities of what baptism is doing. As we approach the vows, we could show how. each vow makes us more aware of each of the three aspects. We can sense the call of the Lord, for instance, behind material' goods; love of others, and our own personal.values and goals. We facilitate response in terms of our possessions, our affections, and our mind and will. We realize a mission to creation, to our own self-growth. Nevertheless, it seems that each vow has a special function' with. relation to one of the main aspects of baptism. I would like to suggest that each vow highlights one of the themes in a special way: poverty focuses on our The Vowed Life: Call, Response, Mission / 767 call from the Lord, celibacy on our wholehearted response, and obedience on our mission. Let us now consider each of these points in detail. Poverty and the Call ot the Lord The heart of the Christian life, we have said, begins in baptism with a call. Now if we take a deep enough and wide enough view of poverty, we will see how it reminds us constantly of the call of the Lord. I say deep and wide, because we must go much farther than a simple considera-tion of money or material goods. These enter in, and we will give thought to that aspect, but first we must have a broader view. When we speak of poverty, it is Biblical poverty, the spirit of anawim. We are talking of a concept that evolved over a long period of time in the Old Testament and culminated in a rich theological concept. The anawim were the physically poor to begin with, but under the influence of the prophets they came to be seen also as those whom Yahweh favored, who were his faithful rem-nant. In other words, there was another ingredient added to the sheer notion of being poor; the anawim were those who learned from their poor con-dition. Poverty became an occasion to learn dependence on the Eord, openness to His grace, trust in His love and providence. Isaiah sums that up when he says: "A remnant of Israel, the survivors of the house of Jacob, will no more lean upon him who struck them; but they will lean upon the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth" (Is 10:20). When we talk about poverty, we are talking about an attitude. It is man who can stand naked before the Lord, who is empty, not only of money and goods, but of true power and influence, of reputation and esteem. He is the man who can see with the eyes of truth thathe is not self-sufficient, but that his sufficiency comes from God. He leans on the Lord. The point that we are making is that the man with such an attitude and disposition is the one who hears more easily the voice of the Lord. He is beloved of the Lord, the one constantly being called by the Lord. Zepheniah warns Israel that the Day of Yahweh is coming, a day of judg-ment, but he holds out a promise: "Yes, at that time I will deal with all who oppress you: I will save the lame, and assemble the outcasts; I will giv~ them praise and renown in all the earth, when I bring about their restoration" (Zeph 3:19). Isaiah reminds us.again and again that the Lord reaches out to his poor: "A shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse . The spirit 'of the Lord shall rest iupon him . He shall judge the poor with justice, and decide aright for the afflicted" (Is 11:1ff). The Lord Himself continues in that thqught of Isaiah when He describes His own role as the call to the poor. De says He fulfills the words of the prophet: "The spirit of the Lord is up, on me, because the Lord has anointed me: he has sent me to bring glad tidings to the lowly, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners" (Lk 4:17if). 768 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 Material Poverty In the light of all these statements, it seems to me that the vow of poverty is to put us in a condition where we can more readily hear the call of the Lord to love and life. In a very tangible and human way, in an incarnate way, it helps us realize the favor of the Lord by making us one of his beloved poor. This should lead us to take the vow seriously. It means a level of poverty, even on the material side, so that the vow will not be an empty formula. This leads us to the consideration of money and goods. However, we must keep the goal toward which the vow is aimed, that is, the attitude of dependence on the Lord. No level of poverty is going to be effective if one does not learn from that poverty as the anawim of the Old Testament. We do maintain, then, that material poverty is in some way a necessary ingredient of the vow, but we should also see why we cannot decide on one uniform standard of poverty for all. Each one has his own psychological and physical make-up. For each one in a different way, a certain level of poverty will teach dependence and openness, but a further level will destroy or preoccupy to the point of hindering a view of the Lord. Not all of Israel's poor were the anawim in our theological sense. Not all of Israel's poor in a theological sense were indigent. I be-lieve that there are some common traditions for community poverty, but I also believe that in most matters pertaining to personalities of individual religious, the community should be broad enough to allow various life styles and various levels of poverty. The most harmful approach to poverty today is to compare one's own life style and level of poverty to another's. If one religious has banners or an enjoyable painting, then all should, according to this approach. Or if one can live in the poor style of the inner city, then all can. In truth, one's poverty is not another's. Let each religious live in a way that will teach true dependence and openness to the Lord and hence will make him more aware of the voice of the Lord calling him from bap-tism, but calling him in the flesh and blood realities of his daily life. Celibacy and Consecration In considering poverty as emphasizing the call of the Lord, we have also seen how that already involves a response or an attitude of dependence. Now we can turn to celibacy to see how that vow stresses man's response of baptism and reinforces the attitudes described in poverty. When we talk of celibacy, we are talking about consecration. Once again, it is not that full consecration cannot be.made in baptism. It is rather that celibacy is more of a visible, incarnational expression of that consecration. It points out that the whole man, body and soul, is given to the Lord, and becomes a constant reminder of that fact. Inherent also in the vow of virginity is the concept of a direct relationship to the Lord that it bespea~ks more em-phatically than a life style of marriage. The Old Testament already had some notion of consecration of this type in the temporary vows of con- The Vowed Lile: Call, Response, Mission / 769 tinence to be practiced by soldiers engaged in a sacred war, or priests engaged in solemn temple worship. Rabbinic tradition speaks of how Moses separated from his wife after he had had the vision of the burning bush. Nevertheless, the full value and meaning of celibacy did not and could not come until the New Testament. Only with Christ did the defini-tive kingdom come. Only in Christ has God made his entrance into history in a final and evident way. From that point on, there is a new and enduring love existing in this life, a love that is now accessible and a love that is the culminating point toward which all love is headed. This is the love of Christ the risen Lord, present to us and communicating a love that enters into the divine itself. With the advent of Christ, history has been so trans-formed and so elevated, that man no longer remains tied solely to human history; he reaches the Lord also by .way of transcendence. He attains the love of Christ more directly and more immediately than was ever dreamed of in the Old Testament. This seems to be what Paul had in mind when he said the virgin is worried only about the affairs of the Lord, how to please and serve him, while the married person is worried about the affairs of the spouse. It is not that marriage is bad, nor that it is even wrong to worry about how to serve one's spouse and please him. Nevertheless, marriage is indirect and through the mediation of another, while celibacy gives one to the Lord directly and without mediators. Celibacy is itself a mirror of what the Church herself must be. Paul writes in 2 Cor 11:2: "I am jealous of you with the jealousy of God him-self, since I have given you in marriage to one husband, presenting you as a chaste virgin to Christ." This phrase applies to all Christians. All love must eventually arrive at Christ. However, there are man3; ways in which that love can be achieved, and there are some who strive to achieve that love of Christ as it is literally described by

Issue 24.5 of the Review for Religious, 1965. ; Constitutiofl,on the Church by Vhtican Council H Toward a Theology of Community by: Sister Helen Mqrie, O.S.F. Virgi:~al Moth~'rhood ' by Thomas Dub.ay, S.M. Community Life: Witness to Christ by Robert. J, Kruse, C.S.C. o The Word of God and" "Literary Embellishment" by Dennis J. McCarthy, S.J. A Community of Service by WilliamlF. Hogan, C.S.C. The Sleep of Peace by,.i ince, t;P. M.cCorry, S.J. Cordmunity Retreats 0 Andre Auw;. C.P. Survey of Rq"man Documents V.iewsi News, Previews Questions and Answers i~ Book'Reviews 665 735 744 760 771 785 ¯ 791 797 803 807 809 813 VOLUrCm 24 NU~mER 5 September 1965 VATICAN COUNCIL II Dogmatic Constitution on the Church PAUL, BISHOP THE SERVANT OF THE SERVANTS OF GOD TOGETHER WITH THE FATHERS OF THE COUNCIL ¯ FOR A PERPETUAL RECORD OF THE MATTER CHAPTER I THE MYSTERY OF THE CHURCH 1. The light of the nations* being Christ, this Council met together in the Holy Spirit strongly desires, by the proclamation of the gospel to every creature (see Mk 16: 15), to enlighten all men with that radiant splendor of His which shines forth upon the countenance of the Church. Since, however, the Church is in Christ like a sacrament, that !s, like a sign and instrument of the closest kind of union with God and of the unity of the whole human race, shb interids to provide the faithful and the entire world with an accurate description of her nature and of her worldwide mission while keeping at the same time close to the thought of preceding Councils. The circum-stances of the present time make this undertaking of the Church a matter of greater urgency on the grounds that all men, being closely linked today by various social, technical, and cultural bonds, should also achieve a full unity in Christ. 2. By a peHectly free and a mysterious decision of His wisdom and goodness, the eternal Father created the en- Translation Copyright (~) 1965 P~vmw voR RE~Jcxous. * This is a translation of the official Latin text, entitled Lumen gentium, as given in Acta .4postolicae Sedis, v. 57 (1965), pp. 5-71. ÷ ÷ ÷ VOLUME 24~ 1965' Faticah Council II REV|EWFOR RELIGIOUS 666 tire universe, chose to elevate men to a share of the divine life,, and did not abandon them when they had fallen in Adam but rather always offered them the means of salva-tion in view of the Redeemer Christ "who is the exact expression of the invisible God, engendered before every creature". (Col 1:15). Before the ages began, the Father "foreknew" the elect and "destined them to bear the likeness of his Son so that he might be the eldest of many brothers" (Rom 8:29). It was His plan, moreover, that those who believe in Christ should be assembled in that holy Church which, already foreshadowed from the ori-gin of the world, prepared for in a remarkable way in the history of the people of Israel and in the old covenant,1 and established in a new era of time, was manifested by the outpouring of the Spirit and which at the end of time will achieve its glorious consummation. As we read in all the fathers, it will be then that all the just from Adam on, "from Abel the just to the last of the elect" 2 will be assembled before the Father in the Church universal. 3. The Son, therefore, came, having been sent by the Father who chose us in Him before the foundation of the world and destined us for adoption as His own children because it pleased Him to restore all things in His Son (see Eph 1:4-5 and 10). In order to carry out the will of the Father, Christ inaugurated the kingdom of heaven on earth, revealed to us the mystery of Himself, and by His obedience effected our redemption. The Church, that is, the kingdom of Christ now present in mystery, grows visibly in the world through the power of God. This be-ginning and growth are symbolized by the blood and water flowing from the opened side of the crucified Jesus (see Jn 19:34) and are foretold in the words of the Lord spoken about His death on the cross: "As for me, if I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to me" (Jn 12:32 according to the Greek text). As often as the sacri-fice of the cross by which "our Passover lamb~Christ-- was immolated" (1 Cor 5:7) is enacted on the altar, the work of our redemption is continued. By the sacrament of the Eucharistic bread, at one and the same' t'ime there is r~presented and effected the unity o~ihe faithfuLwho form one bo~y in Chri~t~ (see 1 Cor 10:17). All men are c'alled to this union with Christ who is the light of the world from whom we come forth, through whom we live, and to whom we are tending. tSee St. Cyprian, Epist., 64, 4: P.L., 3, 1017 (C.S.E.L. [Hartel], III B, p. 720); St. Hilary of Poitiers, In Matth., 23, 6: P.L., 9, 1047; St. Augustine,-passim; and St. Cyril of Alexandria, Glaph. in Gen., 2, 10: P.G., 69, 110 A. 2See St. Gregory the Great, Horn. in Evang., 19, 1: P.L., 76, 1154 B; St. Augustine, Serm., 341, 9, 11: P.L., $9, 1499 f.; St. John of Damascus, Adv. iconocL, 11: P.G., 96, 1357. 4. When the work which the Father gave the Son to do on earth (see Jn 17:4) was completed, the Holy Spirit was sent on the day of Pentecost that He might always make the Church holy and that in this way the faithful might have access through Christ in the one Spirit to the Father (see Eph 2:18). He is the Spirit of life, that is, the'spring of water welling up into eternal life (see Jn 4:14; 7:38-9), through whom the Father gives life to men dead through sin until He raises up their mortal bodies in Christ (see Rom 8:10-1). The Spirit dwells in the Church and in the hearts of the faithful as in a temple (see 1 Cor 3:16; 6:19), prays in them, and gives witness to the adoption of sons (see Gal 4:6; Rom 8:15-6 and 26). The Church, which He leads to everything that is true (see Jn 16:13) and which He unifies in a communion of service, is equipped and directed 'by Him through His various hierarchical and charismatic gifts; she is made beautiful by His fruits (see Eph 4:11-2;1 Cor 12:4; Gal 5:22). Through the power of the gospel, He keeps the Church young, continually re-news her; and'leads her to perfect union with her Bride- ~oom.3 For the Spirit and the Bride both call out to the Lord Jesus: "Comel" (see Ap 22~17). Thus it is that the entire Church appears "as a ~people ¯ made one with the unity of the Father and' the .Son. and the H01y Spirit." 4 : 5. The mystery of the Church is made manifest at its very foundation. For the Lord Jesus began His. Church by preaching the good news of the arrival of that king-dom of God promised for centuries in Scripture: "The moment has come, and the kingdom of God has ar-rived" (Mk 1:15; see Mt 4:17). Moreover, this kingdom began to shine forth for men in the words, deeds, and presence of Christ. The word of the Lord is compared to seed that is sown in a field (Mk 4:14); whoever hear it with faith and are included in the little flock of Christ (Lk 12:32) have received the kingdom itself; thereafter the seed by its own powei germinates and grows until the time of. the harvest (see Mk 4:26-9). The miracles, too, of Jesus show that the kingdom is already present on earth: "If it is by the finger of God that I am expelling the demons, then the kingdom of God has already swept over you" (Lk 11:20; see Mt 12:28). B~it more than in any other way, ~the ~kingdom is manifested in the Person of Christ, Son of God and Son of Man~ who came "to serve and to give his life to set many others free" (Mk .10:45). When, however~ Jesus arose afte~ suffering death On the o 8See St. Irenaeus, Adv.°haer;, III, 24, 1: P.G., 7, 966 B (Harvey, 2, 131; ed. Sagnard, Sources chr., p. 398). ' St. Cyprian, De orat. Dora., 23: P.L., 4, 553. (H~rtel, III A, p. 285); St. Augustine, Serra., 71, 20, 33: P.L., 38, 463 f.; and St. John.of Damascus, )ldv. iconocl., 12: P.G., 96, 1358 D. The Church: . VOLUME 24,: 1965 : 667 ÷ Vatican Council II REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 668 cross for men, He appeared as the Lord and as the Mes-siah and Priest constituted for all eternity (see Acts 2:36; Heb 5:6; 7:17-21); and He poured out on His disciples the Spirit promised by the Father (see Acts 2:33). It is because of all this that the Church, equipped with the gifts of her Founder and faithfully preserving His pre-cepts concerning love, humility, and abnegation, receives the mission of proclaiming the kingdom of Christ and of God and of founding it in all nations and that she con-stitutes on earth the seed and the 15eginning.~of this king: dom. And while she slowly grows during her allotted time, she longs for the kingdom in its completed form and with all her strength hopes and desires to be joined in glory .with her King. 6. Just as in the Old Testament the revelation of the" kingdom is often presented in figuratiye language, so also now the intimate nature of the Church is made known to us by a variform imagery which whether taken from shepherd life or agriculture, from building, or from fam-ily life and bet]:othal is prepared for in the books of the prophets. For the Church is a sheepfold of which Christ is the one and indispensable entrance (Jn 1:1-10). She is also a flock of which God Himself foretold that He would be the shepherd (see Is 40:11; Ez 34:11 ft.); and her sheep, though ruled by human pastors, are nevertheless cease-lessly led and nourished by Christ Himself, the Good Shepherd and the Prince of pastors (see Jn 10:11; 1 Pt 5:4) who gave His life for His sheep (see Jn I0:1 I-5). The Church is also the plantation or the field of God (1 Cor 3:9) in which grows the ancient olive tree the holy roots of which were the patriarchs and in which the reconcilation of Jew and Gentile has been and will be brought about (Rom 11:13-26). The Church has been planted by the divine Husbandman as a choice vineyard (Mt 21:33-43 and parallels; see Is 5:1 ft.). The true vine is Christ who gives life and fecundity to. the branches, that is, to us, who through the Church abide in Christ without whom we can do nothing (Jn 15:1-5). Often, too, the Church is called the edifice of God (1 Cor 3:9). It was actually the Lord who compared Him-self to a stone which the builders rejected but which be-came the cornerstone (Mr 21:42 and parallels; sde Acts 4:11; 1 Pt 2:7; Ps 117:22). On this foundation the Church is built up by the Apostles (see 1 Cor 3:11) and from it derives its strength and indivisibility. This edifice is given various names: the house of God (1 Tim 3:15) in which there lives His family; the habitation of God in the Spirit (Eph 2:19-22); the dwelling place of God with men (Ap 21:3); and especially the holy temple which, symbolically represented by our churches of stone, is praised by the fathers and is rightfully compared in the liturgy to the holy city, the new Jerusalem.5 We are being built up in it here on earth like so many living stones (I Pt 2:5). It is this holy city that John contemplates coming down out of heaven from God at the renewal of the world, looking like a bride dressed in beauty for her husband (Ap 21:1 The Church, which is called "the Jerusalem that is above" and "the mother of us all" (Gal 4:26; see Ap 12:17), is also described as the spotless bride of the spot-less Lamb (Ap 19:7; 21:2 and 9; 22:17) whom Christ "loved and for whom He gave himself that he might make her holy" (Eph 5:26), whom He joined to Himself by an unbreakable covenant, whom He continually "nourishes and cherishes" (Eph 5:29), whom, being cleansed, He wants joined to Himself in a 'subjection of love and faithfulness (see Eph 5:24), and on whom, fi-nally, He has lavished His heavenly gifts to last for all eternity so that we might grasp that love of God and Christ for us that surpasses all our comprehension (see Eph 3:19). But as long as the Church pilgrimages on earth away from the Lord (see2 Cor 5:6), she is like an exile seeking and foretasting the things that are above where Christ sits at the right hand of God and where the life of the Church is hidden with Christ in God until the time when she appears in glory with her Spouse (see Col 3:1-4). 7. By overcoming death through His own death and resurrection in the human nature that was united to Him, the Son of God redeemed man and transmuted him into a new creation (see Gal 6:15; 2 Cor 5:17); for, by communicating His Spirit, He mystically constituted His brothers, called together from all peoples, as His own Body. In that Body the life of Christ is imparted to believers who through the sacraments are united~in a mysterious but real way to Christ who suffered and was glori~fie~.6 For through baptism we are formed into the likeness of Christ: "For we were all baptized in one Spirit to form one body" (1 Cor 12:13). By this sacred rite our union with the death and resurrection of Christ is made present and effected: "Through baptism we have been buried ~See Origen, In Matth., 16, 21: P.G., 13, 1443 C; and Tertullian, Adv. Marc., 3, 7: P.L., 2, 357 C (C.S.E.L., 47, 3, p. 386). For liturgical documents, see Sacramentariurn gregorianum: P.L., 78, 160 B or C. Mohlberg, Liber sacramentorum Romanae Ecclesiae (Rome, 1960), p. 111, XC: "Deus, qui ex omni coaptatione sanctorum aeternum tibi condis habitaculum . " ["O God, who by the formation of all your saints are preparing for Yourself an eternal habitation. "]; and the hymns Urbs lerusalem beata in the Monastic Breviary and Coelestis urbs Ierusalem in the Roman Breviary. ~ See St. Thomas, Summa theologiae, 3, q.62, a.5, ad 1. 4- 4- 4- The Church VOLUME 24, 1965 669 ÷÷ Vatica~t Co~ncil'll REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS With him in death"; and if "we have grown into union with him. by undergoing a death like his, then we will also share his resurrection'-' (Rom 6:4-5). Keally partak-ing of. the Body of the Lord in the breaking of the Eucharistic bread, we are raised up into ~ communion with Him and among ourselves: "Because the bread is one, we, many though, we are, are one body since we par-take of that one bread" (1 Cot 10:17). In this way all of us:are made members ~f His Body (see 1 Cor 12:27), "each and every one being members of one another" (Rom 12:5). Just as the parts of the human body, though they are m~iriy~ still form but a single body, so also do the faithful in Christ (see 1 Cot 12:12).'Similarly, in the building'up of the Body of Christ there is a diversity of members and of functions. There is only one Spirit who, "in. accord with His own riches and the needs of the ministry, distributes the variety of His gifts for the welfare "of the Church (see 1 Cot 12:1-11). A~m.ong these gifts there stands out .fl~_e~ grace of the Apostles to whose authority the Spiii~ Himself tias subjected even those, endowed with charis-matic gifts (see 1 Cor 14).:This same Spirit, who gi~s unity' to the Body through Himself and His power and through the internal orgai~ic union of the members, pro-duces love among the faithful and presses it on. Hence, if one member suffers anything, all the. other members suffer it with ~him; or if one member is honored, all the members share the joy (see 1 Cor 12:26). The Head of the Body is Christ who is the likeness of the invisible God and in whom all things were made. He exists prior to all creatures, and all things are sustained in Him. He is the Head of the Body that is the Church. He is the beginning and is the firstborn from among the dead that He might possess first place in everything (see Col 1:15-8). By the greatness of His power, He rules the things in heaven and on earth; while by His surpassing perfection and way of acting, He fills the entire Body with the riches of His glory (see Eph 1:18-23).7 All the members must be fashioned to His likeness until Christ is formed in them (see Gal 4:19); hence We.are taken up intothe mysteries of His life to the ex-tent that, being shaped to His likeness and having died and risen With Him, we will reign °with Him (see phil 3:21; 2 Tim 2:11;. Eph 2:6; Col 2.:12~ .and.so forth). VVhile we pilgrimage .here on earth and closely follow His path through tribulation and persecution, we are united to His sufferings as the Body to its Head, suffering with Him that we might be glorified with Him (see l~om 8:17). See the encyclical of Plus XII. Mystici~ Corporis, June 29, 1943: Acta Apostolicae Sedis, ~. 35 (1943), p. 208. " " It is from Him that "the entire body through its liga-ments and muscles is governed and built up and grows as God intends" (Col 2:19). In His Body, that is, in the Church, He cgntinually distributes the gifts of His minis-tries by which through His power we serve each-other unto salvation so that, holding firmly to the truth in love, we might grow up in every way into Christ who is our Head (see Eph 4:11-6 according to the Greek text). In order, however, that we might be unceasingly re-made in Him (see Eph ~.23); He has shared ~i~h--fis-His Spirit who, being identically the same in Head and mem-ber, vivifies, unites, and moves the entire Body in such a way that His work could be compared by the fathers to the function which the life principle, that is, the soul, per-forms in the human body.s Moreover, Christ loves the Church as His Bride, having become the perfect example of the man who loves his wife as his own body (see Eph 5:25-8), while the Church herself is subject to her Head (Eph 5:23-~). "Since it is in him that all the fullness of God's nature lives embodied" (Col 2:9), He fills the Church, which is His Body and His plenitude, with His divine gifts (see Eph 1:22-3) so that she may grow and reach all the fullness of God (see Eph 3:19). 8. Christ, our one mediator, established and continu-ally sustains9 His holy Church, the community here on earth of faith, hope and love, as a visible structu.re through which He pours, forth truth and grace on all. B~Utlie~6ciety with its hierarchically structured organs and the spiritual community, the earthly Church and the Church enriched by heavenly gifts should not be re-garded as two realities but as a single complex reality composed of a human and a divine element.10 It is for this reason that;-by'a~cornparison that is not meaningless, 8 See the encyclical of Leo XIII, Divinum illud, May 9, 1897: Acta Sanctae Sedis, v. 29 (1896-7), p. 650; the encyclical of Pius XII, Mystici Corporis: Acta Apostolicae Sedis, v. 35 (1943), pp. 219-20 (Denz. 2288 [3808]); St. Augustine, Serm., 268, 2: P.L., 38, 1232, and in other of his w6rks; St. John Chrysostoxn, In Eph. Horn., 9, 3: P.G., 62, 72; Didymus of Alexandria, Trin., 2, 1: P.G., 39, 449 f.; and St. Thomas, In Col., 1, 18, lect. 5 (ed. Marietti, II, n. 46): "Sicut constituitur unum corpus ex unitate animae, ita Ecclesia ex unitate Spiritus." [As one body is constituted by the unity o[ the soul, sothe Church by the unity of the Spirit . "]. ~ The encyclical of Leo XIII, Sapientiae christianae, January 10, 1890: Acta Sanctae Sedis, v. 22 (1889-90), p. 392; the same Pontiff's encyclical, Saris cognitum, June 29, 1896: Acta Sanctae Sedis, v. 28 (1895-6), pp. 710 and 724 ft.; and the encyclical of Plus XII, Mystici Corporis: Acta Apostolicae Sedis, v. 35 (1943), pp. 199-200. x8 See the encyclical ol~ Pius XII, Mystici Corporis: Acta Apostolicae Sedis, v. 35 (1943), pp. 221 ff.; and the same Pontiff's encyclical, Humani generis, August 12, 1950: dcta dpostolicae Sedis, v. 42 (1950), p. 571. ÷ ÷ ÷ The Church VOLUME 24, 1965 4. 4. ,4, Vatican Counci! I1 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS she is likened to the mystery of the incarnate Word. Just as the nature assumed by Him serves the divine Word as a living instrument of salvation that is insepa-rably united to Him, so in a way that is not dissimilar the social structure of the Church serves the Spirit of Christ, who vivifies it, for the growth of the Body (see Eph 4:16).xx This is the one and only Church of Christ which we profess12 in the Creed to be one, holy, catholic, and apos-tolic, the Church which, after His Resurrection, the Savior entrusted to Peter's shepherding (Jn 21:17), which He committed t,o him and the other Apostles for the purpose of extending and ruling it (see Mt 28:18 ft.), and which He erected as a perpetual "pillar and founda-tion of the truth" (1 Tim 3:15). This Church, constituted and organized in this world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him,za although even 9utside her visible structure there are found many ele-ments of holiness and truth which as gifts properly belonging to the Church of Christ are forces that lead on to Catholic unity. Just as Christ carried out the work of redemption in poverty and persecution, so also the Church is called to follow the same path in order that she may communi-cate the effects of salvation to men. Christ Jesus, "though he was God by nature., stripped himself to take on the nature of a slave" (Phil 2:6) and for our sake "became poor, though he was rich" (2 Cor 8:9); in the same way the Church, though she needs human resources for the carrying out of her mission, is not established for the quest of earthly glory but for the proclamation, even by her own example, of humility and abnegation. Christ was sent by the Father "to preach the good news to the poor., to heal the contrite of heart" (Lk 4:18), "to search for and. to save what was lost" (Lk 19:10); simi-larly, thb Church encompasses with her love all those ~ttticted by human suffering. Even more, in the poor and the suffering she perceives the likeness of her poor and suffering Founder and makes it her earnest concern to relieve their need, thus striving to serve Christ in them. But while Christ, "holy, faultless, unstained" (Heb 7:26), ax The encyclical of Leo XlII, Satis cognitura: Acta Sanctae Sedis, v. 28 (1895-6), p. 713. ~See the Apostles' Creed: Denz., 6-9 (10-13); the Niceno-Con-stantinopolitan Creed: Denz., 86 (150); and the Tridentine Profession of Faith: Denz., 994 and 999 (1862 and 1868). ~It is called "Sancta (catholica, apostolica) Romana Ecclesia" ["the holy (catholic, apostolic) Church"] in the Tridentine Pro-fession of Faith (as cited in the preceding footnote) and in Vatican Council I, Session 3, the dogmatic constitution De lide cath.: Denz. 1782 (3001). "knew nothing of sin" (2 Cor 5:21) but came to make propitiation only for the sins of the people (see Heb 2:17), the Church, since she includes sinners within her-self, is at the same time holy and always in need of puri-fication and ceaselessly practices.p~n,ance and seeks for r~_en~e.vzal. The Church, "like a person in a foreign land, advances amid the persecutions of the world and the consolations of God," 14 proclaiming the cross and the death of the Lord until He comes back (see 1 Cor 11:26). She is strength-ened, however, by the power of her risen Lord so that by patience and love she may overcome her afflictions and diffficulties--internal as well as external--and that she may reveal to the world, darkly but faithfully, the mys-tery of her Lord until in the end it will be 'manifested in full light. CHAPTEK II THE PEOPLE OF GOD 9. At all times and among every nation the man who reverences Him and does what is right has been accept-able to God (see Acts 10:35). Nevertheless, it was not God's plan to sanctify and save men as individuals with no relationship of any kind with each o.t_her; rather, He intended to make them a people that would acknowledge Him in truth and would serve Him in holiness. Accord-ingly, He chose the Israelites as His own people with whom He made a compact and whom He gradually educated by manifesting Himself and the purpose of His will in their history and by making them holy in His sight. All of this, however, took place to prepare and pre-figure the new and. perfect compact to be made by Christ and the fuller revelation to be given by the Word made flesh. "A day comes, says the Lord, when I make a fresh compact with the house of-Israel and with the house of Judah . I will put my law within them, writing it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people . For all shall know me from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord" (Jer 31:31-4). It was Christ who made this new compact, the new covenant in His own Blood (see 1 Cor 11:25), summoning from both Jew and Gentile a people that would be unifie.d.n_ot through natural means but in the Spirit and that would by the new People of God. Believing in Christ, having been reborn not from a perishable principle of life but, through the word of the living God, from an imperish-able one (see 1 Pt 1:23), not from flesh but from water and the Holy Spirit (see Jn 3:5-6), they are finally established St. Augustine, Cir. Dei, XVIII, 51, 2: P.L., 41,614. ÷ ÷ ÷ Th~ ~hurch VOLUME 24, 1965 6'73 Vatican Council 11 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS as ':his chosen generation, his royal priesthood, his holy na-tion, his own people by acquisition., formerly not a people at all but now the people of God" (1 Pt 2:9-10). This messianic people possesses as its Head Christ "who was handed over to death because of our sins and was raised to secure our justification" (Rom 4:25) and who, having won the name that is above all names, gloriously rules in heaven. This people is in the state of the dignity and freedom of the children of God in whose hearts the Holy Spirit dwells as in His temple. The law of this people is the new commandment of loving as Chris~ loved us (see Jn 13:34). And its goal is the kingdom o[ God, begun on earth by God Himself and to be ex-tended until at the end of time i.t__w_il.l.be brought tp_per-fection by Him when Christ our life will appear (see Col 3:4) and "the whole of creation will be freed from the tyranny of decay and have the magnificent freedom of the children of God" (Rom 8:21). Accordingly, this messianic people, though it does not actually include all men and at times appears to be a small flock, is nevertheless the indestructible source of unity, hope, and salvation for the entire human race. Established by Christ as a mutual sharing in life, love, and truth, it is also used by Him as the instrument for the redemption of all and is sent out by Him to the entire world as the light of the world and the salt of the earth (see Mt 5:13-6). Just as Israel according to the flesh was already called the Church of God as it wandered about in the desert (2 Ezr 13:1; see Nm 20:4; Dt 23:1 ft.), so the new Israel which, while living in the present age, seeks a future and an abiding city (see Heb 13:14) is also called the Church of Christ (see Mt 16:18) since He won it at the price of His own life (see Acts 20:28), filled it with His Spirit, and provided it with the characteristic ele-ments of a visible and social union. God gathered to-gether all those who by their faith look to Jesus as the author of salvation and the principle of unity and peace .and established them as the Church, the purpose of ,which is to be for one and all the visible sacrament of this saving unity.15 In order that it might be extended into all the regions of the earth, it becomes a part of the history of mankind," even though it transcends the ages and goals of the peoples of the world. As it advances through trials and tribulations, it is strengthened by the power of the grace of God that was promised to it in order that it might not waver from perfect fidelity be-cause of the weakness of the flesh but would remain the Bride worthy of her Lord, never ceasing under the im-a~ See St. Cyprian, Epist., 69, 6: P.L., 3, 1142 B (Hartel, III B, p. 754): "inseparabile unitatis sacramentum" ["the unbreakable sacra-ment of unity"]. pulse of the Holy Spirit to renew herself until through the cross she arrives ai the light that knows no setting. 10. Christ the Lord, the High Priest .chosen from among men (see Heb 5:1-5), made this new people "a kingdom .of priests for God, his Father" (Ap.l:6; see 5:9~-10). For throughthe ,regeneration and anointing .of the Holy Spirit the baptized are.consecrated as a spiritual house and a holy priesthood so thatin all their actions as Christians they may offer spiritual sacrifices and proclaim the power of Him. who called them out of darkness into His amazing light (see 1 Pt 2:4-10). Accordingly, all the followers of Christ, devoting themselves to prayer and the praise of God (see Acts 2:42-7), should offer, them-selves as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God (see Rom 12:1); and everywhere' on.earth they should give witness to Christ, and t6 hll that ask they should give the reasons for the hope of eternal life that is within them (see 1 Pt 3:15). The general priesthood of the faithful and the minis-terial or hierarchical priesthood, though they differ in kind and not merely in degree, are nevertheless inter-connected; each of them in its own special way is a shar-ing of the one priesthood.of Christ.16 By the sacred, power he possesses, .the ministerial, priest directs and rules the priestly people; and, acting in the .person of Christ, he effects the Eucharistic sacrifice and offers it to God in the name of the entire People of God. On the other hand, the faithful join in the offering of the Eucharist by reason of their royal priesthood;17 and they exercise their priest-hood by receiving the sacraments, by prayer and thanks-giving, by the witness of a holy life, by self-denial, and by an active charity. 11. The sacred and organically structured character of the priestly community is brought into ope.ration through the sacraments and through virtuous action. Incorporated into the Church through baptism, the faithful by. its character are destined for .the worship of the Christian religion; and, having been reborn as children of God, they should confess before men the faith that they have received from God through the Church.is By the sacra-ment of confirmation their bond to the Church is. made more perfect; and they are endowed with a special strength of the Holy Spirit so that they are more stiictly ~ ~n See the aIIocution of Pius XII, Magnillcate Dominum, November 2, 1954: dcta Apostolicae Sedis, v. 46 (1954); p. 669; and the same Pontiff's encyclical Mediator Dei, November 20, 1947: Acta Apo~to-licae Sedis, v. 39 (1947), p. 555. " " ". ." ~ See the encyclidal of Pius.XI, Miserentissimus Redemptor, May 8, 1928: dcta Apostolicae Sediso v. 20 (1928), pp. 171 f.; and the allo-cution of Pi~s XII, Vous nous avez, September 22, 1956: Acta dpostolicae Sedis, ~. 48 (1956), p. 714. ~s See St. Thomas, Summa theologiae, 3, q.63, a.2. 4, ÷ The Church " VOLUME 24, 1965 675 ÷ ÷ ÷ ~atican Council II REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 676 obliged to spread and defend the faith by word and ac-tion as true witnesses to Christ.19 When they take part in the Eucharistic sacrifice, the source as well as the crown of the entire Christian life, they offer God the divine Victim and themselves with Him.2° Hence, through the offering and through Holy Communion all take part in the liturgical action--not, however, with no distinction of participation but each in his own proper way. Nour-ished during the sacred service by the Body of Christ, they then manifest in a concrete way the unity.of the People of God that is symbolized and wond~erfully ef-fected by this most sacred sacrament. "When they approach the sacrament of penance, they obtain pardon from the mercy of God for their offences against Him and at the same time are reconciled with the Church which they wounded by their sins and which by her love, example, and prayers labors for their con-version. By the sacred anointing of the sick and the prayers of her priests the entire Church commends the sick to the suffering and glorified Lord, asking that He might ease and heal them (see Jas 5:14-6); moreover, she exhorts them to freely unite themselves with the passion and death of Christ (see Rom 8:17; Col 1:24; 2 Tim 2:11-2; 1 Pt 4:13) and thereby contribute to the well-being of the People of God. Those of the faithful who are consecrated by holy orders are appointed to nourish the Church in Christ's name with the word and grace of God. Finally, by the strength of the sacrament of matrimony through which they signify and share in the mystery of the unity and fruitful love that exist be-tween Christ and the Church (see Eph 5:32), Christian spouses help each other to achieve holiness in their mar-ried lives and in the rearing and education of their chil-dren; accordingly, in their gtate and rank of life, they have their own special gift (see 1 Cor 7:7).2x For from such mar-riage comes the family in which are born new citizens of human society who through the grace of the Holy Spirit in baptism are made children of God to assure the per-petuation of the People of God throughout the course of the centuries. In this "Church in the home," as we may call it, the parents by their words and deeds are the first 1°See St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech., 17, De Spiritu Sancto, II, 35-7: P.G., 33, 1009-12; Nic. Cabasilas, De vita in Christo, bk. III, De utilitate chrismatis: P.G., 150, 569-80; and St. Thomas, Summa theologiae, 3, q.65, a.3 and q.72, a.l and 5. ~ See the encyclical of Pius XII, Mediator Dei, November 20, 1947: Acta Apostolicae Sedis, v. 39 (1947), especially pp. 552 f. ~ 1 Cor 7:7: "Everyon.e has his own particular gift [idion char-isma] from God, some one thing and some another." See St. Augustine, De dono persev., 14, 37: PAL., 45, 1015 f.: "It is not just continence that is a gift of God--so also is the chastity of the married." preachers of the faith to their children; and they should foster the vocation proper to each of their children, tak-ing special care with regard to vocations to a sacred state. Strengthened by so many powerful means of salvation, all the faithful of whatever condition and state are called, each in his own way, to that perfect holiness whereby the Father Himself is perfect. 12. The holy People of God also share in the prophetic o~ice of Christ by spreading abroad a living witness to Him especially through a life of faith and charity and by offering to God a sacrifice of praise, the utterance of lips that glorify His name (see Heb 13:15). The entire body of the faithful, since they have been anointed by the Holy One (see Jn 2:20 and 27), cannot err in their be-liefs; and this special quality--deriving from the entire people's supernatural discernment of the faith--is made manifest when "from the bishops down to the last of the faithful" ~2 the people show their universal agreement in matters of faith and morals. It is through this discern-ment of the faith, which is begun and sustained by the Spirit of truth, that the People of God cling steadfastly to the faith committed once ahd for all to the saints (see Jude 3), doing this under the guidance of the sacred teaching authority by faithful obedience to which they receive not a merely human message but, what it really is, the message of God (see 1 Th 2:13); and it is through this same discernment that the people achieve a true understanding of the faith and give it a fuller applica-tion to life. Moreover, it is not only through the sacraments and the ministries that this same Holy Spirit sanctifies and leads the People of God and endows it with virtues; by "distributing" His gifts "to individuals as He wishes" (I Cor 12:11), He also confers on the faithful of every rank special graces by which He makes them ready and fit for undertaking various tasks and duties for the re-newal and building up of the Church according to the text: "The manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the common good" (1 Cor 12:7). These charisms --whether they be unusually remarkable or the simpler and more widely diffused ones--should be accepted with gratitude and an attitude of encouragement, since they are carefully proportioned to and useful for the needs of the Church. However, extraordinary gifts should not be rashly-sought after; nor should one presume to attain through them what comes as the result of apostolic labor. Moreover, judgment about their genuinity and their or-derly use belongs to those in authority in the Church "~Scc St. Augustine, De praed, sanct., 14, 27: P.L., 44,980. + Tlw Churrh VOLUME 24, 1965 677 4. 4. 4. Vatican Council II REVIEW FOR;RELIGIOUS who have been given the. special competence not to stifle the Spirit but to test all things and retain what is good (see 1 Th 5:12 and 19-21). 13. All men are called to join themselves to the new People of God. Therefore, this people, while remaining one and ~only one, is to be spread throughout the entire world and .throughout all ages of time in order that there may be carried out the decree of the will of that God who. at the beginning made human nature one and who has determined to bring together into unity all His scattered children (see Jn 11:52). It was for this that God sent His Son whom He appointed as His heir to all things (see Heb 1:2) so that He might be the teacher, king, and priest of all men--the Head of the new and worldwide people of the sons of God: And, finally, it was for this that God sent the Spirit of His Son, the Lord and the Giyer of Life who for the Church as a whole as wellas for each and every one of the faithful is the prin-ciple of their societal unity in the teaching and fellow-ship of the Apostles, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers (see Acts 2:42 according to the Greek text). Hence in all the peoples of the world there is present the one People of God which takes its citizens from_.all nations, making them citizens of a kingdom that is not earthly but heavenly ir~ nature. All the faithful, spread though they are throughout the world, are in communion with each other in the Holy Spirit; accordingly, "a person who lives, in-Rome knows that the people of India are his members."-% Since the kingdom of Christ is ~not of this world (see Jn 18:36), the Church, that is, the People of God, in establishing that kingdom takes nothing away from the temporal well-being of any people; on the con-trary, she fosters and uses the abilities, resources, and traditions of the v~rious peoples insofar as they are good; and in so doing, she purifies, strengthens, and elevates them. For she is mindful that she must be a conserver of things along with that King of hers to whom the nations have been given as His inheritance .(see Ps 2:8) and to whose city the nations bring their gifts and offerings (see Ps 71 [72]:10; Is 60:4-7; Ap 21:24). This characteristic of. universality which is the.,glory, of the People of God is a gift from the Lord Himself by reason of which the Cath-olic Church is always making effective efforts to bring all humanity and all its possessions to the headship of Christ in the unity of His Spirit34 By reason of this. catholicity each individual part makes its own special contribution to the other parts .and ¯ ~.~ee St. John Chrysostom, In Io., Horn. 65, 1: P.G., 59, 361. ~See St. Irenaeus, Adv. haer., III, 16, 6; III, 22, 1-3: P.G., 7, 925 C-926 A and 955 C-958 A (Harvey, 2, 87 f. and 120-3; Sagnard, pp. 290-2 and 372 ft.). ~ ¯ to the Church as a whole so that the whole and each part grow as a result of this mutual sharing and common effort to attain to fullness in unity. Hence, the People of God i-~'not only assembled from various peoples; but within itself it is composed of various levels. For among its mem-bers there is diversity either by reason of duties as is true in the case of those who exercise the sacred ministry for the good of their brethren or by reason of their con-dition and kind of life as is true in the case of those many persons in the religious state who, striving for holiness by a narrower path, stimulate their brethren by their ex. ample. Furthermore, within the Church's communion there rightly exist articular churches which possess their own special traditions without pre]-udice to the primacy of the Chair of Peter which presides over the entire as-sembly of charity,25 protecting legitimate differences while assuring that these differences do not harm unity but rather aid it. It follows, then, from all this that among the various parts of the Church there are bonds of close union with regard to spiritual riches, apo.stolic workers, and temporal resources. For the members of the People of God are ~alled to share their possessions; and the words of the Apostle apply to each of the churches: "Serve one another with the particular gifts God has given each of you, as faithful dispensers of the multiform grace of God" (1 Pt 4:10). All men are called to belong to this catholic unity of the People of God which anticipates and fosters uni-versal peace; and, in different ways, there belong to ~r are oriented towards_t_hi_s_unity_bo_th the Catho_ljc_ f.ait~h_ful and all who believe in Christ__as.well as all men in general si~ce~they are called by ~he ga-ace of God to salvation. "14. It is to the Catholic faithful that this Council wishes to first turn its attention. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture and tradition, it teaches that this Church, a pilgrim in exile, is necessary for salvation. For Christ alone is the Mediator and the Way to salvation; and He is present to us in His Body which is the Church. He, however, by explicitly affirming the necessity of faith and of baptism (see Mk 16:16; Jn 3:5), also affirmed the necessity of the Church which men enter by the door that is baptism. Hence, those men could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was established by God through Jesus Christ as a necessary means, neverthe-less, would refuse to enter the Church or to persevere in her. ' Pers~ms~ who are fully incorporated into the society of the Church are those who, having the Spirit of Christ, ~See St. Ignatius of Antioch, ,¢d Rom., Praef.: ed. Funk, I, p. + 4. + The Church VOLUME 24, 1965 679 accept her entire system and all the means of salvation found in her and who~-by the bonds of profession of faith, of the sacraments, and of ecclesiastical government and communion--are joined through her visible struc-ture to Christ who rules her through the supreme pontiff and the bishops. A person, however, is not saved who, even though he is incorporated into the Church, does not persevere in charity but remains in the bosom of the Church only "bodily," as it were, and not with full-hearted allegiance ["corpore" quidem, sed non "corde"].2~ All the children of the Church, however, should be mindful that their exalted status is not to be attributed to their own merits but to the special grace of Christ and that if they do not respond to this grace by their thoughts, words, and deeds, they will not only not be saved but will be judged all the more severely.2~ Catechumens who, under the impulse of the Holy Spirit and by an explicit decision, seek to be incorporated into the Church are joined to her by that very desire; and Mother Church already embraces them as her own with love and solicitude. 15. The Church recognizes that she is linked for many reasons with baptized persons who are honored with the name of Christian but who do not profess the faith in its entirety or do not preserve unity of communion ur~der the successor of Peter.2s For there are many who honor Sacred Scripture as a norm of faith and life, who mani-fest a sincere, religious zeal, who lovingly believe in God the Father almighty and in the Christ the Son of God and the Savior,29 who are signed with baptism and are thereby joined to Christ, and who 'even acknowledge and receive other of the sacraments in their churches or ecclesiastical communities. Many of them also possess episcopacy, celebrate the Holy Eucharist, and are devoted to the Virgin Mother of God.a° Added to this is a mutual ÷ 4- ÷ Vatican Cmtncil H REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS -~See St. Augustine, Bapt. c. Donat., V, 28, 39: P.L., 43, 197: "It is certainly clear that when we speak of 'within' and 'without' with regard to the Church, our consideration must be directed to what is in the heart, not to what is in the body." See also in the same work, III, 19, 26: P.L., 43, 152; V, 18, 24: P.L., 43, 189; and t~ae same author's In ]o., tr. 61, 2: PJ~., $5, 1800, as well as many texts in other of his works. ~See Lk 12:48: "Much will be expected from the one who has been given much." See also Mt 5:19-20; 7:21-2; 25:41-6; Jas 2:14. ~s See the apostolic epistle of Leo XIII, Praeclara gratulationis, June 20, 1894: .4cta Sancta Sedis, v. 26 (1893-4), p. 707. ~See the encyclical of Leo XIII, saris cognitum, June 29, 1896: ,4cta Sanctae Sedis, v. 28 (1895-6), p. 738; the same Pontiff's encycli-cal, Caritatis studium, July 25, 1898: ,,lcta Sanctae Sedis, v. 31 (1898- 9), p. 11; and the radio message of Pius XII, Nell'alba, December 24, 1941: .4cta Apostolicae Sedis, v. 34 (1942), p. 21. ~ See the encyclical of Pius XI, Return Orientalium, September 8, 1928: ,'Icta Apostolicae Sedis, v. 20 (1928), p. 287; and the encyclical sharing of prayers and of other spiritual benefits; indeed, there is a real kind of being joined together in the Holy Spirit since by His gifts and graces He is also active among them with His power and strengthens some of them even to the shedding of blood. In all the followers of Christ the Spirit arouses desire and action that all be peacefully united in one flock under one shepherd in the way deter-mined by Christ.31 The Church our Mother never ceases to' pray, hope, ~n'd work that this may come about; and she exhorts her children to such a purification and ~hat the sign of Christ may shine forth more brightly on the face of the Church. , 16~ Finally, those who have not yet accepted the gospel are oriented in various ways to the People of God.3z This is true, first of all, with regard to that people to whom the covenants and promises were given and from whom Christ was born according to the flesh (see Rom 9:4-5); this people remains most dear to God in accord with their election on account of their fathers; for God does not repent of His gifts and His call (see Rom 11:28-9). But the plan of salvation also embraces those who acknowledge the Creator. In the fi~st place among these are the Muslim who profess to hold the faith of Abraham and who adore with us the one merciful God who on the last day will be the judge of men. Nor is God far distant from those who in shadows and images seek the unknown God, since it is He who gives all men life and breath and everything else (see Acts 17:25-8) and since the purpose of the Savior is that all men should be saved (see 1 Tim 2:4). Those who are ignorant of Christ's ggspel and of His Church through no fault of their own but who seek God in sincerity of heart and try with the help of grace to carry out in their actions His will as known to them by the dictates of their conscience can attain salvation.8~ The helps necessary for salvation ~'re not denied by divine providence to those who without blame on their part have not yet come to an explicit acknowledgement of God and who strive with the aid of divine grace to lead an upright life. Whatever goodness and truth is found among them is regarded by the Church as a preparation for the gospels4 given by Him who enlightens every man in order that he may finally possess life. But often men, deceived by the Evil One, of Pius XII, Orientalis Ecclesiae, April 9, 1944: Acta Apostolicae Sedis, v. 36 (1944), p. 137. at See the Instruction of the Holy Office, December 20, 1949: Acta Apostolicae Sedis, v. 42 (1950), p. 142. ~ See St. Thomas, Summa theologiae, 3, q.8, a.3, ad 1. ~SSee the Letter of the Holy Office to the Archbishop of Boston: DenT. 3869-72. ~ See Eusebius of Caesarea, Praeparatio evangelica, 1, 1: P.G., 21, 28 AB. + The Church VOLUME 24, 1965 68! 4- 4- have indulged in fatuous argumentations and have ex-changed the truth of God for the lie, serving what is ¯ created rather than the Creator (see Kom 1:21 and 25); and, living and dying in this world without God, expose themselves to final despair. Hence, mindful of the com-mand of the Lord: "Proclaim the gospel to every crea-ture'~ (Mk 16:16), the Church takes great care to foster the missions for the glory of God and for the salvation of all such men. 17. As the Son was sent by the Father, so He sent the Apostles (see Jn 20:21), saying: "You, then, are to go and make disciples of all the nations and baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; teach them to carry out everything I have com-manded to you and remember that I am with you always ---even to the end of the world" (Mr 28:18-20). This solemn command of Christ to proclaim the truth of salvation was received from the Apostles by the Church as something to be carried out even to the ends of the world (see Acts 1:8). Accordingly, she makes her own the words of the Apostle: "I am ruined., if I do not preach the gospelI" (1 Cor 9:16) and ceaselessly continues to send forth gospel heralds until new churches are fully estab-lished and themselves continue the work of evangeliza-tion. For she is under the compulsion of the Holy Spirit to see to it that there be put into effect the plan of God who m~de Christ the 'source of salvation for the entire world. By preaching the gospel, the Church draws those who hear her to a profession of faith, prepares them for baptism, rescues them from the slavery of sin, and in-corporates them into Christ so that through their love for Him they might grow t_o_~c0~mplete fullness. In her work she sees to it that every seed of good fo~fid in the ~heart and mind of men and in the practices and cultures ( of peoples is not only saved from destruction but that it is , healed, elevated, and perfected for the glory of God, the _confusion of the devil, and the happiness of man. The obligation of spreading the faith according to one's abil-ity lies on every follower of Christ.35 B~_u~t d~ough anyone can baptize those who bel~iev~e, it is the work of the priest tr"~___~o~mpl._e~te the building up of the Body through the Eucharistic sacrifice by fulfilling the.words of God spoken through the prophet: "From the rising of the sun to the setting thereof, my name is great among the nations; and in every place there is sacrificed and offered to my name Vatican Council II REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 682 m See the apostolic epistle of Benedict XV, Maximum illud: ,,lcta Apostolicae Sedis, v. 11 (1919), p. 440 and especially pp. 451 ft.; the encyclical of Pius XI, Rerum Ecclesiae: Acta Apostolicae Sedis, v. 18 (1926), pp. 68-9; and the encyclical of Pius XII, Fidei donum, April 21, 1957: dcta dpostolicae Sedis, v. 49 (1957), pp. 236--7, a clean oblation" (Mal 1:11).86 In this way theChurch both prays and labors that .the world in its entirety may ¯ enter-into the People of God, the Body of the Lord and the Temple of the Holy Spirit, and that in Christ, the Head of all, all honor and glory may be given to the Creator and Father of the universe. CHAPTER III THE HIERARCHICAL STRUCTURE "OF THE CHURCH ESPECIALLY THE EPISCOPATE 18. For the nurturing and constant growth of the People of God, Christ the Lord instituted in His Church a number of ministries, the purpose of whidi is the good of. the entire Body. For the ministers who possess sacred. power serve their brothers for the purpose that all who belong to the People of God and hence possess the true dignity of Christians may achieve salvation by working together for their common goal in a free and orderly fashion. Following the indications ,given by the First Vatican Council, this Council teaches and declares with it that Jesus Christ, the eternal Shepherd, established His holy Church, having sent forth His Apostles as He Himself had been sent by the Father (see Jn 20:21); and He willed that their successors, namely, the bishops, should be pastors in His Church even to the end of the world. In order, however, that the episcopate should itself be one and undivided, He placed the blessed Peter over the other Apostles and established in him a permanent and visible principle and foundation of unity of faith and of communion,s7 This Council again proposes to all the faithful as a matter of firm belief the doctrine of the institution, perpetuity, force, and meaning of the sacred primacy of the Roman pontiff as well as the doctrine of his infallible teaching authority; and, continuing what has already, been begun, it has decided to set forth and declare before all men the doctrine concerning the bishops, the successors of the Apostles, who together, with the successor of Peter, the vicar of Christas and the visible head of the entire Church, govern the house of the living God. aSee the Didache, 14: ed. Funk, I, p. 32; St. Justin, Dial., 41: P.G., 6, 564; St. Irenaeus; Adv. haer., IV, 17, 5: P.G., 7, 1023 (Harvey, 2, p. 199 f.); and the Council of Trent, Session 22, chapter 1: Denz. 939 (1742). ~See Vatican Council I, Session 4, the dogmatic constitution Pastor aeternus: Denz 1821 (8050 f.). ' ~ See the Council of Florence, Decretum pro Graecis: Denz. 694 (1807); and Vatican Council I as cited in the preceding footnote: Denz. 1826 (8059). 4. 4. ÷ The Church VOLUME 24, 1965 '. 683 4. Vatican Council I1 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 19. After praying to His Father, the Lord Jesus called to Himself those whom He wished and appointed them as the Twelve who would be with with Him and whom He would send to preach the kingdom of God (see Mk 3:13-9; Mt 10:1-42); and He formed these Apostles (see Lk 6:13) into a kind of college, that is, a stable group, over which He placed Peter chosen from among them (see Jn 21:15-7). He first sent them to the children of Israel and then to all the nations (see Rom 1:16) in order that they, sharing as they did His own power, might make all peoples His disciples, that they might sanctify and govern them (see Mt 28:16-20; Mk 16:15; Lk 24:45-8; Jn 20:21-3), and that in this way they might spread the Church and, through their ministry under the guidance of the Lord, might shepherd it for all time to the end of the world (see Mt 28:20). On the day of Pentecost they were confirmed in this mission (see Acts 2:1-26) according to the promise of the Lord: "You will be given power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and throughout Judaea and Samaria and to the very ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8). And the Apostles, by everywhere preaching the gospel (see Mk 16:20) which was accepted by their hearers through the working of the Holy Spirit, gathered together the worldwide Church which the Lord had established in the Apostles and had built on blessed Peter, their chief, Christ Jesus being the actual corner stone (see Ap 21:14; Mt 16:18; Eph 2:20).39 20. This divine mission entrusted by Christ to the Apostles is to last until the end of the world (see Mt 28:20), since the gospel given to them is to be at all times the source of all vitality for the Church. Therefore, the Apostles took care to establish successors in this society of hierarchical structure. For not only did they have helpers of variot~s kinds in their ministry;40 but, in order that the mission en-trusted to them might continue after their death, they also gave to their immediate successors, as it were in the form of a will, the office of completing and strengthening the work begun by themselves?1 recommending to them ~ See the Liber sacramentorum of St. Gregory, Praef. in natali S. Matthiae et S. Thomae: P.L., 78, 51 and 152-~compare Cod. Vat. lat. 3548, f. 18; St. Hilary, In Ps. 67, 10: P.L., 9, 450 (C.S.E.L., 22, p. 286); St. Jerome, Adv. Iovin., 1, 26: P.L., 23, 247 A; St. Augustine, In Ps. 86, 4: P.L., 37, 1103; St. Gregory the Great, Mot. in lob, XXVIII, V: P.L., 76, 455--6; Primasius, Comm. in Apoc., V: P.L., 68, 924 BC; and Paschasius Radbertus, In Matth., bk. VIII, c. 16: P.L., 120,561 C. And see also the epistle of Leo XIII, Et sane, December 17, 1888: Acta Sanctae Sedis, v. 21 (1888), p. 321. °See Acts 6:2-6; 11:30; 13:1; 14:23; 20:17; 1 Th 5:12; Phil 1:I; and Col 4:11 and passim. ,1 See Acts 20:25-7; 2 Tim 4:6 L taken together with 1 Tim 5:22; that they take care of the entire flock in which the Holy Spirit placed them to act as shepherds for the Church of God (see Acts 20:28). Hence, they appointed such men and afterwards gave them directions that when they should have died other approved men would take up their ministry.~2 Among the various ministries exercised in the Church from early times, the principal place was held, as tradition testifies, by those who, having been appointed to the episcopate, possess, through a successive series starting from the beginning,~3 the vine branches coming from the seed of the Apostles.~* In this way, as St. Irenaeus testifies, through those who were appointed by the Apostles as bishops and through their successors down to our own times, the apostolic tradition is mani-fested45 and preserved~8 in the entire world. Bishops, therefore, with the help of priests and dea-cons, have taken up the service of the community,~7 pre-siding in the place of God .over the flockis of which they are the pastors, being teachers with regard to doc-trine, priests with regard to sacred worship, and ministers with regard to the work of ruling,g9 And just as the office given by the Lord individually to Peter, the first of the Apostles, is a permanent one to be transmitted to suc-cessors, so also the Apostles' office of shepherding the Church is a permanent one to be constantly exercised by the sacred order of bishops.5° Accordingly, this Council teaches that by divine institution bishops have succeeded to the place of the Apostles~x as pastors of the Church and 2 Tim 2:2; Tit 1:5; and St. Clement of Rome, Ad Cor., 44, 3: ed. Funk, I, p. 156. ~ St. Clement of Rome, Ad Cor., 44, 2: ed. Funk, I, p. 154 f. d8 See Tertullian. Praescr. haer., 32: P.L., 2, 52 f.; and St. Ignatius of Antioch, passim. "See Tertullian, Praescr. haer., 32: P.L., 2, 53. ~rSee St. Irenaeus, Adv. haer., III, 3, 1: P.G., 7, 848 A (Harvey, 2, 8; Sagnard, p. 100 f.): "manifestatam" ["having been made mani-fest"]. *°See Irenaeus, .4dr. haer., III, 2, 2: P.G., 7, 847 (Harvey, 2, 7; Sagnard, p. 100): "custoditur" ["is guarded"]. And see also St. Irenaeus, Adv. haer., IV, 26, 2: P.G., 7, 1053 (Harvey, 2, 236); IV, 33, 8: P.G., 7, 1077 (Harvey, 2, 262). ~7 St. Ignatius of Antioch, Ad Philad., Praef.: ed. Funk, I, p. 264. ~St. Ignatius of Antioch, Ad Philad., 1, 1; Ad Magn., 6, 1: ed. Funk, I, pp. 264 and 234. ~St. Clement of Rome, Ad Cor., 42, 3-4; 44, 3-4; 57, I-2: ed. Funk, I, 152, 159, 171 f.; St. Ignatius of Antioch, Ad Philad., 2; Ad Smyrn., 8; lid Magn., 3; Ad Trail., 7: ed. Funk, I, pp. 265 f., 282, 232, 246 f. and so forth; St. Justin, Apol., 1, 65: P.G., 6, 428; and St. Cyprian, Epist., passim. ~OSee the encyclical of Leo XIII, Saris cognitum, June 29, 1896: Acta Sanctae Sedis, v. 28 (1895--6), p. 732. ~ See the Council of Trent, Session 23, the decree De sacr. Ordinis, c. 4: Denzo 960 (1768); Vatican Council I, Session 4, the first dogmatic constitution De Ecclesia Christi, c. 3: Denz. 1828 (3061); the encyclical of Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943; Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 4- + +. The Church VOLUME 24, 1965 685 4. Vatican Council H REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS that the person who hears them hears Christ, while the one who rejects them rejects Christ and the One who sent Christ (see Lk 10:16).~2 21. In the bishops, therefore, to whom priests give their assistance, there .is present, in the midst of the faithful the Lord Jesus Christ, our High Priest. Though Christ sits at the right handof God the Father, Heis not absent from the gathering of His pontiffs;53 rather, it is especially through their devoted service that He preaches the word of. God to all .nations, through their fatherly work (see 1 Cor 4:15) incorporates new members into His Body by supernatural rebirth, and by their wisdom and prudence directs and guides the people of the New Testament in their march towards eternal happiness. These pastors, who have been chosen to shepherd the flock of the Lord, are ministers of Christ and dispensers of the mysteries of God (see 1 Cot 4:1) to whom have been. assigned the bearing of witness to the gospel of the grace of God (see Rom 15:16; Acts 20:24) and the min-xstration of the Spirit and of justice in glory (see 2 Cor 3:8-9). For the.accomplishment of such great tasks, the Apos-tles were given' by Christ. a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit who.came upon them (see Acts 1:8; 2:4; Jn 20:22-3); and they passed on this spiritual gift to their helpers by the imposition of hands (see 1 Tim 4:14; 2 Tim 1:6-7), a practice which has been continued down to our own times in the consecration of bishops.5~ More-over,, this Synod teaches that by episcopal consecration there is conferred the fullness of the sacrament of orders which in the liturgical practice of the Church and in the terminology of the fathers is called the high priesthood, the highest point of the sacred ministry.~S Along with the office of sanctifying, episcopal consecration also confers v. 35 (1943), pp. 209 and ~12; and the Code of Canon Law, c~ 32~, : ~See the epistle of Leo XIII, Et sane, December 17, 1888: Acta Sanctae Sedis, v. 21 (1888), pp. 321 f. ~ St. Leo the Great, Serra., 5, 3: PAL., 54, 154. ~ The Council of Trent, Session 23, c. 3, cites the words of 2 Tim 1:6-7 to show that orders is a true sacrament: Denz. 959 (1766). rz In the Apostolic Tradition, 3, ed. Botte, Sources chr., pp. 27-30, ther~ is attributed to the bishop "primatus sacerdotii" ["primacy of priesthood"]. See the Sacramentarium Leonianura, ed. C. Mohl-berg, Sacramentarium. Fernonense (Rome, 1955), p. 119: ~'.ad summi sacerdotii ministerium . Comple in sacerdotibus tuis mysterii tui summam." [".to the ministry of the highpriest. ¯ . Fill up in.Your. priests, the highest point of Your mystery. "]; and the same editor's Liber sacramentoruin "Romanae E(clesiae (Rome, 1960); pp. 121-2: "Tribuas eis, Domine, cathedram episco-palem ad regendam Ecclesiam tuam et pleb'em universam" ["Give them, Lord, the episcopal see to rule Your Church and Your entire people"]¯ See PAL., 78, 224. the offices o[ teaching and governing which, however, their very nature cannot be exercised except in hier~archi-cal communion with the head and members of the col-lege. For it is clear from tradition--which is expressed especially in the liturgical ceremonies and in the practice of both the Eastern and Western Church--that by the imposition of hands and the words of consecration the grace of the Holy Spirit is so conferred5e and the sacred character so imprinted57 that the bishops in an eminent and clearly visible way carry out the work of ChriSt Him-self as teacher, shepherd, and pontiff and that they act in His personPe It pertains to bishops to admit newly se-lected candidates into the episcopal body through the sacrament of orders. 22. Just as--in accord with the Lord's determination-- St. Peter and the other Apostles constitute a single apos-tolic college, so in a like way the Roman pontiff, the successor of Peter, and the bishops, the successors of the Apostles, are mutually interrelated. The collegial charac-ter and nature of the episcopal order was already mani-fested by the very ancient practice by which bishops in residence throughout the entire world communicated with each other and with the bishop of Rome in the bond of unity, charity, and peace~ and by the conciliar gather° ings6° at which more important matters were settled in common61 after the opinions of many individuals had been considered by the gathering;e2 and the same thing is clearly shown in the course of time by the ecumenical ~ Apostolic Tradition, 2: ed. Botte, p. 27. ~ The Council of Trent, Session 23, c. 4, teaches that the sacra-ment of orders imprints an indelible character: Denz. 960 (1767). See the allocution of John XXIII, Jubilate Deo, May 8, 1960; Acta Apostolicae Sedis, v. 52 (1960), p. 466; and the homily of Paul VI in St. Peter's Basilica, October 20, 1963: Acta Apostolicae Sedis, v. 55 (1963), p. 1014. ~St. Cyprian, Epist., 63, 14: P.L., 4, 386 (Hartel, III B, p. 713): "Sacerdos vice Christi vere fungitur" ["The priest truly acts in the place of Christ"]; St. John Chrysostom, In 2 Tim., Horn. 2, 4: P.G., 62, 612: The priest is the "symbolon" of Christ; St. Ambrose, In Ps. 38, 25-6: P.L., 14, 1051-2 (C.S.E.L., 64, 203-4); Ambrosiaster, In 1 Tim, 5, 19: P.L., 17, 479 C and In Eph., 4, 11-2: P.L., 17, 387 C; Theodore of Mopsuestia, Horn. Catech.o XV, 21 and 24: ed. Tonneau, pp. 497 and 503; and Hesychius of Jerusalem, In Lev.,2, 9, 23: P.G., 93, 894 B. 5~ See Eusebius of Caesarea, Hist. Eccl., V, 24, 10: G.C.S., II, 1, p. 495 (ed. Bardy, Sources chr., II, p. 69); and Dionysius as given in Eusebius of Caesarea, Hist. Eccl., VII, 5, 2: G.C.S., II, pp. 638 f. (ed. Bardy, II, pp. 168 f.). ® See for the ancient councils Eusebius o[ Caesarea, Hist. Eccl., V, 23-4: G.C.S., II, I, pp. 488 ft. [ed. Bardy, II, p. 66 ff.] and passim; and the Council of Nicaea, can. 5: Conc. Oec. Decr., p. 7. ~ Tertullian, De ieiunio, 13: P.L., 2, 972 B (C.S.E.L., 20, p. 292, lines 13-6). ~S. Cyprian, Epist., 56, 3: Hartel, III B, p. 650 (ed. Bayard, p. ~4). + + 4- The Church VOLUME 24, 1965' + Vatican Council II REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS councils that have been held. The same character was already implied in the practice~introduced in ancient times--of summoning a number of bishops to take part in the elevation of the ones who had been newly chosen to the ministry of the high priesthood. A person is con-stituted as a member of the episcopal, body by the power of sacramental consecration and by hierarchical commun-ion with the head and members of the college. But the college or body of bishops does not possess authority except insofar as it is envisioned together with its head, the Roman pontiff, the successor of Peter, whose power of primacy over all--both pastors and faithful remains full and complete. For by reason of his office as the vicar of Christ and the shepherd of the en-tire Church, the Roman pontiff possesses full, supreme, and universal power over the Church, a power which he can always freely exercise. However, taken together with its head, the Roman pontiff, and never without this head, the order of bishops, which succeeds to the college of the Apostles in the matter of teaching power and pastoral rule and in which the apostolic body continues in permanency, exists as the subject also of supreme and full power over the entire Church6~ though this is to be exercised, of course, only with the consent of the Roman pontiff. For it was only Simon whom the Lord made the bedrock foundation and the keybearer of the Church (see Mt 16:18-9) and whom He appointed as shepherd of His entire flock (see Jn 21:15 if.); but it is clear that the office o~ binding and loosing that was given to Peter (Mt 16:19) was also conferred on the college of the Apostles joined to their head (Mt 18:18; 28:16-20).~ Insofar as it is composed of many members, this college expresses the variety and universality of the People of God; on the other fheasntsd t,h ien.s oufnaitry a osf i tC ihsr iassts'se mflobclekd. Tuhned beris ohnope sh iena tdh,i sit c molalengi-e, while loyally recognizing the primacy and preeminence of their head, exercise their own proper power for the good of their faithful as well as for the good of the entire Church whose organic structure and harmony is continu-ally strengthened by .the Holy Spirit. The supreme power over the entire Church which this college possesses is exercised in a solemn way in the ecumenical councils. A council is never ecumenical unless it is confirmed or at least accepted as such by the successor of Peter; and it eaSee the official remarks of Zinelli during Vatican Council I: Mansi, 52, 1109 C. e~ See Vatican Council I, Schema for the second dogmatic con-stitution De Ecclesia Christi, c. 4: Mansi, 53, 310. See also the re-marks of Kleutgen on the revised Schema: Mansi, 53, 321 B-322 B; and the state~ment by Zinelli: Mansi, 52, 1110 A. And see too St. Leo the Great, Serm., 4, 3: P.L., 54, 151 A. is the prerogative of the Roman pontiff to convoke such councils, to preside over them, and to confirm them.e" This same collegiate power can be exercised in' union with the Pope by the bishops living in different parts of the earth provided that the head of the college calls them to collegiate action or at least approves or freely accepts the united action of the bishops throughout the world and thus makes it a truly collegiate act. 23. Collegiate union is also apparent in the mutual re-lations of the individual bishop with individual churches and with the universal Church. The Roman pontiff as the successor of Peter is the enduring and visible principle and foundation of the unity both of the bishops and of the entire body of the faithful.~ But the individual bishops are the visible principle and foundation of unity in their own individual churches~7 which are structured after the model of the universal Church; and it is in and from these churches that the one and only Catholic Church exists.6s Hence, individual bishops represent their own churches, while all of them together with the pope represent the entire Church in the bond of peace, love, and unity. Individual bishops who are placed in charge of particu-lar churches exercise their pastoral rule over that portion of the People of God entrusted,to them and not over the other churches nor over the universal Church. But as members of the episcopal college and as the legitimate successors of the Apostles, each of them is bounda9 by Christ's institution and command to that care for the whole Church which, even though it is not exercised by an act of jurisdiction, nevertheless contributes in a very marked degree to the welfare of the universal Church. For all the bishops should foster and protect the unity of faith and the common discipline of the entire Church; they should thoroughly train their faithful to a love of the entire Mystical Body of Christ, especially of those members who are poor and suffering and of those who are enduring persecution for the cause of goodness (see Mt 5:10); and, finally, they should encourage every form of activity that is the common work of the Church, espe- ~ See the Code of Canon Law, c. 227. ~0 See Vatican Council I, the dogmatic constitution, Ptutor aeter-nus: Denz. 1821 (3050 f.). ~ See St. Cyprian, Epist., 66, 8: Hartel, III B, p. 733: "Episcopus in Ecclesia et Ecclesia in episcopo" ["The bishop is in the Church and the Church in the bishop"]. ~ See St. Cyprian, Epist., 55: 24: Hartel, llI B, p. 642, line 13: "Una Ecclesia per totum mundum in multa membra divisa". ["The one Church divided throughout the entire world into many members"]; and Epist., 36, 4: Haxtel, III B, p. 575, lines 20-1. ~ See the encyclical of Pius XII, Fidei donum, April 21, 1957: ~lcta Apostolicae Sedis, v. 49 (1957), p. 237. Th~ Church VOLUME 24, 1965 689 cially that which is directed to the growth of the faith and the rising upon all men of the light of the fullness of truth. Moreover, it is to be held as certain that by ruling their own .church as a part of the universal Church, they contribute in an effective way to the good of the entire Mystical Body which is also the body of the churches.70. The work of proclaiming the gospel everywhere on earth is a matter that pertains to the body of pastors to all of whom in common Christ gave His command by as-signing them a common task a point that Pope Celes-tine already in his day recommended to the attention of the fathers of the Council of Ephesus.71 Hence, as far as the performance of their office permits it, individual bishops are obliged to engage in a common undertaking of work among themselves and with the successor of Peter to whom in a special way the task of spreading Christian-ity tias been entrusted.~2 Accordingly, by their own per-sonal efforts and by arousing the zealous cooperation of the faithful, they must energetically provide the missions with an abundant supply of workers for the harvest and with plentiful spiritual and material helps. Finally, in accord with the admirable example of ancient times the bishops, in their universal fellowship of love, should ex-tend their brotherly help to other churches, especially those that are closer and more needy. In the course of time under the working of divine providence it has come about that various churches in-stituted in various places by the Apostles and their successors have formed a number of organically united groups which, while preserving the unity of the faith and the unique divine constitution of'the universal Church, possess their own discipline, their own liturgical usage, and their own theological and spiritual heritage. Among these there are some, particularly the ancient patriarchal churches, who were like parent-stocks of the faith and brought forth daughter churches to whom even today they are joined by a close bond of love in their sacramen-tal life and in their regard for each other as shown in Vatican Council 11 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS (;90 ~ See St. Hilary of Poitiers, In Ps. 14, 3: P.L., 9, 206 (C.S.E.L., 22, p. 86); St. Gregory the Great, Moral., IV, 7, 12: P.L., 75, 643; and Pseudo-Basil, In ls., 15, 296: P.G., 30, 637 C. rxSt. Celestine, Epist., 18, 1-2 to the Council of Ephesus: P.L.', 50/505 AB (Schwart.z, Acta Conc. Oec., I, 1, 1, p. 22). And see the apostolic epistle of Benedict XV, Maximum illud: Acta Apostolicae Sedis, v. 11 (1919), p. 440; the encyclical of Pius IX, Rerum Ecclesiae, February 28, 1926: .4cta .4postolicae Sedis, v. 18 (1926, p. 69; and the encyclical o[ Pius XII, Fidei donum, April 21, 1957: Acta Apostolicae v. 49 (1957)', p. 237. ~ The encyclical of Lco XIII, Grande munus, S~ptember 30, 1880: Acta Sahctae Sedis, v. 13 (1880), p. 145. And see the Code of Canon Law, c. 1327; c. 1350, § 2. their respective rights and dutiesY8 By this actual achievement of unity this variety' of local Churches is a striking manifestation of the cathblicity of the undivided Church~ Similarly and in a numbei of effecti,ie ways, the episcopal conferences of today can contribufe what is necessary in order that the sense of collegiality may be put into¯ practical effect. 24. Since they are the successors of the Apostles, the bishops have received from the Lord to whom was given all power in heaven and On earth the mission of teaching all nations and of preaching the gospel to every creature so that all men might attain salvation through'faith, baptismi and. the fulfillment of the commandments (see Mt 28:18; Mk 16:15-6; Acts 26:17 f.).'In order that this., gomm~ssi0n might be carried out, Christ our Lord promised the Apostles the Holy Spirit; and on the day 0f Pentecost He sent the Spirit so that by His stiength and even to the ends of the earth they migh.t be Witnesses testifying to Him before nations ~nd peoples and rulers (see Acts 1:8; 2:1 f[.; 9:15). The, office which the Lord entrusted to these shepherds of His people i~ genuinely a kind of service which in Sacred Scripture is meaningly referred to as a. diakonia, a ministering to (see Acts1:17 and 25; 21:19; Rom 11~I~; 1 Tim 1:12). The canonical mission of bishops can be conferred by legitimate customs that have not been revoked by the supreme and universal power of the ChurCh, or by laws made or recognized by that sa'me authority, or d~re~fly by the successor of Peter; ~and if the lattei denies 0i: re-fuses apostolic communion, those so ~efused cannot be placed in ¯office as bish0p~3t 25. Among the principal, duties of bishops, the preach: ing of the gospel occupies a special placeY~ For bishops are the heralds of the faith who bring new disciples to Christ; they are authentic teachers who are endowed with the authority of Christ and who preach to the peo-pl~ entrusted to them the faith that is to be believed and put into practice; under the light of the Holy Spirit they explain the faith; by bringing forth new things .and old (see Mt 13:52) from the treasury of revelation, they make it bear. fruit; and.the~ vigilantly.ward Off. eri0rs ~3n th~ Hghts of pati:iarchal sees, see the Council of Nicaea, canon 6 on Alexandria and Antioch, canon 7 on Jerusalem: Conc. Oec. Decr., p. 8; Laterkn Council IV in the year 1215, Constitution V: De dignitate Patriarcharum: Conc. Oec. Decr., p. 212; and the Council of Ferrara-Florence: Conc. Oec. Decr., p. 504. ~ See the Code of Law for the Eastern Churches, cc. 216-314: de P~itriarchis; cc.324-39: de Archiepiscopis maioribus; cc. 362-91: de aliis dignitariis; and in particular, cc. 238, § 3; 216; 240; 251; 255: de Episcopis a Patriarcha nominandis. '~ See the Council of Trent, Decree on reform, Session 5, c. 2, n. 9; and Session 24, can. 4: Conc. Oec. Decr., pp. 645 and 739. 4. 4, + Tl~ ~hurch 691 Vatican Council II REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 692 that threaten their flock (see 2 Tim 4:1-4). Bishops, while teaching in communion'with the Roman pontiff, should be respected by all as witnesses of divine and Catholic truth; moreover, when their bishop makes a judgment on faith and morals in the name of Christ, the faithful should accept it and adhere to it with an atti'tude of religious allegiance. This religious allegiance of the will and intellect should be given in an entirely special way to the authentic teaching power of the Roman-pontiff even when he is not speaking cathedratically; this should be done.in such a. way that his supreme teaching power is respectfully acknowledged while the judgments given by him are.since~?ely adhered to ac-cording to his manifest intention and desire as this is made known by the nature" of his documents or by his frequent repetition of the same judgment or by his way of speaking. Individual bishops do not possess the prerogative of infall!bility. Nevertheless, as long as they preserve the bond of communion among themselves and with the successor of Peter, the bishops, even though they are in residence in different parts of the earth, propose the doctrine of Christ in an infallible manner when in their authoritative teaching on matters of faith and morals they agree on a position as being the one to be held in a definitive way.r6 This is even more manifest when they are gathered in an ecumenical council and act as the teachers and judges of faith and morals for the entire Church whose decisions are to be adhered to with the submission of faith.77 This infallibility with which our divine Redeemer wanted His Church to be endowed in the matter of defining doctrine concerning faith and morals extends as far as does the deposit of that divine revelation which is to be carefully, guarded and faithfully expounded. By reason of his office the Roman pontiff, the head of the college of bishops, possesses this infallibility When, as the supreme shepherd and teacher of all the faithful who con-firms his brethren in the faith (see Lk 22:32), he pro-claims a doctrine of faith or morals in a definitive act.rs Hence his definitions are rightly said to be irreformable of themselves and not from the consent of the Church, since they are made with that assistance of the Holy To See Vatican Council I, the dogmatic constitution, Dei Filius, 3: Denz. 1712 (3011). And see the note (taken from St. Robert Bel-larmine) adjoined to Schema I de Ecclesia: Mansi, 51, 579 C; as well as the revised Schema for the second constitution De Ecclesia Christi with the commentary of Kleutgem Mansi, 53,313 AB. See also the epistle of Pius IX, Tuas libenter: Denz. 1683 (2879). ~ See the Code of Canon Law, co. 1322-3; r~See Vatican Council I, the dogmatic constitution, Pastor aeternus: Denz. 1839 (3074). Spirit that was promised to him in the person of St. Peter and therefore need no approbation from other persons and do not allow appeal to another judgment. For in this case the Roman pontiff does not give his de-cision acting as a private person; rather, he expounds or protects a doctrine of the Catholic faith acting as the supreme teacher of the entire Church in whom is present in a special way the charism of infallibility of the Church herself.TM The infallibility promised to the Church is.also present in the body of the bishops when it exercises the supreme teaching office together with the successor of Peter. The assent of the Church can never be lacking in the case of these definitions since there exists that action of the Holy Spirit' by which the entire flock of Christ is preserved in the unity of faith and grows in it.s° But when either the Roman pontiff or the body of bishops together with him makes a definitive judgment, they make it in accord with revelation itself which all are bound to abide by and be in conformity with, which is transmitted in its entirety through the legitimate succession of bishops and especially by the supervision of the Roman pontiff himself, and which under the guid-ing light of the Spirit of truth is religiously preserved and faithfully expounded in the Church.sl In accordance with their office and the seriousness of the matter, the Roman pontiff and the bishops are diligent in their efforts to investigate this revelation in a correct way and to give it an apt expression;s2 but they do not accept any new public revelation as pertaining .to the divine deposit of faith,sa 26. Since he is characterized by the fullness of the sacrament of orders, a bishop is ."the steward of the grace of the high priesthood," s4 especially in the Eucharist which he offers or causes to be offereds5 and by which the Church continually lives and grows. This Church of Christ is truly present in all legitimate local congrega-tions of the faithful which united to their pastors are themselves called churches in the New Testament.s6 For in their own localities these are the new People of God who have been called by God in a great fullness of the ~ See the explanation of Gasser at Vatican Council I: Mansi, 52, 1213 AC. ~o Gasser, Vatican Council I: Mansi, 52, 1214 A. sa Gasser, Vatican Council I: Mansi, 52, 1215 CD, 1216-7 A. s~ Gasser, Vatican Council I, Mansi, 52, 1213. ~*Vatican Council I, the dogmatic constitution, Pastor aeternus, 4: Denz. 1836 (3070). s4 The Oration of the episcopal consecration in the Byzantine rite: Euchologion to mega (Rome, 1873), p. 139. ~See St. Ignatius of Antioch, Ad Smyrn., 8, I: ed. Funk, I, p. 282. ~ See Acts 8:1; 14:22-3; 20:17; and passim. + + + VOLUME 241 1965 693 Fati~an Cou~l II REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Holy Spirit (see 1 Th 1:5). In. them the faithful are ¯ gathered together b)~ the .preaching of ChriSt's gospel, and the mystery of the ¯Lord's Supper is celebrated "so that the entire brotheihood may be bonded together by the food and blood of the Lord's Body." s7 In every com-munity gathered ;iround the altar under the sacred min-istry of the bishop,as there is manifested the symbol of that love and "unity of the Mystical Body without which there can be no salvation." so In these communities ---even though they are small and poor or living in the 'diaspora--there is the presence of Christ by whose power is formed the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.°0 For "the partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ effects nothing else than our transformation into what ~we cohsume." 91 Every lawful celebration of the Eucharist is under the dii:ection of the bishop to whom the duty has been ¯ entrusted of offering to the divine majesty the worship of the Christian religion and of regulating it according to the Lord's precepts and the laws of the Church as further articulated for his diocese by hi~ own particular judgment. So it is that bishops, by praying and' working for their people, cause' a great and abundant outpouring from the fullness of the holiness of Christ. By the ministry of the word they communicate the power of God that effects salvation in those who believe (see Rom 1:16); and through the sacraments, the regular and fruitful adminis-tration of which they regulateby their authority,°2 they sanctify the .faithful. It is they who direct the conferring of baptism by which there is granted a sharing in the royal priesthood of Christ. It' is they who are the 'original ministers of confirmation, the dispensers of sacred orders, and the supervisors of the practice of penance; and it is they who conscientiously exhort and instruct their people so that in the .liturgy and especially in the sacred sacrifice of the Mass the latter can perform their roles with faith and reverence. Finally, by the ex-ample of their conduct they must be a good influence on those they are ~in charge of, keeping evil out of their lives by directing them as far as possible with the help of God to what is good so that, together with the flock entrusted to them, they may attain eternal Iife.0a s~ The Mozarabic Oration: P.L., 96, 759 B. ~ See St. Ignatius of 2(ntioch, Ad Smyrn., 8, 1: ed. Funk, I, p. 282. ~* St. Thomas, Summa theologiae, 3, q.73, a.3. ¯ ~See St. Augustine, C. Fausti~m, 12, 20: P.L., 42, 265; Serm., 57, 7: P.L., 38, 389; and elsewhere. ,~ St. Leo the Great, Serm., 63, 7:P.L., 54, 357 C. ,a The Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus, 2-3: ed. Botte, pp. 26- 30. n See the text of the Examen at the beginning of the consecration 27. As vicars and emissaries of Christ?* bishops govern the particular churches entrusted to them by counsel, exhortation, and example but also by their authority and sacred power which they use, however, only for the building up of their flock in truth and holiness, mindful that the one who is greater should be as the lesser and that the one who is the head should be like the servant (see Lk 22:26-7). This power, which they personally exercise in the name o~ Christ, is proper, ordinary, and immediate, although its exercise is ultimately regulated by the supreme authority of the Church and, for the sake of the welfare of the Church or of the faithful, can be kept by it within definite limits. By reason of this power, bishops have the right and duty before God to make laws for their subjects, to judge matters, and to direct every-thing that pertains to the right ordering of worship and the apostolate. The pastoral office, that is, the habitual and daily care of their sheep, is fully committed to them; and they are not to be regarded as vicars of the Roman pontiffs since they exercise an authority that is proper to them and in a very true sense are said to be presiding officers [Antistites] of the people they govern.°5 Hencd, their power is not destroyed by the supreme and universal power but on the contrary is affirmed, strengthened, and defended by ito5 since the Holy Spirit unfailingly pre-serves the form of government established by Christ our Lord in His Church. Since He is sent by the Father to govern His family, a bishop should keep before his eyes the example of the Good Shepherd who came not to be served but to serve (see Mt 20:28; Mk 10:45) and to give His life for His sheep (see Jn 10:11). Having been chosen from among men and being subject to weakness, he can sympathize with the ignorant and the erring (see Heb 5:1-9). He of a bishop and the Oration at the end of the Mass of the same con-secration after the Te Deum. ~ The brief of Benedict XlV, Romana Ecclesia, October 5, 1752, § 1: Bullarium Benedicti XIV, t. IV (Rome, 1758), 21: "Episcopus Christi typum gerit, Eiusque munere fungitur" ["The bishop is an image of Christ and performs His work"]; and the encyclical of Pius XlI, Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943: Acta Apostolicae Sedis, v. 35 (1943), p. 211: "Assignatos sibi greges singuli singulos Christi nomine pascunt et regunt" ["In the name of Christ each one takes care of and rules the individual flock assigned to him"]. ' rathe encyclical of Leo XIII, Saris cognitum, June 29, 1896: ,,lcta Sanctae Sedis, v. 28 (1895-6), p. 732; the same Pontiff's.epistle, Officio sanctissimo, December 22, 1887: Acta Sanctae Sedis, v. 20 (1887), p. 264; the apostolic letter of Pius IX to the bishops of Germany, March 12, 1875, and his consistorial allocution of March 15, 1875: Denz. 3112-7 (only in the new edition). ~Vatican Council I, the dogmatic constitution, Pastor aeternus, 3: Denz. 1828 0061). See the remarks of Zinelli: Mansi, 52, 1114 D. + + + The Church ,VOLUME 241 1965 695 4. Vatican Council H REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 696 should not refuse to listen to his subjects whom he cherishes as his true sons and whom he exhorts to a ready cooperation with himself. Since he will one day render an account to God for their souls (see Heb 13:17), he sees to it that by prayer, preaching, and every kind of charity he takes care both of his subjects and also of those whom, though they are not yet of the one flock, he considers to have been entrusted to him in the Lord. Since, like the Apostle Paul he owes a debt to all, he should be eager to preach the gospel to all (see Rom 1:14-~5) and to urge his faithful to apostolic and missionary activity. The [aitldul, moreover, should cling to their bishop as the Church does to Jesus Christ and as Jesus Christ does to the Father so that all things may be in harmonious unity07 and redound to the glory of God (see 2 Cor 4:15). 28. Christ, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world (Jn 10:36), has through His Apostles made their successors the bishops sharers in His consecration and His mission;98 and they, as is appropriate, have en-trusted in varying degrees the work of their ministry to various individuals in the Church. So it is that the divinely established ecclesiastical ministry is exercised on different levels by those who f~om ancient times were referred to as bishops, priests, and deacons.9~ Although priests do not. possess the highest degree of priesthood and are dependent on the bishops in the exercise of their power, nevertheless they are united to the bishops in sacerdotal dignity;1°° and by reason of the sacrament of orders1°1 and according to the model of Christ ,the eternal High Priest (Heb 5:1-10; 7:24; 9:11-28), they are consecrated as true priests of the New Testament for the preaching of the gospel, the shepherding of the faithful, and the celebration of divine worship.l?2 As sharers in the work of Christ our sole Mediator (1 Tim 2:5) on their own level of the ministry, they proclaim the divine message to all men. They exercise their sacred office in the highest way ~ See St. Ignatius of Antioch, ,4d Ephes., 5, 1: ed. Funk, I, p. 216. 0s See St. Ignatius of Antioch, ~ d Ephes., 6, I: ed. Funk, I, p. 2 ~ See the Council of Trent,. Session 23, De sacr. Ordinis, c. 2: Denz. 958 (1765); and can. 6: Denz. 966 (1776). 1°°See Innocent I, Epist. ad Decentiurn: P.L., 20, 554 A (Mansi, 3, 1029; Denz. 98 [215]: "Presbyteri, licet secundi sint sacerdotes, pon-tificatus tamen apicern non habent" ["The presbyters, though they are priests of the second grade, do not possess the. crown of being pontiffs"]); and St. Cyprian, Epist., 61, 3: ed. Hartel, III B, p. 696. ~x See the Council of Trent as cited in footnote 99, Denz. 956a- 968 (1763--78) and in particular can. 7: Denz. 967 (1777); and the apostolic constitution of Pius.XII, Sacramentum Ordinis: Denz. 2301 (3857-61). m See Innocent I as cited in footnote 100; St. Gregory Nazianzen, Apol., II, 22: P.G., 35, 432 B; and pseudo-Dionysius, Eccl. Hier., 1, 2: P.G., 3, 372 D. in the eucharistic worship or synaxis in which, acting in the person of Christ10s and proclaiming His mystery, they unite the prayers of the faithful to the sacrifice of their Head and make present and apply in the sacrifice of the Mass until the coming of the Lord (see 1 Cor 11:26) the only sacrifice of the New Testament, that, namely, of Christ offering Himself once and for all to His Father as a spotless victim (see Heb 9:11-28).TM For those of the faith-ful who are repentant or sick, they perform the important ministry of reconciliation and alleviation; and they pre-sent the needs and prayers of the faithful to God the Father (see Heb 5:1-~). According to their share of authority, they exercise the ot~ice of Christ as Shepherd and Head,105 gather together the family of God as a brother-hood of one mind and heart,TM and lead them through Christ in the Spirit to God the Father. In the midst of their flock they adore God in spirit and in truth (see Jn 4:24). Finally, they labor at preaching and teaching (see 1 Tim 5:17), believing what they have read and re-flected upon in the law of the Lord, teaching what they have believed, and practicing what they have taughtA07 Since priests have been called to serve the People of God as solicitous cooperators,x0s helpers, and instruments of the episcopal order, they constitute with their bishop a unified priestly group [presbyterium]10~ with a variety of duties to be performed. Since they are united to their bishop in a spirit of trust and generosity, they make him present in a sense in the individual local congregations of the faithful; and they take a share of his duties and responsibilities, carefully discharging these day by day. Under the authority of the bishop they sanctify and govern the portion of the Lord's flock assigned to them, make the universal Church visible in their locality, and make an important contribution to the building up of the entire Body of Christ (see Eph 4:12). Since they are always deeply concerned for the welfare of the children of God, they should strive to contribute their efforts to the pastoral work of the whole diocese and indeed of 1°*See the Council of Trent, Session 22: Denz. 940 (1743); and the encyclical of Pius XII, Mediator Dei, November 20, 1947: Acta ~Ipostolicae Sedis, v. 39 (1947), p. 553 (Denz. 2300 [3850]). m See the Council of Trent, Session 22: Denz. 938 (1739-40); and Vatican Council II, Constitution on the Liturgy, nn. 7 and 47. m See the encyclical of Plus XII, Mediator Dei, as cited in foot-note 103. 1~See St. Cyprian, Epist., 11, 3: PAL., 4, 242 B (Hartel, Ill B, p. 497). lo~ Ceremony of priestly ordination, at the imposition of the vest-ments. ~0s Ceremony of priestly ordination, the Preface. m See St. Ignatius of Antioch, ~ld Philad., 4: ed. Funk, I, p. 266; and St. Cornelius I as given in St. Cyprian, Epist., 48, 2: Hartel, III B, p. 610. + Th~ Church VOLUME 24~ 1965 697 Vatican Council H the whole Church. Because of this sharing in priesthood and mission, priests should sincerely look upon their bishop as their father and should respectfully obey him. And the bishop should consider priests, his co-workers, as his sons and friends just as Christ calls His disciples now not servants but friends (see Jn 15:15). By reason of orders and ministry all priests, both diocesan and religious, are joined to the body of bishops and according to their voca-tion and grace serve the good of the entire Church. By reason of their common sacred ordination and their mission, all priests are bound together in intimate broth-erhood which should naturally and freely manifest itself in mutual help, both spiritual and material, pastoral as well as personal, in their meetings and in their commu-nion of life, labor, and charity. Acting as fathers in Christ, priests should take care of the faithful whom they have spiritually begotten through baptism and teaching (see 1 Cor 4:15; 1 Pt 1:23). Having become in all sincerity an example for the flock (see 1 Pt 5:3), they should direct and serve their local community in such a .way that it can be fittingly called by that name by which the one and entire People of God is designated--the Church of God (see 1 Cor 1:2; 2 Cot 1:1; and passim). They should remember to show a genuinely priestly and pastoral spirit by their daily lives and by their solicitude for believers and unbelievers, for Catholics and non-C~tholics; they should also remem-ber their obligation to give all men a witness to truth and life and as good shepherds to seek out also those (see Lk 15:4-7) who, though baptized in the Catholic. Church, have fallen away from the use of the sacraments or even from the faith itself. Since more and more today the human race is growing into a civil, economic, and social unity, it is all the more necessary that priests by their combined effort under the direction of the bishops and the supreme pontiff should eradicate every trace of divisiveness so that the entire hu, man race may be led into the unity of the family of God. 29. On a lower level of the hierarchy are the deacons upon whom hands are imposed "not unto the priesthood but unto an office of service." 110 Strengthened by their sacramental grace and in union with the bishop and his group of priests, they minister to the People of God in a service of the liturgy, of the word, and of love. It is the work of the deacon--insofar as it will have been assigned him by competent authority--to administer baptism solemnly, to be the custodian and dispenser of the REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS aao Constitutiones Ecclesiac aegyptiacae, III, 2: ed. Funk, Dida-scalia, II, p. 103; and Statuta Ecclesiae antiquae, 37-41: Mansi, 3, 698 954. Eucharist, to assist at and bless marriages in the name of the Church, to take Viaticum to the dying, to read Sacred Scripture to the faithful, to instruct and exhort the faithful, to preside over the worship and prayer of the faithful, to administer sacramentals, and to officiate at funerals and burials. Since they are dedicated to duties of charity and of administration, deacons should be mindful of the admonition of St. Polycarp: "Be merciful and diligent and walk according to the truth of the Lord who was made the servant of all." 11x Since in many regions in the present discipline of the Latin Church of today these duties, which are very neces-sary for the life of the Church, can be fulfilled only with difficulty, the diaconate can be restored in the future as a proper and permanent rank of the hierarchy. It pertains to the different kinds of territoriM groupings of bishop.s with the approbation of the supreme pontiff to decide whether and where it is opportune for deacons of this kind to be established for the care of souls. With the consent of the Roman pontiff this diaconate can be conferred on men of more mature age including those living.in the ma¢ried state as well as upon suitable young men in whose ca~e, however, the law of celibacy mustremain in foice. CHAPTER IV THE LAITY 30. Having set forth the functions of the hierarchy, this Council gladly turns its attention now to the state of those of the faithful who are called the laity. Although everything that has been said'Concerning the People of God is equally directed to the laity, to religious, and to clerics, certain matters pertain in a special way to the laity, both men and women, by reason of their condition and mission9; and because of the special cff~mstances of 6ur day the foundations of these matters deserve greater consideration. Their pastors are well aware of how much the laity contribute to the good of the entire Church. For the pastors know that they themselves were not es-tablished by Christ to undertake by their own efforts alone the salvation mission of the Church to the world; rather they recognize that theirs is the exalted duty of shepherding the faithful and of acknowledging the lat-ter's ministrations and charisms in such a way that all may work together with one mind toward the common welfare, each in his own way. For it is necessary that reSt. Polycarp, Ad Phil., 5, 2: ed. Funk, I, p. 300: Christ is said "to have become the deacon of all." See Didache, 15, 1: ed. Funk, I, p. 32; St. Ignatius of Antioch, Ad Trall., 2, 3: ed. Funk, I, p. 242; and Constitutiones ~lpostolorum, 8, 28, 4: ed. Funk, Didascalia, I, p. 530. + + + The Chuwh VOLUME 241-1965 ' 699 ÷ ÷ ÷ Vatican Council II REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ~00 "holding to the truth lovingly, we should grow into per-fect union with him who is the head--Christ. For it is by reason of the head that the entire body, as a harmonious structure held' together by the joints with which it is provided, grows by the proper functioning of each indi-vidual part to its full maturity in love" (Eph 4:15-6). 31. The term "laity" is understood here to mean all the faithful except those members who are in holy orders or in the religious state approved by the Church; in other words, they are those of the faithful who, having been incorporated by baptism into Christ and placed among the People of God with their own way of sharing in the priestly, prophetic, and royal office of Christ, in accord with their role carry out in the Church and in the world the mission of the entire Christian people. The quality of being involved in the world is t!ie proper and specific characteristic of the laity. Although those in holy orders can at times be engaged in secular pursuits and even exercise a secular profession, still by reason of their special vocation they are principally and professedly ordained for the sacred ministry; and reli-gious by their state give splendid and striking witness that the world cannot be transfigured and offered to God without the spirit of the beatitudes. But it is the_proper vocation of the laity to seek the king~-6m of God by_in-vo~ ing themselves in temporal affairs and ordering them in-'aEcord with God. They live in the ~orldith-a~-is, in each and every profession and occupation of the world and in the ordinary conditions of family and social life, from all of which their existence, as it were, is composed. They are called there by God in order that by exercising their proper function in the spirit of the gospel they might like yeast contribute to the sanctification of the world from within and thus manifest Christ to others especially by the witness of their lives and their resplend-ence of faith, hope, and charity. Since the laity are s6 closely connected with temporal matters, it is their par-ticular task to illuminate and order all these matters in such a way that they always begin, grow, and exist in accord with Christ and for the praise of our Creator and our Redeemer. 32. By divine institution the Church is organized and directed with a remarkable diversity. '.'For just as there are many parts in our human bodies and these parts do not all have the same function, so we, though many in number, compose one body in Christ, all of us individ-ually being parts of one another" (Rom 12:4-5). The chosen People of God, then, are one: "one Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Eph 4:5); the members have a common dignity by reason of their regeneration in Christ; there is the same grace of sonship and the same vocation to perfection; there is only one salvation, one hope, and one undivided charity. In Christ and in the Church, therefore, there is no inequality based on race, nationality, social condition, or sex, because "there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, slave and free man, male and female, for you are all one person in Christ Jesus" (Gal 3:28 according to the Greek text; see Col 3:11). If, therefore, all in the Church do not walk along the same path, still all are called to holiness; and through the justice of God they have all been given the same faith (see 2 Pt 1:1). And if some of them have been established by the will of Christ as teachers, dispensers of the mys-teries, and pastors of others, nevertheless equality in dig-nity exists among all of them as well as equality with regard to the activity common to all the faithful~that of building up the Body of Christ. For the distinction that the Lord made between the sacred ministers and the rest of the People of God involves a union among them since the pastors and the rest of the faithful are bound to-gether by a necessary common relationship; the pastors of the Church, following the example of our Lord, should minister to themselves and to the rest of the faithful, while the latter should readily collaborate with their pastors and teachers. Thus, in their differences all bear witness to the remarkable unity to be found in the Body of Christ; for the very variety of graces, ministrations, and activities gathers the children of God into unity since "it is one and the same Spirit who effects all these things" (1 Cor 12:11). Therefore, just as by reason of God's graciousness the laity have as their brother Christ who, though the Lord of all, came not to be served but to serve (see Mt 20:28), so also they have for their brothers those in the sacred ministry who teach, sanctify, and rule the family of God and thereby shepherd it in such a way that the new com-mandment of charity may be fulfilled by all. On this point St. Augustine puts the matter beautifully when he says: "When I am terrified by what I am with regard to you, then I am consoled by what I am together with you. With regard to you I am your bishop; together with you I am a Christian. The former is the name of an office while the latter is that of a grace; the former is the name of a danger but the latter is that of salvation." 112 33. Since they are gathered together in the People of God and established in the Body of Christ under one head, the laity without exception are called as living members to exert every bit of their strength--received from the goodness of their Creator and the grace of their St. Augustine, Serm., 340, 1: P.L., 38, 1483. 4- 4- The Church VOLUME 24, 1965 Vatican Council H REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Redeemerwthat the Church might grow and be con-stantly sanctified. The apostolate of the laity is a sharing in the Church's own. salvation mission, and through baptism and confir-mation all are assigned to this apostolate by the Lord Himself. By the sacraments, especially by the Holy Eucharist, there is communicated and nourished that charity toward God and men which is the soul of the en-tire apostolate. Moreover, the laity are especially called to make the Church present and effective in those places and circumstances where it is only through them that she can become the salt of the earth.11a In this way every layman by reason of the gifts bestowed on him is both a witness and living instrument of the Church's mission "according to the measure of Christ's giving" (Eph 4:7). - Over and beyond this apostolate which pert.ains to every.member of the faithful, the laity can be called in addition to a more immediate collaboration in various ways with the apostolate of the hierarchyn4 in imitation of those men and women who assisted St. Paul in the work of the gospel and achieved, a great deal by their labor in the Lord (see Phil 4:3; Rom 16:3 ft.). Moreover, they have the capacity to be employed by the hierarchy in certain ecclesiastical functions to be performed for a spiritual purpose. On all the laity, therefore, there rests the exalted dut, y of, working to bring it about that God's plan of salvation be more and more extended to all men of all times and places. Hence, every kind of opportunity should be given them to share wholeheartedly in the salvation work of the Church in accord with their abilities and the needs of the time. 34. Since it is also through the laity that Christ Jesus, our supreme and eternal Priest, wishes to continue His testimony and His work of service, He vivifies them by His Spirit and constantly urges them on to every good and perfect work. Since He has intimately joined them to His own life and mission, He has also given them a share in His priestly work in order that they might perform a spiritual worship for' the glory of God and the salvation of men. Accordingly, since they are consecrated to Christ and anointed by the Holy Spirit, the laity are called and given the means to bring forth in themselves in an ever greater degree the fruits of the Spirit. For all their works, m See the encyclical of Pius XI, Quadragesirno anno, May 15, 1931: ,4cta Apostolicae Sedis, v. 25 (1931), pp. 221 f.; and the allocu. tion of Plus XII, De quelle consolation, October 14, 1951:, zlcta ,4postolicae Sedis, v. 43 (1951), pp~ 790 f. m See the allocution of Pius XII, Six ans se sont dcottlds, October 5, 1957: ,4cta ,4postolicae Sedis, v. 49 (1957), p. 927. prayers, and apostolic undertakings, their conjugal and family life, their daily labor, their physical and mental relaxation, if they all be done in the Spirit, and even the hardships of life if they are borne with patience consti-tute so many spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (see 1 Pt 2:5) and that are fittingly offered to the Father in the celebration of the Eucharist together with the oblation of the Body of the Lord. It is in this way that the laity, as worshipers who everywhere act in a holy way, consecrate the world itself to God. .35. Christ, our great Prophet, who proclaimed the kingdom of the Father by the' testimony of His life and the power of His words, continues to carry out His prophetic function until the full manifestation of glory; He does this not only by the hierarchy who teach in His name and with His power but also through the laity whom He accordingly makes His witnesses, giving them a deep sense of the faith and the grace of speaking about it (see Acts 2:17-8; Ap 19:10) in order that the power of the gospel might shine forth in their daily family and social life. They show themselves to be children of the promise if, being strong in their faith and their hope, they make the best use of their present moment (see Eph 5:16; Col 4:5) and await in patience the glory that is to come (see Rom 8:25). They should not, however, keep this hope of theirs hidden in the recesses of their soul but, by a persevering confrontation and ~truggle "with the master spirits of this dark world, with the spirit forces of wickedness" (Eph 6:12), should express it even in the st.r_uctures of secular life. - Just as the sacraments of the New Law by which the life and apostolate of the faithful are nourished prefigure a new heaven and a new earth (see Ap 21:1), so the laity go forth as mighty proclaimers of their faith in the things hoped for (see Heb 11:1) provided they unflinchingly join their profession of faith to a life lived by faith. This evangelization or proclamation of Christ through the testimony of one's life as well as through the spoken word receives a characteristic quality and a special effec-tigeness by the fact that it is carried out in the ordinary conditions of the world. In this work great importance is to be attached to that state of life which is sanctified by a special sacrament; namely, married and family life. An exercise and an ex-cellent school of the apostolate are to be found there when the Christian religion pervades the entire fabric of that life and gradually transforms it. It is there that married persons find their proper vocation--that of being to each other and to their children witnesses to the faith-fulness and love of Christ. The Christian family loudly The Church VOLUME 24, 1965 703 Vatican Council II REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ~04 proclaims both the present virtues of the kingdom of God as well as our hope for the coming life of beatitude. Thus by its example and witness it accuses the world of sin and enlightens those who are seekifig for the truth. Accordingly, even when they are occupied in teml~oral matters, the laity can and should perform an important work for the evangelizing of the world. Though certain of the laity, when sacred ministers are lacking or are im-peded from their work in time of persecution, carry out as far as they can some of the sacred functions and even though a number of the laity can give all their energies to apostolic work, still all of them must work towards the spread and growth of the kingdom of Christ in the world. Consequently, the laity should diligently work towards a deeper knowledge of revealed truth and should earnestly plead with God for the gift of wisdom. 36. Christ, who was obedient even to the extent of dying and who for this reason was exalted by the Father (see Phil 2:8-9), entered into the glory of His kingdom. All things are subject to Him until He subjects Himself" and all created things to the Father so that God may be all things to everyone (see 1 Cor 15:27-8). He communi-cated this power to His followers in order that, having been constituted in a state of royal liberty, they might by their selLabnegation and the holiness of their lives con-quer th__~ ~ingdpm of sin in themselves (see Ro---~--~.12) and in order that by serving Christ in others they might by humility and patience lead their brethren to that King to serve whom is to reign. Fo._r_C~l-~s.t.'s_int~e~ti_on was that it should also be through the laity that He exLended His kingdom--a kiIigdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love, and peace,115 a kingdom in which the whole, of creation will be freed from the tyranny of corruption and will enter the glorious freedom of the chiIdren of God (see Rom 8:21). In all truth His followers have been given a great promise and a great commandment: "Everything is yours, and you are Christ's and Christ belongs to God" (1 Cor 3:23). The faithful, therefore, must understand the inmost nature and value of the entirety of creation as well as its being ordered to the praise of God; and they mmt.=help each other to a holier life and this ev~en in their ~dcular activities; it is by their acting in this way that the world will be permeated by the spirit of Christ and will more effectively reach its goal in a spirit of justice, charity, and peace. In the total fulfillment of this duty, the laity have the principal role. Hence, by their competence in profane branches of learning and by their activity ele-m Prom the Preface of the Feast of Christ the King. vaned from within by the grace of Christ, they should make strenuous efforts to see to it that, in accord with the design of the Creator and the enlightenment coming from His Word, all created things be perfected through human labor, technical skill, and cultural means for the benefit of absolutely all men, that they be more equitably distributed among men, and that they contribute in their own way to universal progress in human and Christian liberty. In this way through the mem.bers of the Church Christ will progressively enlighten all of human society with His saving light. Furthermore, if the institutions and conditions of the world are an inducement to sin, the laity, even by group action, should remedy these matters in such a way that they all conform to the norms of justice and favor rather than hinder the practice of virtue. By acting in this way they will imbue human culture and activity with moral ¯ value. Thereby they will at the same time prepare the field that is the world for the seed of the divine word and the gates of the Church through which the message of peace enters the world will open more widely. Because of the way in which our salvation has been arranged, the faithful should learn to distinguish care-fully the rights and duties they have as members of the Church from those which they possess as members of hu-man society. They should try to connect these two as-pects of theirs in a harmonious way and should be aware that in all temporal matters they must be guided by a Christian conscience since no human activity, not even in these temporal matters, can be withdrawn from God's dominion. In our own time it is especially important that in the way of acting of the faithful the simultaneous dis. tinction and harmony that we have mentioned should shine out in the clearest way possible so that the mission of the Church may more fully meet the special conditions of today's world. While it must be acknowledged that earthly society, being rightly concerned with secular matters, is governed by its own principles, still the un-fortunate doctrine that insists on constructing a society with no regard whatever for religion and that attacks and destroys the religious liberty of its citizens must de-servedly be rejected.11e 37. The laity, like all the faithful, have the right to receive in abundance from the spiritual goods of the u°See the encyclical of Leo XlII, Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885: dcta Sanctae Sedis, v. 18 (1885), pp. 166 ft.; the same Pontiff's encyclical, Sal~ientiae christianae, January 10, 1890: dcta Sanctae Sedis, v. 22 (1889-90), pp. 397 ft.; and the allocution of Plus XII, Alla vostra liliale, March 23, 1958: Acta dpostolicae Sedis, v. 50 (1958), p. 220: "la legittima sana laicit~ dello Stato" ["the legitimate and healthy laicity of the State"]. 4. 4. 4. The Church VOLUME 24~ 1965 705 Vatican Council I1 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Church through the agency of their spiritual pastors; and this is especially true with regard to the assistance of the word of God and of the sacraments;xx~ to their pastors they should make known their needs and desires with that liberty and confidence that befit children of God and brothers in Christ. According to @~eir k~n.ow_le~dge, competence, and eminence they have the power and at ti~ E_he duty of expressing their opinion with reg~r~to rfi~tters that affect.: the welfare of the Church. should be done, if the matter allows, through channels established by the Church for this purpose; and it should always be done in a spirit of truthfulness, courage, and prudence and with reverence and charity towards those who by reason of their office represent the person of Christ. Whatever is decided by their pastors who, as represent-atives of Christ, act as teachers and rulers in the Church should be promptly accepted by the laity, as by all the faithful, in a spirit of Christian obedience modeled on the example of Christ who by His obedience even to the extent of dying opened to men the blessed way of the freedom of the children of God. Nor should they omit to pray to God on behalf of those placed over them in order that the latter, who stand guard as ones who are accountable for our souls, may do this with joy and not with grief (see Heb 13:17). On the other hand, the pastors should acknowledge and promote the dignity and responsibility of the laity in the Church; they should willingly make use of the pru-dent advice of the laity, should confidently entrust to them duties for the service of the Church, should give them freedom and room .for action; and should even encourage them to undertake tasks on their own initia-tive. They should carefully consider with a paternal love in Christ~ the projects, suggestions, and desires proposed by the laity,x19 And the pastors should respectfully ac-knowledge that rightful liberty which belongs to all in earthly society. From this friendly relationship between the laity and their, pastors a great many advantages are to be hoped for since in this way a sense of personal responsibility is strengthened in the laity, their enthusiasm is increased, u, Code of Canon Law, c. 682. m See the allocution of Pius XII, De quelle consolation: Acta Apostolicae Sedis, v. 43 (1951), p. 789: "Dans les batailles d~cisives, c'est parfois du front que partent les plus heureuses initiatives . " ["In the case of decisive battles, it happens at times tfiat the best initiatives come from the frontline"]; and the same Pontiff's al-locution, L'importance de la presse catholique, February 17. 1950: Acta Apostolicae Sedis, v. 42 (1950), p. 256. m See 1 Th 5:19 and 1 Jn 4:1. and it is easier to engage their talents in the work of their pastors. These latter, moreover, when they are assisted by the experience of the laity, are better able to give sound decisions both in spiritual and temporal matters With the result that the entire'Church, being strength-ened by all her members, can carry out in a more effec-tive way her mission for the life of the world. 38. Each individual layman should stand before the world ~s a witness of the resurrection and life of the Lord Jbsus and as a symbol of the living God. All the laity, collectively and each One of them according ~o his" ability, must nourish the world with spiritual fruits (see Gal ¯ 5:22) and infuse into it the spirit which animates the poor, the humble, and the peacemakers of the Gospel whom the Lord declares to be blessed (see Mt 5:3-9). To put it in a single sentence: "What the soul is to the body is what Christians should be to the world." 120 CHAPTER V THE VOCATION OF ALL IN THE CHURCH TO HOLINESS 39. It is a point of faith that the Church' whose mystery is being set forth by this Council, is indefectibly holy. 'For Christ, the Son of God, who is proclaimed with the Father and the Spirit as the "only holy One," 121 loved the Church as His Bride, sacrificed Himself in order that He might make her holy (see Eph 5:25-6), joined her to Himself as His Body, and filled her with the gift of the Holy Spirit--and all this for the glory of God. Hence, all in the Church, whether they belong to the hierarchy or are directed by it, are called to holiness in accord with the saying~of the Apostle: "This is God's will--that you be made holy" (1 Th 4:3; see Eph 1:4). This holiness of the Church is and should be constantly manifested in the fruits of grace which the Spirit brings forth in the faith-ful; 'it is expressed in many ways in those individuals who in their walk of life strive for perfection and who edify others; and it appears in its own special way in the practice of those counsels which are generally termed evangelical. This practice of the counsels as undertaken from the impulse of the Spirit by many Christians either privately or in an institution or state approved by the Church furnishes and should furnish, to the world a luminous witness and example of this holiness. m Epist. ad Diognetum, 6: ed. Funk, I, p. 400. See St. John Chrysostom, In Matth., Horn. 46 (47), 2: P.G., 58, 478, on the leaven in the dough. :aRoman Missal, the Gloria in Excelsis. See Lk 1:35; Mk 1:24; Lk 4:34; Jn 6:69 (ho hagios tou theou [the holy one of God]); Acts 3:14; 4:27 and 30; Heb 7:26; 1 Jn 2:20; Ap 3:7. 4. 4. 4. The Church. : VOLUME 241 1965 ÷ ÷ Vatican Council I1 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 40. To each and every one of His followers, no matter what their place in life, the Lord Jesus, the divine Master and Model of all perfection, preached the holiness of life of which He Himself is the author and the perfecter: "You, therefore, are to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Mr 5:48).122 Into all of His followers He has sent His Holy Sp!rit who inwardly moves them to love God with their whole heart, their whole soul, their whole mind, and their whole strength (see Mk 12:30) and to love each other as Christ loved them (see Jn 13:34; 15:12). Called by God not because of their achievements but by reason of His own plan and His own grace and justified in the Lord Jesus, the followers of Christ really become in the baptism of faith sons of God and sharers in the divine nature and are thereby made truly holy. Accord-ingly, with the help of God they must preserve and per-fect in their lives the holiness they have received. They are warned by the Apostle to live "as becomes those who are holy" (Eph 5:3), "as persons chosen by God, holy and beloved," to clothe themselves "with tenderness of heart, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience" (Col 3:12), and to possess unto holifiess the fruits of the Spirit (see Gal 5:22; Rom 6:22). Since, however, we all offend in many ways (Jas 3:2), we are continually in need of God's mercy and must each day pray: "Forgive us our offences" (Mt 6:12).1~3 Hence, it should be perfectly clear to everyone that all the Christian faithful of whatever rank or condition are called to the fullness of Christian life and the perfection of charity.124 And it is by this holiness that a more human way of living is promoted even in earthly society. Every bit of strength received by them according to the measure of Christ's giving must be used by the faithful in achiev-ing this perfection so that, having been conformed to His likeness, they may follow His footsteps, carry out the will of the Father in all things, and totally commit themselves to the glory of God and the service of their neighbor. In this way the holiness of the People of God will bring forth the kind of abundant harvest that is to be clearly seen throughout the history of the Church in the lives of the saints. 41. In the various forms and duties of life there is but ,one holiness~ to be cultivated by those who are led by the l-~See Origen, Comm. in Rom., 7, 7: P.G., 14, 1122 B; pseudo- Macarius, De oratione, 11: P.G., 34, 861 AB; and St. Thomas, Summa theologiae, 2-2, q.184, a.3. ~See St. Augustine, Retract., II, 18: P.L., 32, 637 f.; and the encyclical of Plus XII, Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943: Acta Apos-tolicae Sedis, v. 35 (1943), p. 225. =~See the encyclical of Pius XI, Rerum omnium, January 26, 1923: Acta Apostolicae Sedis, v. 15 (1923), pp. 50 and 59-60; the same Pontiff's encyclical, Casti connubii, December 31, 1930: Acta Apos- Spirit of God and who, obedient to the voice of the Father whom they adore in spirit and in truth, follow the poor, humble, and crossladen Christ so that they might deserve to be sharers in His glory. Each one, ac-cording to his own gifts and duties, should advance un-hesitatingly along the road of that living faith which arouses hope and works through charity. In the first place, the pastors of Christ's flock must discharge their ministry in a holy, eager, humble, and courageous way in imitation of the great and eternal Priest, the Pastor and Bishop of our souls; done in this way, their ministry will be a powerful means to their own sanctification. Those who have been chosen for the full-ness of the priesthood are endowed with sac

Issue 24.6 of the Review for Religious, 1965. ; Sanctification. thrgugh Virginity by Charles~A. Schleck, C.S.C. 829 The Church~s ~Holiness and Religious Life by Gustave Martelet, S.J. 882 Renewal in the Ex~rcise Of Authority by Thomas Dubay, S.M. 914 The Priesthgod and Celibacy by Jean Galot, S.J. 930 .The Religious Peter Pan by James D~I, Mahoney, M.D. 957 Communication: in ;Religious Life by Richard:.M~ M~Keon, S.J. 962 ~ Survey of Roman" Documents 967 rows, News, Previews 974 Questions and Answers 979 Book Reviews 982 . Indices for Volume 24, 1965 995 VOLUME 24 NUMBER 6 November 1965 CHARLES A. SCHLECK, c.S.C. Sanctification through Virginity Doctrinally speaking,* the objective excellence of virginity over marriage cannot be called into question. It is a truth dogmatically defined by the Church and is quite explicitly taught in Sacred Scripture.x Moreover, the esteem and veneration, the maternal solicitude and affection which the Church has always shown for the "choicest portion of the flock of Christ" ~ is evident to anyone who would examine her docnmentation in re-gard to this manner of living,s Nor is this any matter for wonder. From the very beginning the first Christians had a very vivid awareness of the gospel demands not only in the realm of dogma but also in that of the following of Christ. Rather quickly the better Christians voluntarily embraced the condition of ascetics or of the continent.4 These, actuated by love and disdaining the cares of the world, overcame that division of heart which is so easy and yet which is so full of danger, and dedicated or con-secrated themselves wholly to Christ. In so doing they made a perpetual transfer of their entire life to Christ and to the Church and the Christian community, in ¯ This is the third of a series of six lectures that Father Schleck gave in 1962 to the Conference of Major Superiors of Women Re-ligious of the United States. The first of the series, "The Major Su-perior and the Meaning of Her Subjects' Vocation," was printed in REvmw FOR RELIGIOUS, V. 24 (1965), pp. 161-87; the second, "Poverty and Sanctification," appeared in the REVIEW, V. 24 (1965), pp. 548- 88. 1See Denzinger-Sch6nmetzer, Enchiridion symbolorum, n. 1810 (English trs. in The Church Teaches, n.866); Mt 19:11 ft.; 1 Cot 7:25 ft., 38, 40. This truth is recalled in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Chapter 5, paragraphs 39-40 (English translation in REVIEW FOR RELm~OUS, V. 24 [1965], pp. 707--8). 2 St. Cyprian, De habitu virginum, 3 (P.L., v. 4, col. 455). s See my The Theology of Vocations (Milwaukee: Bruce, pp. 315-21. ~ See F. Vandenbroucke, O.S.B., "La vie religieuse au cours des si~cles," La vie religieuse dam l'Eglise du Christ (Bruges: Descl~e de Brouwer, 1964), p. 19. Father Charles A. Schleck, C.S.C., is a faculty member of Holy Cross College; 4001 Harewood Road, N.E.; Wash-ington, D. C, 10017. VOLUME 24, 1965 829 4. 4. 4. C. A. Schleck~ REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 830 which they made their Lord present through the special engagement they assumed. This mystical marriage to Christ and this gift of them-selves to the Christian community was at first enacted spontaneously and was accomplished more by their ac-tual existence and manner of life than by any express rite or within any well-defined structure or framework. Soon, however, they began to constitute a state and a rank set apart and recognized by the Church, such that profession of virginity began to be made publicly and was recognized and strengthened by a bond that gradu-ally grew more and more firm and stable. It was then that the Church in accepting the virgin's desire to lead this way of life in her midst publicly consecrated her as a person inviolably united to Christ and the Church. This was done by means of a rite that borrowed all of its em-phasis from the nuptial rite and was rightly regarded as one of the most beautiful ceremonies existing in the whole of the ancient liturgy. It was in and through this action that the Church clearly distinguished these public virgins from all others who had bound themselves to God and the life of the Church by merely private obliga-tions. This profession of the life of virginity was soon sur-rounded by a rather vigilant and rigorous asceticism and was at the same time nourished by definite practices of piety and of the various Christian virtues, both for the edification of the people of God and also because of the inevitable weaknesses of the majority of men. All this development of the life of virginity has been most won-derfully placed before us by the early fathers of the Church who present us with a picture or image of the virgin dedicated to Christ and the Church that has per-haps never been surpassed and perhaps not even equaled. It is in their writings that we shall find most clearly and vividly depicted everything either interior or exterior that could in any way concern virginal sanctity and perfection. After peace came to the Church in the time of Con-stantine, it gradually became the practice of the con-secrated virgins to add to this consecration the express profession of poverty and obedience. Moreover, they began to live together in common as much for the love of solitude and mutual assistance and edification as well as for protection against the rather grave dangers then extant in Roman society. This practice the Church herself generally commended, even though she did not actually impose it until some time later on when she forbade liturgically consecrated virgins to live in their own homes or in a rather loose sort of community life. This discipline of the Church gradually led to tha~ form of religious life which we call strict enclosure. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries congrega-tions of women sprang up who professed virginity as well as the other evangelical counsels and yet- who were not considered "religious" in the strict sense of this word because their vows were not publicly and officially ap-proved by the Church. Indeed, even after they had re-ceived provisory legislation through the Conditae a Christo of Leo XIII in 1900 they were not considered as "religious" or "regulars" in the strict sense and in the law of the Church. This status was granted t6 them only with the promulgation of the Code of Canon Law. Yet for all this development of the life and profession of virginity and for all the solicitude and love which the Church has shown towards those who have embraced this way of life, the excellence and the superiority of it have not always seemed to remain clearly impressed on the minds of those inside and outside the Church. And the argument: "To what good is all this loss of woman-hood and this voluntary practice of barrenness?" has perdured. I suppose that there are basically two reasons for this. The first is the ever growing understanding and appreciation and depth insight into the beauty and sanctity of married life, with its contemporary expres-sion as the full development of the woman's personality and feminine powers and of her reflection of the image of the Church as the Spouse of Christ. The other reason perhaps has been the absence, up until quite recently, of a more positive approach to virginity, due to the in-fluence of a more or less puritanical or Manichaean understanding of the whole concept of sexuality. In fact, it became so delicate a subject that it was considered almost dangerous to speak about, especially when the audience happened to be those who had dedicated their lives to Christ or were thinking of doing so. As a result of this, the true splendor and beauty and richness of virginity dedicated to Christ or marriage to Christ be-came more and more obscured, less attractive, and fi-nally, in the minds of some, inferior or less excellent or only equal, even objectively speaking, to the way of life which is marriage in Christ. The importance of a more positive approach and un-derstanding of virginity is therefore quite evident, and this for two reasons. First, there is the need to reinstate it in its God-given place in the plan of salvation, in the eyes of both those inside the Church as well as outside. The second lies in the fact that often in the case of the woman virginity is the real determining factor of her vocation to a state of perfection. Sometimes by a kind of ÷ ÷ ÷ Virginity VOLUME 24/ 1965. 83] ÷ ÷ ÷ REVIEW~FOR RELIGIOUS 832 intuition given or communicated to her with the grace of vocation she realizes that the values offered her in mere human love are obstacles or could easily become obstacles to her wish and intent to achieve the fullness of Christian love and perfection. In order to arrive at some understanding of the prac-tice of virginity, it would be well for us to analyze it right from its origins so to speak, to hold it up to the light of faith so that the full richness of its content, its beauty and splendor might be the more evident so that you might know it yourselves and pass it on to those whom God has entrusted to your guidance and care. To do this adequately I would like to follow a plan similar to that used when treating the practice of evangelical poverty, We will, therefore, consider (1) the practice of chastity in general; (2) what religious chastity adds to the practice of chastity in general; (3) what its aims are; (4) what its fruits are; and (5) some practical suggestions to be used in the training of your religious along these lines. Chastity in General If we were to attempt to define the virtue of chastity we would arrive at something like the following: It is a part of the cardinal virtue of temperance that moderates the use of venereal or sexual pleasures. It receives its name from the Latin word "castigare" which means to curb because this is one of its functions, perhaps the one that is most experiential among us. It is a virtue or dy-namism or spiritual force, a perfectant of our capacities for life, including and bringing our liberty into play. This force resides not only in the soul but also in the body, at least to a certain extent, since the soul impresses its own controlling and directive force over the body. It is precisely th.is, its belonging primarily to the soul, that led St. Augustine to point out that so long as the mind holds to its observance one can never sin against the vir-tue of chastity regardless of what might happen within one's physical or emotional affective make-up. It is a virtue which every human being stands in the greatest need of since it centers around those pleasures which are very quickly aroused and which are more impetuous and which can so easily lead us away from the path of virtue and holiness. And whatever consent is given to them has a way of increasing their attraction and weak-ening the mind and the heart, casting it down from the heights of one's calling. In a sense, nothing so narrows the heart as impurity; and nothing so expands it as chastity practiced in obedience to the law of Christ which is love. Like every other virtue chastity has both a negative aspect about it and a positive one. Negatively speaking it is the absence of impurity, an absence that is not merely the result of temperament or of lethargy, but an absence that is brought about or is due to the directive and con-trolling force which the virtue and disposition of chastity places on one's affective make-up. Thus we mnst dis-tinguish between the spontaneous reaction to movements of the sexual powers and the consent of the will to them. The spontaneous reaction is natural and morally in-different. Without being in any way evil it is rather the sign of a healthy and normal and robust temperament. That is why in speaking of chastity as an angelic virtue we must be very cautious. We are. not to understand that the sexual powers, both genital and emotional, are not felt. This would be to confuse virtue with what might be definitely a deficiency or weakness or mere lethargy. No, a pure person is one who has come to master the attrac-tions of the flesh; he is not at all to be confused with one who is insensible to them.5 It also has a positive aspect about it, one which gives a person a positive orientation toward the whole notion of sex or of femininity and mas-culinity. So understood, the final end of the virtue or perfectant which we call chastity is the integration or harmonization of the passional dynamism or of the geni-tal and emotional spheres with the directives of the mind adhering to the law of the Lord. Its function is not to kill or suppress these areas of human personality but to make them live and function in a way fitting to one's state of life. Thus the upshot of the activity of the virtue of chastity is not the bringing about of insensibility (which would only serve to give rise to traumatic ex-periences later on) but rather integration or habitual sexual balance on all levels of human personality, geni-tal, emotional, and spiritual. The pure person is one who perceives the mystery of sex, its depth, its serious-n We should remember that the virtue of chastity is different from what St. Thomas calls the force of continence. The latter is only an imperfect virtue. Its seat is not in the concupiscible area of man's passionality, but in the will or the area of the voluntarium. The con-tinent person (as opposed to the chaste person) has an understand-ing and a spiritual love of chastity, but his passions are not yet moderated; they continue to have their desires independent of the ra-tional order. They are ordered from within to the desires of the mind. Continence exercises over the passions what we would call a "police action" or a repression that almost forces them to revolt, whereas the real virtue of chastity grows something like a democratic regime in which the opposition collaborates for the common good. Briefly, only the virtue of chastity realizes the successful harmonization and there-fore humanization of the passions and the sexual under the inspira-tion of the mind and will. All sexual education must aim at this Christian humanization and harmonization (See A. PI,~, O.P., "In the Light of St. Thomas," Religious Chastity: Its Conditions [Ottawa, Canada: Canadian Religious Conference, 1963], p. 168). Virginity VOLUME 24, 1965 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ness, its intimacy. A chaste person is one who under-stands the sublime purpose and fundamental significance of sex and" the consequent fearful profanation which its abuse represents. And this is as it should be. For from the very beginning the Scriptures make of human sexual-ity something sacred, something associated with the divine, with the image of God in man. This is by no means the whole story, but it does form the basis of the entire story. Thus the production of human life through the "knowledge" of woman by man, as the Scriptures have it, seems to have been the best image we had to describe creation at this time, since in this production we have creation itself, the womb of the mother being the scene of a direct and special intervention of God Himself. This is the first reason why we believe that human sexuality is especially sacred. Thus femininity and masculinity for the Christian is something that is sacred in a very technical sense; and'when we find it or picture it in Christian marriage it is more sacred still, since it contains and shows forth the redeeming love of God--the love of Christ for the Church and the answer-ing love of the Church for Christ. But to be sacred means first of all to be dangerous, even though it means much more than this. If we profane the sacred we know that we shall be destroyed by it. I think it is safe to say that this is why we have taboos and restrictions in every society surrounding sexuality. These are expressions, or at least they begin as expressions, df the reverence and fear which is proper in the presence of something ~hat is truly sacred. Thus there would be something definitely wrong with a societ~ which did not have some restrictions or taboos placed on se~. It is dangerous not because it is evil; it is dangerous because it is sacred, because it is powerful, capable of destroying the personality of an individual if it is divorced from the world of love and marriage; and equally capable of bring-ing one through the power of grace and the paschal myster.y of Christ to eternal union with God when em-ployed in.the service of love and marriage.6 Thus the pleasures of sex, like those of eating and drinking are good, no matter what their intensity is, if the), are well ordered by the per[ectant of chastity. For it is this which assures that the capacity for love be properly used on all of its various human levels. It is for these reasons that the chaste person is one who does not consider that there is anything base about sexuality, nor does he fear sexual realities unless there is an objectively real danger involved. But he is one who remains at a distance from it and its use in marriage so long as he is not called by God to enter into this way See Hubert McCabe, O.P., "Sex and the Sacred," Lile oI the Spirit, 16 (196l), pp. 70-80. of life. Reverence, then, and acceptance o] sexuality, not disgust or fear or shame, are the fundamental results which the virtue of chastity gives to an individual with regard to the divine orientation of sex indicated to us in the opening book of revelation and developed so mar-velously in the Christ-Church image of St. Paul.7 There is, however, one thing which the Christian attitude toward sex never forgets--that it is possessed by persons who labor under the economy of sin; and that means that a greater caution must be exercised in this matter than would otherwise have been necessary. And it is perhaps this aspect which the modern world in its attempt to bring out its beauty and sublimity has at times overlooked as the problems we are faced with today clearly indicate.8 Virginity or Religious Chastity and What It Adds to Chastity in General When we come to consider this virtue as it affects religious or those who have consecrated their chastity to God, we are presented with certain nuances which clearly 7 Eph 5:22 ft. 8i am not inveighing against current writing on chastity which tends to be entirely positive. This is all to the good. What I have in mind here is the "stress" character of much of this writing; that is, an emphasis placed on one or other elements or ingredient of what is really a very complex or polygoned reality. When this is not understood by the reader of such articles, it is quite possible for rather one-sided views or positions or attitudes or stances to be formed---ones which are not necessarily intended by the author. For example, present-day stress on the need for religious to be immanent, or incarnational, or present in the world, while to a certain extent correct and necessary, has caused a forgetfulness of the transcendent mission and apostolate the religious is called upon to exercise in the Church. Separation from the world is a necessary part of the complex reality of religious consecration just as much as is immanence. This visible renunciation of the world and of some of its values is done not out of lack of esteem for them but in fulfillment of service to the Body of Christ. This is quite clearly indicated in the recent Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Chapter 6, paragraph 46 (English trans-lation in REvmw fOR REL~e~OUS, V. 24 [1965], pp. 716--7). AS Father Congar notes, the religious profession engages the one who makes it to renounce the world as a plan of life to belong more entirely and more definitively to God and His work. The world is a milieu of anrbiguity, filled with occasions of evil, filled with hin-drances that prevent us from being all to God and with seductions that can turn us away from Him. That is why it is essential to the religious life not only to disengage one from the terrestrial and con-secrate oneself to God by the vows but also to separate oneself from the conditions of the life of the world by embracing the rule. I am sure that Father Congar is not limiting his remarks to cloistered communities. See "Les lemons de la thdologie," in Le rdle de la re-ligieuse clans l'Eglise (Paris: Cerf, 1960), pp. 34--5. As he remarks: "A religious is a Christian who in the desire to belong to God with-out reserve, and without going back, goes out of the world and en-ters a structure of life organized for the service of God--which the world is not" (p. 36). The amount of separation will, of course, de-pend on the particular nature of each religious institute. ÷ ÷ ÷ Firginity VOLUME 24, 1965 ~. A. $chleck, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 836 distinguish it from the virtue of chastity as practiced by other Christians and which establish its peculiar pre-eminence or excellence. The first modification which the practice of chastity by a religious implies is that it provides one with a more ample field or area in which to practice it. For it demands that she abstain from all, even legitimate and virtuous or sanctifying, use of her procreative powers given to her by God. Such an ampli-fication of the exercise of the virtue might involve greater and more protracted difficulties to be sure, but it also in-volves the reception of more grace and supernatural aids. Again, religious chastity differs from the chastity of those living in the world, whether single or married, by its being embraced or ratified by vow. It is especially this nuance which clearly and unmistakably distinguishes the practice of chastity proper to religious or those in the states of perfection from all other forms or types of chastity. Indeed, it is this modification which makes the observance of chastity in the case of a religious pass into the exercise of another virtue distinct from that of chastity. It is St. Thomas who points this out so succinctly in his treat-ment of this virtue. There are two factors which make the chastity of religious a distinct virtue, namely virgin-ity: (1) the resolution to abstain forever from all sexual pleasure proper to the married state; and (2) that this promise be made to God for the specific purpose of de-voting oneself to the contemplation and service of the divine. As he says: "Virginity as a virtue denotes the purpose confirmed by vow of observing perpetual in-tegrity . Now the end which renders virginity praise-worthy is that one may have leisure for divine things." ~ Thus the essential work of virginity is not at all some-thing selfish. It is not a way of protecting one's freedom for the sake of some temporal or earthly career. It is rather the contemplation of the divine. It is embraced precisely in order to make one free for God, for commu-nity and for humanity. If it were not undertaken for these purposes it would very likely lead to self-preoccupation, self-indulgence, and egotistic involvement in one's own problems, terminating in one or other form of psycholog-ical maladjustment. Thus the work of chastity in the case of the religious is the communion with the Word of God either in Himself or as we see Him in our brethren; and this work has been chosen for virgins by God Him-self. This truth was very clearly indicated by Pius XII in his encyclical Sacra virginitas: Here also it must be added as the Fathers and Doctors have clearly taught, that virginity is not a Christian virtue unless it is embraced for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, that is, unless ~2-2, q.152, aa.3-4. we take up this way of life precisely in order to be able to de-vote ourselves more freely to divine things, to attain heaven more surely, and with skillful efforts to lead others more readily thereto. Those, therefore, who do not marry because of exag-gerated self-interest, or because they shun the burdens of mar-r! ag.e .cannot claim for themselves the honor of Christian virginity. In this of course, the Sovereign Pontiff was merely re-echoing the teaching of bofh our Lord and St. Paul: "There are other eunuchs who have made themselves so for the sake of the kingdom of heaven"; "A virgin is free to think about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy in body and spirit." 10 10 Mt 19:11-2; 1 Cor 7:34. Here it might be wise for us to mention the difference between chastity and virginity and the implica-tions which the latter adds to the former. Chastity is a virtue, as we have seen, which excludes or moderates the indulgence of the sexual appetite according to the norms proper to one's state of life. If voluntary chastity excludes indulgence in carnal pleasure for life, it is said to be perfect. If not, then it is said to be imperfect. There are several groups of persons who would fall into this second cate-gory: (1) those not married but who have not renounced the inten-tion of doing so; (2) those who are married when they use their sexual faculties within marriage; and (3) the widowed. (The words "perfect" and "impcrfect" leave much to be desired since they could easily imply unfavorable nuances of meaning; but, at any rate, the distinction is clear.) Chastity is distinguished from virginity in that the latter implies bodily integrity or at least the absence of any voluntary and complete exercise of sexuality. Virginity is a virtue when it is preserved for a praiseworthy motive; for example, for the sake of the kingdom of God. Thus understood, virginity is irrepffrably lost by sexual pleasure voluntarily and completely experienced whether legitimately (within marriage) or illegitimately. It is not lost by the rupture of the virginal membrane (hymen)--this can happen in many different ways (for example, surgical operation, hormonal treatment, horseback riding, and so forth); nor by sexual pleasure involuntarily experienced (for example, involuntary orgasm); nor even by bodily violation un-dergone against one's will even if this should result in pregnancy and the birth of a child. The sole criterion of virginity's presence or absence in an individual lies in the presence or absence of sexual pleasure voluntarily and completely experienced. Consequently, when we equate virginity and religious chastity we are speaking in an ideal rather than in the technical sense, at least usually. Virginity in the strict sense is not required for religious profession. The widowed are eligible for profession as well as those who have had sexual experience outside of marriage whether volun-tarily or involuntarily. It is sufficient that one who has had sexual experience give assurance of being able to abstain from every moral act contrary to consecrated chastity in the present and the future and without any extremely great tensions or disturbances. She must give evidence of being able to live a chaste life not only in deed but in thought and desire, for life, and with a basic calm and peace of soul. It is very important that these ideas be made clear to novices, that is, candidates who have not yet made profession of vows. It is possible that some may have had the habit of masturbation before coming to the convent. This should have been overcome for a suf-ficient period of time prior to admission. It is a sound psychological + + + Virginity VOLUME 24, 1965 837 C. A. $chleck, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 838 It is because of this--that a person vows to preserve chastity perpetually, at least intentionally, when she sets out on the path of the religious life--that her practice of chastity is not just an amplification of the or.dinary virtue as would be true, for example, in regard to religious obedience as distinguished from ordinary obe-dience; no, it passes into the exercise and practice of another virtue, distinct from that of chastity, namely, virginity. Consequently, every act on the part of such a person whether this be positive--using one's womanly make-up, or affective faculties for God, or whether it be negative--rejecting the temptations of the flesh or re-principle that the habit should have been overcome in the same circumstances under which it was contracted and practiced. If the motivation to enter the convent has not been sufficiently strong to enable her to overcome her habit prior to entrance she has not dem-onstrated positive fitness. It is possible for it to disappear for a time only to reoccur later. See my The Theology of Vocations, p. 236, foot-note 329, for further discussion of this case. It is also possible that a candidate may have been guilty of sin with another at some time previous to entrance. If she has repented and emotionally adjusted, there is no reason for her not continuing on in her vocation. If the effect has been negative, however, the answer would be much different. A single experience of this nature could leave a lasting mark on her personality and fill her with feelings of guilt and unworthiness which an entire lifetime could not expiate. She may be entering the convent with the expiation of her fault as the predominant motive for coming. If she does enter, she will be constantly reminded in unintentional ways that she is not a virgin; and every exhortation concerning the spiritual beauties of virginal union with Christ will only serve as a fresh reproach to her. It is possible that she would continually feel inferior to her fellow re-ligious, no matter what her other talents and contributions would be; and she might ultimately come to feel that she does not belong in religion at all, especially when she experiences the crises which we mentioned above. Her sin will ever stand between herself and Christ. If this were the case, or if this would seem to be the likely eventuality, then she should not attempt religion--not because of her initial fail-ure, but because of the effect of this experience on her personality. Finally, if her chastity were violated against her will, it is possible that this could have caused such a traumatic experience as to leave a lasting mark on the girl's personality. This could very easily inter-fere with an easy and calm living of the religious life. It is because of all this that it seems most desirable that the person entrusted with the formation of the novices and postulants, while avoiding any undue curiosity or scrutinizing questions or demand-ing any manifestation of conscience, be able to know the position of the candidates in regard to chastity. This refers not only to moral lapses and temptations but to the whole mass of attitudes, memories, thoughts, imagination patterns, and so forth so that she may be able to help the novice make a correct judgment regarding her sexual maturity in reference to the vow of chastity. If this information is made in confidence, and it usually is, obviously this could not be used in making a decision for or against admitting to profession. But the novice mistress would be able by working with the girl to bring her to see that she does not have the proper qualities for this voca-tion and that she would be much happier in following another walk of life in seeking Christian perfection. The girl herself would then withdraw of her own accord. nouncing certain pleasures (genital,. emotional, and spirit-ual proper to wifehood and motherhood)---has a special excellence about it which it does not have (objectively, at least) ~nd cannot have in one who has not vowed her chastity completely and perpetually (at lea~t inten-tionally) to God. It is for this reason, perhaps, that St. Bernard remarked there, could be no more evident mark of the celestial origin of this vocation; for by it one re-tains while here on earth a resemblance to a purbly spiritual creature in a material world. The Aims of Virginity Proceeding to the aims or goals of virginity, it would seem that any analysis or study would point up the following: (1) it brings about a more perfect freedom of spirit; (2) it enables one to arrive at the closest possible union with Christ; (3) it introduces one into the eschato-logical life of eternity; (4) it effects a perfect holocaust of a human being to God; and (5) it brings about the pey-fection of fruitfulness or motherhood in the case of the religious woman. Freedom of Spirit One of the aims of virginity is to create an independ-ence of spirit from those things which render the per-fect and total service of God difficult. This was clearly pointed out by St. Paul in the famous passage to the Corinthians where the subject of virginity is treated along with marriage.~1 For if one desires to practice virginity, it is so that her heart will not be divided. On this score, of course, we must be cautious. We are not to understand that the whole married life cannot pos-sibly be sanctified. No, marriage between Christians has the power of sanctifying all that is corporal, and, in a sense, to transform the whole of the two persons thus related as Christ to the Church even to the very depth of their life of the flesh. It is a profound form of earthly sanctification such that even the most instinctive and spontaneous bodily reactions of man and woman are sanctified and can become, are meant to become, a com-munion of charity between them. Thus, conjugal love is not at all a stranger to Christian perfection or love, nor does it contradict it. Quite the contrary. Marriage is ordained to manifest or express and realize on the body level both the gift of self demanded by true love and the union of souls already expressed and begun by the physical union. In surrendering her body to her husband the wife realizes an abandonment of her whole being that has no equivalent in the realm of corporal realities. 11 1 Cor 7. ÷ + + Virginity VOLUME 24; 1965 839 4. 4. 4. . A. $chleck, C.$.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 840 The domain of sexuality constitutes the physical center as well as the corporal sign of what is most intimate, most secret in the person. On account of its purpose as the source of life and as a result of its determinant action on the whole person with whose organism and psychism it is imbued, sexuality occupies a unique position which makes it penetrate to the heart of the mystery of the human person where the meeting of the carnal and spiritual spheres is accomplished. Thus, in surrendering to her husband the right over her own body on the level of sexuality, the wife recognizes an analogous right over her soul. She reveals and gives to him her most profound and personal possession, what constitutes her a different and distinct person from any other. She shows and en-trusts to him the secret of her being that modesty makes her up to this time and will continue to make her hide from all others. Thus the gift of her body signifies and realizes the gift of her soul or rather the gift of her entire person. Among human beings there can be no more total gift; for even the greatest friendship between non-married persons abstains from all communication on the level of marital sexuality and leaves intact this re-served domain whose sharing would perfectly complete the great intimacy already created.12 Enjoying full satisfaction on the genital and emotional levels, the wife does not stop at the lower pleasures and joys but tends with all her strength toward the highest spiritual pleasures and joys. This expansiveness is the fruit of the mutual love that husband and wife bear to each other. The woman finds an answer to the needs of complementarity that she feels within herself, for she finds in her husband the virile qualities that she sought in order to favor the full development of her specifically feminine qualities. At the same time she enjoys the satisfying consolation of bringing to her husband the feminine part that is lacking in his manly qualities. This is the ideal, of course. But because we are crea-tures existing under the economy of sin and redemption, a redemption which is not complete while we make our exodus to the Father, a redemption which still leaves certain weaknesses within our composite of body-soul, a most intense kind of asceticism is necessary to bring into the pattern of holiness and virtue proper to Christ and the Church all the details of the activity of the flesh that is proper to marriage. The soul has to be possessed of as great a depth of intensity as the body, if the freedom and joy and the constant growth in holiness which is meant to characterize Christian marriage are actually to ~ See A. Perreault, "A Factor in Natural and Spiritual Progress," Religious Chastity: Its Conditions (Ottawa, Canada: Canadian Re-ligious Conference, 1963), p. 65. be experienced. The division which is felt and which exists within the human composite and person as a result of the existence of concupiscence or the law of sin within our members is profoundly felt even in Christian marriage where the life of the flesh is lived to its human completion and usually with the greatest intensity. Thus, while it is true that Christian spouses can see the beauty of their union of life and love as a gift from God and while they may vie with each other in seeking Him through each other, desirous of rising above the genital and emotional spheres by integrating them in order to see God in the development of their spiritual life, very small is the number of those who actually attain the full realization of their marriage as blessed by God. No matter how much the will of one who is married be-longs to God, still the heart is no longer His alone. This has been rather clearly indicated by the late Pius XII in an address given a year before his death: Even though marriage is a true sacrament, one of the seven sources of grace instituted by Christ Himself, and even though it involves a mutual offering of one spouse to the other and cements a real union of lives and destinies, still there remains something that is held back, something that is not actually given, or at least, not wholly given. Only virgin souls can make that offering of self that for other souls is an unattainable goal. For these (virgin souls) the first step of their ascent to God is their last step (that is, definitive) and the end of their ascent is at once a lofty peak and a profound abyss.1~ Because the unity of aims is difficult in the married state, virginity acts as a reraovens prohibens or a condi-tion or climate of life that removes obstacles to greater nnion with God and to a greater service of humanity. It is the vow of virginity that establishes one in heart and soul, or in one's whole person, and definitively, in what might be termed supra-human solitude, such that perfect purity and liberty of heart is brought about enabling one to give oneself entirely to the love of God and the consid-eration of divine things and to the service of the com-munity of man. Consecrated virginity is the concern of the human soul that is illuminated by a special grace. For the virgin of Christ is not only obliged to preserve her virginity of heart and body until she marries, but forever, and this by a ~ompletely free and irrevocable decision consciously and joyfully embracing all that this entails on all levels of her being. It is because of this free and irrevocable decision that the consecrated vir-gin is set apart from all other women who though they may be virgins, still have not ratified or confirmed as Pius XII, Address to Nursing Sisters, April 24, 1957; English translation, The States o[ PerIection, ed. G. Courtois (Westminster: Newman, 1962), p. 288. + ÷ + Virginity VOLUME 24, 1965 841 C. A. Schleck, C.S.C. R~VIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 842 this status by vow, which implies a permanent proposal (at .least as far as one's present intentions are concerned) to belong wholly ~nd entirely to God. Only faith, of course, can accept the fact that the grace of vocation, the grace of virginal love, includes the grace .necessary to sublimate all the energies o{ nature. It is this grace of virginal love that must make present in the woman consecrating her life to God a balance .similar to that which is given man and woman through conjugal love raised by the grace of matrimony. Perhaps without entirely nnderstanding how this grace succeeds in bring-ing about this balance of nature and its secret inherent powers in the consecrated virgin, we have to admit that her special grace by an action different from that of the gr.ace of marriage makes it possible for her .to reach a development of her person, even human, that is even more profound than that realized in and through the activity of marriage.14 It is in this way that virginity transcends the division o{ our human personality which is necessarily implied in marriage, even though this be sacramental. Here we must be cautious, of course. We do not mean to say that concupiscence and the difficulties of the flesh, the spon-taneous movements and impulses .of the genital and emotional spheres of sexuality are not felt or experienced by one who has t~ken or made the vow of' virginity. What we mean to say is that these things are objectively transcended even though they may be subjectively felt. For virginity implies objectively or by way of a firm and irrevocable decision the renouncement of the sources from which this division within the human, person and the human heart normally proceeds, that is, the con-cupiscence of the flesh. What the married person and her husband must gradually attain through the grace Of marriage--the spiritualization of the flesh--the virgin accomplishes once and for all by entering upon her state of life.1~ Virginity, then, must be seen as a pref-erence of love for a person. It is the turning away from one form of charity only to assume a higher one. Thus it is without any real meaning if it does not denote a _deeply personal love, the decision, firm and stable, to remove from all men the personal mystery of oneself and to open this only to Christ.4n a* See my The Theology o] Vocations, pp. 340-3; and the ~ppendix of my The Sacrament o] Matrimony: d Dogmatic Study (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1964). ~ R. Gleason, s.J., To Live Is Christ (New York: Shecd and Ward, 1962), pp. 126-7. ~o Here we should note that ~narriage also has a way of leading people to a deeper understanding of the excellence of virginity. The disappointment that is inevitable in all human relationships and encoutaters, the apparent or even real inability of the other to return The Closest Possible Union with Christ A second aim of virginity is that it serve to bring about the closest possible union with Christ. This aim, I think, is much more evident and visibly manifest in the case of the virgin vowed to Christ than in the case of the man. We know that the union of the soul with God, both as described in the Old Testament and in the New, has been often and most strikingly proposed as like that which exists between man and wife, such that a human person is likened to the Spouse or Bride of Yahweh or Christ.17 It is obvious that though every person is spiritually able to become the bride of Christ, yet only the woman is able to signify externally and visibly this bridal theme of man's union with God or this marriage which every Christian contracts in the depths of his person by his introduction into the life of grace. Only the woman can be naturally a bride. It is because of this that the reception ceremony of the man and woman is pictured under different external rites. The man is said to die to the world and to rise with Christ; he is said to become a new man in Christ. The woman on the other hand, even though she enjoys the application of this same paschal the love that has been given, leads one to look beyond human love and beyond the human lover for the perfect lover who is Christ. When one falls in love, he or she soon learns through the comparative fail-ure of the other person to provide perfect happiness that this can only be had in Christ. There is a time in all human love when one feels that everything, the whole glory of creation, is summed up in one person. But there comes a time when this feeling passes; and its passing can be a danger unless the individual has learned that the whole of creation, even the person who at one time or another seemed to sum up all its glory, is merely the expression of Him who made these things. Not all marriages are perfect; and the half-returned love, real or apparent, that is only too often the case in marriage is one of the keenest forms of participation in Christ's passion and cross. No human creature can satisfy us, but only God. This does not mean that love in marriage can never bring us peace. It means that there is no peace in love in marriage unless it is the love of God in the other. It means admitting that love can never be completely peace-ful because we never completely love the other in God. Consequently, marriage also has a way of leading one to the intuition which is often given to the one called to virginity: the values offered in human love, when this is supernaturalized, are still inferior to those which are offered to one who gives herself to an immediate union with the Lord. This latter is the anticipation of the life to which every human being will one day be called. Even marriage requires the spirit of virginity; this consists in an interior attitude of attachment and love for Christ which must penetrate into one's entire life. This is diffi-cult in marriage. It takes a long time even for the virgin consecrated to God. And it is acquired by her renouncement of natural affections so that Christ can become her unique love. 1~ For example: Hos 2:19 ft.; 3:1 ft.; Is 49:14-5,18,21; 50:1 ft.; 51:17 ft.; 52:1 ft.; 54:1-10; 60:1 ft.; 61:10 ft.; 62:2-4, 10-2; the entire Canticle of Canticles; 2 Cur 11:1-3; Gal 4:21-31; Eph 5:21-32; Mk 2:18-20; Mt 22:11-4; 25:1-13; Jn 3:22-30; 2:1-11; Ap 6:1-17; 19:6-10; 21:2-27; 22:17. + + ÷ Vlrgln~ty VOLUME 24, 1965 843 ÷ ÷ ÷ C. A. $chleck, C.S.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS theme, is usually said to become the bride of Christ. It is for this very reason that the ceremony of reception and/or profession is couched in terms of a nuptial or marriage ceremony. It is this very fact which shows the true sublimity of the virgin's decision. The veil which she receives at that time is not merely nor even primarily meant to conceal her from the indiscreet gaze of the world or tO hide her with Christ in God. No, it would seem to be primarily a sign of her innocence, of her virginity, of her belonging exclusively and perpetually in a virginal marriage relationship with Christ. For a girl wears a veil only at a time which has some relationship with union--such as first communion, marriage, or death. Of all w6men only the consecrated virgin has tradition-ally from the very beginnings of Christianity worn a veil so that the remembrance of what she has done by her consecration might never leave her mind or heart, that she as well as all others might find in her something sensible and visible, tangible or perhaps better, sacra-mental, to remind them of the spiritual reality which takes place deep within her at the moment of her dedication to the Lord. While all religious of both sexes are obliged to give themselves entirely to Christ, still the sacramentalism of their surrender is not exactly the same. They do not and cannot evoke the same image-symbol. Man evokes the death-resurrection symbol of the paschal mystery or baptism. Woman evokes the bride-symbol mentioned by St. Paul: "He would hallow i.t, purify it by bathing it in the water to which His word gave life, he would summon it into his own presence, the Church in all its beauty, no stain, no wrinkle, no such disfigurement; it was to be holy, it was to be spotless . " "I have betrothed you to Christ, so that no other but He should claim you, His bride without spot." is Thus the woman's role is one of willing submission to man. And the virgin's mission in the Church is to be given up wholly and entirely to Christ, to play the way of the interior life of union with Christ. To sacramentalize what is hidden is a kind of paradox; but it is the paradox of the vocation to vir-ginity dedicated to Christ. All must give themselves to Christ and must belong to Him as Holy Chnrch belongs to Him. But only the virgin, because she is a woman, because she can be naturally a bride, is able to evoke the image of perfect surrender to life in and for Christ and to make it something lovable and attractive. It is in this way that the virgin attempts to live out her own baptis-mal consecration in all of its visibility; for virginity is seen as a sign of liberation from possession by the tem-poral and of consecration to what is eternal or what is ~s2 Cor "11:2; Eph 5:26-7. above. And the virgin is a living, existential sign or sacrament of what Christ has done for us (liberation and consecration) and what humanity must do in return-- voluntary and spontaneous surrender by way of eternal faith and fidelity and love to Christ. The undividedness or singleness of purpose which we find in religious women goes far beyond that which is proper to creature and Creator and even beyond that which is proper to son and Father. It is one that re-sembles the union existing between lover and beloved; virginity is meant to bring about an intense community of life and love, of interests and desires such as is effected by marriage. It is for this reason that the vow of virginity for the fathers and scholastic theologians was equivalent to the .promise to seek perpetually the perfection of the spiritual marriage which is signified in the reception cere-mony or in religious profession when made by .a woman. Like marriage itself, the promise or vow of virginity is meant to have a permanence about it, one that is even greater and more sublime than that signified by an earthly marriage, since it perdures not only in this life but also in the next where it reaches or achieves its fullest realization. In a sense, of itself, virginity is indissoluble--because it is marriage with God. If it is soluble this is only something accidental to virginity; it comes from its earthly condition. It comes not from the bond itself, but rather from some deficiency on the part of the person making the vow. For it is just as easy to fall from the perfection of our engagement with Christ as it is to fall from the perfection of charity itself; in fact, much easier.Just as God permitted or indirectly al-lowed the Jews of the Old Testament to practice divorce, ob duritiam cordis, on account of the hardness of their hearts, until the time of the coming of Christ, so too does He allow a dispensation or dissolution of the vow of vii:ginity, ob duritiam cordis, on account of the weakness of man, until the law of the New Testament opens up into the law of eternity itself where there shall be no marrying or giving in marriage. Thus, the solu-bility of the bond of virginity vowed to God comes from the weakness of man in the face of the perfection of heaven. Both marriage and the religious sister's gift of herself to Christ signify the union of Christ with the Church, but in different ways. Christian marriage not only sym-bolizes the union of the Church with Christ but renews and re-creates it as the Mass does Calvary. And it does so in reference to its visible and tangible fruitfulriess. May we not say that the profession of the surrender of the virgin to Christ renews and re-creates the union of Christ with His Church with regard to the immaculate- Virginity VOLUME 24, 1965 ÷ ÷ ÷ C. A. Schleck, C.$.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ness of this union, its purity and innocence? Why it is not a sacrament is perhaps because this type of union, an immaculate union, is proper to eternity where there is no sacramental economy, where all shadows and images and even sacraments give way to reality itself. Indeed it would seem that to place virginity in the realm of sacramental realities would be to derogate from its excellence and perfection. For it would then take it out of. eternity and place it in time. Direct and immediate marriage with Christ is a state proper to fully realized eschatology and, therefore, does not demand any sacramental sign. It is the state of the bride of Christ in termino, not in via; and in termino there is no sacramental system. If the wife in Christian marriage is said to be the body-person of her husband as the Church is the body-person of Christ, then a fortiori the Christian virgin en-joys a similar relationship; her body-person is His body-person; and He cherishes her as He does Himself, for her union with Christ is nothing other than Christ loving Himself. From this it should be clear that virgins have as their reason for existence the making tangible of the perfect virginity of their mother the Church and the sanctity of her intimate union with Christ. They are those who reject the practice of marriage and yet love its mystic significance.1° ~ Roman Pontifical, Ceremony for the Consecration of Virgins. It has been the rather common conviction of the members of the Church that the reality of the Church needs a "typical" or representa-tive figure, or icon, even though she is so close to us that it is in her that we live and move and have our being. The Church is in some way visible to be sure, even physically, yet she is also remote because in her visible form we cannot touch her inmost reality. What we see and experience in her visible existence is quite fragmented. Both her invisible spiritual meaning and core and the totality of her external unity call for a "type" to personify her and make her present to us. I think that this should be recalled when there is an investiga-tion of the usefulness of the religious habit for women. The religious habit, especially for the woman, is not quite so accidental as some would make it out to be. It pertains very much to the sacramentality of the religious woman's mission or service or apostolate to the Church as the marches at Selma, Alabama, quite clearly showed. I wonder whether endugh attention has been focused on the prin-ciples that should guide any and every thought of change in this regard. These would seem to be of three orders: (I) the pronounce-ments of the Holy See; (2) the purpose of the religious habit; and (3) the circumstances of modern times. As far as the pronouncements of the Holy See are concerned, they are rather moderate. Pius XII spoke on the subject twice, in 1951 and again in 1952: "The religious habit: select one of such a kind that it will be an expression of the inner character, of religious simplicity and modesty; then it will be a source of edification for all; even for modern youth" (Discourse to Teaching Sisters, September 13, 1951). "In this crisis of vocations be watchful lest the customs, the way of life, or the asceticism of your religious families should prove a barrier or be a cause of failures. We are speaking of certain usages which if they had once a certain sig-nificance in a different cultural setting, do not possess it nowadays. The two states, marriage and virginity, are not at all opposed to one another. Rather they overlap. Virginity They are such that a young girl, who is genuinely good and coura-geous, would find them simply hindrances to her vocation. In our exposition on the subject last year, we gave various examples. To re-turn to the subject and say a word on the question of dress: the re-ligious habit should aways express consecration to Christ; that is what everyone expects and desires. For the rest, let the habit be suit-able and meet the requirements of hygiene. We could not fail to express our satisfaction when, in the course of the year, we saw that one or other congregation had already taken practical steps in this regard" (Address to Mothers General, September 15, 1952; a glance at the picture of the audience would have shown that while there were some modified habits, they all had veils or bonnets and were ankle length!). On September 8, 1964, Pope paul VI in speaking to a group of religious women at Castel Gondolfo remarked: "Here we come to the third reason for our spiritual joy in this meeting. It is that of noting your number and your fervor, that there are still today pure and strong souls who thirst for perfection and who are neither afraid nor asha~ned to wear the religious habit, the habit of total consecration of one's life to the Lord." As far as the purpose of the religious habit is concerned, two have been marked out in papal documents: simplicity and modesty, and consecration. It is true that even modern dresses or uniforms would fulfill the requirement of modesty and simplicity. But would they express the consecration and the representation of inner character and mission on the part of the sister--which is bridal certainly? And this symbol of consecration, and of representation was something that Plus wished to be retained and that Paul was happy to see in the religious to whom he spoke. It is on this score--the sacramentalism of the religious life that there is too little consideration today. The religious life is meant to be sacra-mental, that is, a visible expression of (a) poverty and detachment (the bride of Christ in poverty), (b) of obedience (the obedience of the Church to Christ), and (c) of virginity (of the Church's bridal relationship with Chris~, of the final destiny which every human being is to have bne day with God). This relationship can be shown visibly only by a woman as we have mentioned in this article. As a religious sister, it would seem that she has the duty of more publicly or visibly proclaiming this theme to the world than the member of a secular institute or a woman living a consecrated life in the world under private vows. It would seem that she should be the incarnation of the complete eschato!ogical destiny of the Church and of each member of the Church. Since only a woman can symbolize or sacra-mcntalize this bridal theme and eschatological destiny of the Church, wonld it not seem only right that she should perform this mission and function for the People of God, especially today when there is so much loss of the sacred? The objection might be raised that men do not wear their habits in public; why should women wear them then? I think this is rather begging the question and fails to realize the profound difference be-tween man and woman, a difference that is expressed especially in reference to their clothing---or at least should be. Man differs from woman as prose from poetry. And prose is word-sign; whereas poetry is image-symbol. Prose expresses things rather drably in comparison with poetry which offers us a rather unique medium of expression-- symbolic--in which the transcendent becomes immanent. The value of poetry would seem to lie not so much in itself as rather in what it enables us to be. It is profoundly evocative and generally has the ability to bring out a mu~h more engaged response than does prose or the cold reality. Similarly, the clothing of women is much more evocative (I believeI) and tends to bring about a much more engaged ÷ ÷ ÷ Virginity VOLUME 24, '1.965 847 + ÷ ÷ C. A. Schleck, .$.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 848 goes all the way along a road on which marriage stops at the hallway mark. Consequently, virginity is situated along the same line of li[e as marriage, though much further on. It transcends the earthly state of the magnum sacramentum spoken o[ by St. Paul.2° And it attains directly to the actual substance of the eternal marriage of the Church with Christ. That is why true marriage [or the fathers of the church was always the marriage of virgins with Christ or that of the human person with the Word of God made flesh. Christian marriage is held to be merely a counterpart of this in the temporal and material or physical older. Thus, to their minds, and it would seem that they are quite right in this, it is the marriage of virgins with Christ that acts as the type according to which earthly marriages are to be modeled, not vice versa. The most glorious thing about marriage is that it can be a sign or symbol of the spiritual mar-riage between Christ and His Church. Yet human mar-riage is not the most perfect symbol of the espousal between these two. It is the virginal espousal that pro-vides a better figure or image, therefore sign or sacra-ment, of this union, since the bridegroom of the virgin is not a human lover, but the Church's own bridegroom, the Lord Himself. The necessity of deepening this conviction for the per-son who has undertaken this way of life in the Church can also be seen from another approach to the meaning of virginity. The virgin must expect to be deprived of response than does the clothing of men. As someone has put it: "Everyone knows that packaging does make a lot of difference." These same observations are just as applicable to the religious woman and the clothing that she wears before the world. Finally, as far as the circumstances of our own day are con-cerned, these would have to be scientifically evaluated. If it could be proved (not just stated categorically as has been the usual pattern) that the religious habit of women is a definite obstacle to many vo-cations, and if it could be proved that both the faithful and the non-members of the Church ]or the most part are opposed to religious wearing habits in public, and if it could be proved that the nun's habit is a definite obstacle to ecumenism, at least for the majority of non-Catholics, then perhaps we should consider the possibility of some change. I am speaking here of the United States, since it would seem on the principle of territorial government that decisions of this nature should be the prerogative of the territorial hierarchy upon consultation with those who are involved. What I am personally afraid of is that an attitude or a stance which is hostile to the religious habit of women is being engendered by an unfavorable press. Often the press does not merely reflect the thinking of the people; it rather creates it, giving the impression that its statements reflect the ma-jority opinion and can be scientifically substantiated whereas often-times this is not true. Becanse of panic and perhaps the deep feminine desire to be accepted, quick changes are made which are deeply re-gretted within a few years. As the Gospel has it, the last state is worse than the first. ~o Eph 5:32. certain delights that only a wife can enjoy. Yet the genital sphere in her will continue to be the seat of im-pulses that will occasion the appropriate responses in her emotionality. Confused feelings can emerge from her nature arousing vague desires for some activity that would relieve the increasing tension. Images can grad-ually take shape demanding an eager and often anxious curiosity. An inexplicable and stubborn need for affec-tion may give rise even to a nostalgia which can make one experience deeply the effects of loneliness that might not have been suspected up to this time. In short, in the sexual spheres of one's personality there might very well appear with variable clarity and intensity a whole world of human warmth that is normally promised to the wife but from which the religious sister feels herself forever excluded. Or else if the meaning of these psychic phenomena does not reach the surface of consciousness, they can create in the emotionality a rather heavy at-mosphere that weighs down the impulses and slows down the activity of the spirit, at the same time as it brings on a rather indefinable uneasiness. The only thing ca-pable of maintaining proper balance at these times is the conviction in faith of what we have just described above, the virgin's spiritual or mystical marriage with Christ. Just as the active and loving presence of a woman's husband multiplies the energies of her being, so too the spiritual resources of the virgin will be continually in-creased by her faith's conviction that she is the object of God's incomprehensible love, by the certitude that she will never be abandoned by Him, and by her trusting sur-render to Him that is inspired by her love for Him. Virginity Introduces One into the Eschatological Life of Eternity From what we have just seen of the life of virginity as a direct marriage of the virgin with Christ, rather than an indirect one through some intermediary who repre-sents Him, it should be quite obvious that virginity in-troduces her into the eschatological life of eternity. Thus its meaning of undivided belonging to Christ in marital relationship is aimed at portraying to the whole world the end of time. There is a common desire on the part of the entire Church to see what a person in eternity, in vision, will be. It is in the virgin's vocation and in her person where this longing and desire ought to be satis-fied and sacramentalized. For her vocation is meant to manifest or make constantly visible for all to see the fact that the fulfillment of all history will be realized with the resurrection of the body. She reminds us that the Christian life here below has not yet reached its final term. It must always strive toward the future and ÷ ÷ Virginity VOLUr~ ~, 849 C. .4. Schlecl~, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 850 can never install itself in the temporal or in-human his-tory in such a way as .to disregard its future term. In fact just the opposite. Consecrated virginity has as one of its first services to the People of God to keep before their eyes the awareness that there is a wofld of realities which lies beyond the present one. It is an anticipated realization of the final transformation of the glory of the world to come inserting itself into our present situation. It is only on account of man's immortality that the risen person need no longer procreate. For the life of the res-urrection is not a life in flesh that is,doomed to die. It is, rather,,a life in God, in Christ; it is the life of man in the Spirit, loved in a body that is transformed by the divine doxa or glory. Hence the functions of the flesh become useless; procreation loses its meaning, which was to make up f6r the ravages of death. The virgin shows by her condition that such a life has already started for the Church. She testifies or acts as a witness by way of symbolized anticipation of the deliverance of the body of the flesh. She proclaims to.all that it is in Christ that man escapes the clutches of death and lives in the Spirit. Thus she is a prophecy in-carnate of the truth that the world of the flesh will disappear and give rise to the world of the Spirit where the flesh will have no power, since this world knows only the fruitfulness that comes from and through the Spirit. She is a constant proclamation to the world that no'sal-vation is to be expected from the flesh. Thus, the virgins of the Church renounce worldly hope but only because they know by faith that the world has no hope to pro-pose. Yet in their apparent loneliness they prophesy and announce and already themselves enjoy by way of special vocation and anticipation in faith the eschatolog-ical vistitation of the Spirit. It is foi: this reason that all persons, even the greatest of sinners, love to see especially in a woman the inno-cence of virginity. An immaculate life is always freshness and poetry and always a joy and enthusiasm and charm that has the power of conquering the so-called uncon-querable. It is because the life of virginity is eschatolog-ical that the virtue of virginity is called the angelic virtue and the state an ~ngelic way of life, for it seems to be a way of liv.ing that is proper to a nature that has bedn clothed with that incorruptibility and immort~ility which come only from the Spirit. Both the angel and the virgin are delivered from the necessit~ for marriage since both in a sense pertain to eternal life or to a life which shares in the eternali'now" of the community in God. From all this, it should be evident that among Chris-tians the life of virginity ought to be considered as th~ most perfect expression of the complete dependence of man upon grace. And of the virgin it can truly be said: "All is grace." For by a special act of God's predilection she is taken out of the ordinary task of humanity and established as a living sign of one whose redemption has reached not only to the soul but also to the body. For to be redeemed most perfectly is not a mere spiritual real-ity. It affects the whole of one's being, corporal as well as spiritual; it implies a necessary relationship with the body. It seems then that we are correct in concluding that virginity is a visible sign or sacramentalization of an internal attitude that ought to characterize every Chris-tian since our incorporation into Christ through baptism demands that we no longer live as pertaining to this world but with Christ who dwells in the glory of the Father. What the married woman does through an in-termediary the virgin does directly without the use of any intermediary; and in this way she shows that she is attempting the heroic, to live on earth as though she were already in vision, as though she were already cele-brating that marriage which is not temporal or passing but instantaneous and eternal. Thus the observance of virginity by some of the members of the Church is not the result or end product of fear, or panic at the ap-proach of some imminent disaster. It is rather an act of faith, hope, and especially of love. And the virgin is a living image of the salvation figure: that Christ has saved His bride the Church by immersing her in the laver of water in the word of life. He has made her die with Him and rise again; and at that moment He has united Himself with her as with a chaste virgin without spot or wrinkle, a bride dead to the flesh and raised to life in the Spirit of God. She is a sign, a constant sacrament or presence-in-mystery of the truth that salvation con-sists in marriage celebrated in death and resurrection; or, if you will, the virgin is a living memorial among us of the Easter mystery of the Church and of each of its members. She is meant to be a constant incarnation of the picture of the Church presented to us by John: "I saw a new Jerusalem and a new earth. And I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down from heaven, coming down from above, from God. She was adorned and beautified like a young bride ready for her husband. And I heard ~ voice from the throne cry, Behold the dwelling of God with men." 21 It is thus that the virgin lives already the life of the resurrected flesh and of the world to come, at least in an objective sense and in her heart. 22 Ap 21 : I-3. + 4- Virginity VOLUME 24, 1965 85! ÷ ÷ ÷ c. A. Schleck, C3.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 852 Virginity Contributes to Our Holocaustal Offering to God In the total view of virginity we are meant to see not only the notion of self-denial and renunciation which is indeed there and not to be at all minimized in our approach to this way of life, but also another element, the oblation of person that is made directly to the Lord. By the act of her consecration to God, the virgin takes something, her love-life on all of its levels, and makes this holy or as we usually say consecrates this and then offers it as a gift to the One whom she loves. This she does as a sign or testimony of her personal gift to Him alone. Thus perfect chastity or virginity is not only the integrity and purity of body and soul; nor is it merely the renunciation of that aspect of the woman's make-up which gives to her human existence a deep and ex-pansive satisfaction; namely, conjugal love, wifehood, and motherhood. No, it is first and foremost a offering that is most acceptable to God. For the victims that are most acceptable to Him as we learn from revelation are those that are unblemished, undefiled, without stain. It was this thought that was often recalled by St. Ambrose in his preaching to the people of Milan: "You have heard, parents, that a virgin is a gift from God, the obla-tion of parents, the priesthood of ch~istity. She is a mother's victim by whose daily sacrifice the divine anger is appeased." =~ Even in the New Testament, then, per-haps even more so than in the Old, it is true to say that only on condition that pure and unblemished vic-tims be offered to God day and night can we expect that earth will be reconciled with its God. The virgin is there-fore a kind of sacramental continuation of the sacrifices and holocausts of the Old Law, and she is a sign and sacrament of the sacrificial offering of Christ to His Father and of the Church to Christ. She is one who has intentionally made her complete exodus or the total hand-ing over of herself to God. Perhaps it is because of this symbolism pointing to an interior reality that she, like Christ in reference to Mary, is begotten in the womb of a virgin, the Church, on the day of profession. Thus the holocaustal no~e involved in the voluntary acceptance of virginity is not so much negative (although this is surely there) as rather positive. It is the holocaust that is implied in the unconditional surrender, free, total, joyful without fear or torment, of one's person in loving return to God's love. By her consecrated chastity the religious belongs as totally to God as, indeed, more totally than, a wife to her husband. In the heart of the wife no other love can have as high a degree of intimacy = De virginibus, I, 7 (P.L., v. 16, col. 198). as that of her conjugal love; this is exclusive, that is, it excludes all love of the same degree or nature. And this same thing is true of virginal love also. This truth of virginity as contributing to one's holo-caustal offering or surrender to God was brought out rather beautifully by Plus XII in an addregs made to nursing sisters in 1957: It is a truth of faith that virginity is a higher state than married life because the virgin soul binds itself by the ties of complete and indissoluble love directly to God, or, more exactly, to the God-man, Christ Jesus. Actually, all that she has received from the divine goodness to be a wife and mother is offered up by her as a whole-burnt offering upon the altar of entire and perpetual renunciation. The virgin soul in order to be united to the heart of God, to love Him only, and to be loved by Him in return, does not advance toward Him by means of other hearts, nor does she long to converse with other creatures like herself. Nothing is allowed to intervene between herself and Jesus, no obstacle, no obstruction . Since you have been called by God through an ineffable design of His love to this state of predilec-tion, you ought to be in very deed what you are by right, whatever the sacrifice that may be required of you.~ Virginity Leads to the Perfection of Fruitfulness The end for which the vow of virginity is made or pronounced is the perfection of the Christian life, namely, divine love. This as we know has not only God for its object but our neighbor in and for God. Con-sequently, by the very fact that the virgin intends the perfection of divine love, she also intends this perfection according to its all-inclusive object. She embraces vir-ginity precisely in order to learn how to love and be allowed to love with a love that is much more embracing than that which is had by two persons related to each other in the state of marriage. The virgin's love is in-tended to assume the dimensions and depth of the love of Christ and that of the Church. It is much more universal and is given not to any limited number of persons or for time, but rather to many, even to all, and for eternity. This is not something that should appear so strange. For a natural desire implanted in us by the Creator is never left unfulfilled in anyone who is faithful to God's designs. And because it is part of our very nature to wish to communicate life as father or mother, God in calling the virgin to her vocation does not at all deprive her of this desire and innate yearning. Rather, He fulfills this in a most marvelous manner. I think that this truth can be seen in the case of the religious sister by likening her relationship with Christ to that which the Church enjoys =Address to Nursing Sisters, April 24, 1957; English translation, States o] Per]ecti6n, p. 288. ÷ ÷ ÷ lqrginity VOLUME 24, 1965 853 C. A. Schleck, C.S.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 854 with Him in reference to her own virginal motherhood. This is presented rather beautifully in the liturgy of the Easter Vigil in the blessing of the baptismal font. As we know, the fathers often speak of the Church as being born from the pierced side of Christ on the cross, as proceed-ing from Him as life-giver, as the bearer of water and blood, which stand for baptism and the Eucharist. Thus the Church proceeds from Christ's side as bride and mother, as the new Eve coming from the side of the new Adam, joined to Him in His rising. And coming from Him she receives and communicates His life. She is flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone; she is His body-per-son in the most profound sense of this expression. Thus, it is always His life which she does and must communi-cate. It is this same Church which prays on. the night of the Easter Vigil that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit who proceeds from the risen Christ, by the secret infusion of His grace and light, might give to the font of baptism which is the virginal womb of the Church, the power to bring men to life in the risen Christ, that a generation of immortal and eternal children may rise from this spot-less womb, that she together with Christ through the power of His Spirit might beget the people of God. The Church that came into being on the cross is a mother: mother of the faithful, mother of those living the resurrection life. In God's plan Christ submitted to the sleep of death so that from the wound in His side the true mother of the living might be fashioned and formed. As our physical life is from Adam through Eve, so our resurrection life is derived from Christ, the new Adam, through the Church, the new Eve, our mother. This is the meaning of the action of the priest when in blessing the baptismal water, he dips the lighted candle (the sym-bol of the risen Christ) into the water. It symbolizes that Christ crucified and risen gives to the water the illuminating and life-giving power of the Spirit; it signi-fies that the baptismal font has become the immaculate womb of the Church, the bride of the risen Lord. Like Mary, she is intended to bear her children solely by and through the action of the Spirit of the risen Jesus. Something very similar is true in the case of the reli-gious sister also. That is why she is usually compared to Mary, the Virgin Mother, and to the Church, the im-maculate spouse of Christ. She is their sacrament or prolongation, if you will. Thus, virginity is a "yes" not only to being virgin-spouse, but also to being virgin-mother. The theme of virginity is allied to whatever is deepest in the human heart, and it lies at the .very genter of the Catholic Church. In consecrated virginity there is found one of those paradoxes so characteristic of the Christian life: "He who loses his life shall find it; if the grain of wheat dies, it brings forth much fruit."-°4 The role for which God has fashioned the woman, that of motherhood, is not only not annihilated through the perpetual practice of virginity, but it is brought to its highest and most perfect fulfillment and achievement-- because the virgin exercises her motherhood over a greater number of persons and with respect to the highest life possible for man, that of life in and with God. It is only in the virgin's conceptions that no sin is passed on to the offspring but only grace, only the life of God Himself, as is true of the conceptions of the Church herself. Hers then is a quasi-divine, maternity, something like that of Mary, and like that of the Church. The love which prompts virginity is not sterile; rather, it is essen-tially creative, because it is of the divine order. When the woman through her promise of virginity is assumed or elevated to this order, as the woman is elevated to the order of her husband through marriage, she is called 'to share most perfectly in the love of the God-man, in the creative activity of the God-man. Consequently, what she "creates," what she brings forth in and through her union with Him in virginity is divine or quasi-divine. We might say that it was the plan of God in the present economy of salvation to establish the communication of divine life upon virginity. For He Himself chose to become incarnate of a Virgin, He chose for His spouse a virgin without spot, and He manifested His special and preferential love for the virgin disciple St. John. More-over, we might note that in the course of history the strength and dynamism of the Church's life has usually been proportionate to the strength and vitality of the institution of virginity. Wheri that has suffered, so too has the life of the Church; and when this institution has been held in high esteem and flourished, so too has the dyhamic force of the Church. Seen in this light, then, the mystery of virginity in-cludes as one of its.highest perfections and its crowning glory, motherhood, such that the virgin who belongs to Christ can be likened to snow on a mountain top or peak whose purity and whiteness are constantly being supplied by an invisible divine activity from above and yet which is constantly melting under a warming action of God's love in order to bring life-giving water to refresh those living in the valleys below. It is in the institution of virginity where we find the highest activity and out-pouring of the woman's nature. There is something that is. put into her life which cannot" come from herself, the ability to give life, the ability to be mother. By the vow of virginity the virgin does sever herself from physi-cal procreation; but she does this only in order to be "~ Jn 12:24. Virginity . VOLUME 24, 1965 855 ÷ ÷ C. A. Schleck, C~S.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 856 able to enter ever more fully and entirely into the spirit-ual procreation of human persons into the life of God. She achieves her motherhood by communicating faith and by engendering men in faith. Thus, while the woman's profession of perpetual chastity consecrates her to a life of perpetual virginity and physical barrenness, it also consecrates her and blesses her for a participation in the universal and immaculate motherhood of the Church throughout the entire world. Her procreative activity is not static; rather, it is dynamic and constant, occurring whenever she turns to Christ which is always and surrenders herself to His every need and request-- the poor, the neglected, the homeless, the sick, the unwed mother, the ignorant, the aged--wherever human need asks for a response. The woman who is called sister by all others is mother in the full sense of the word-~be-cause her every activity has become a form of motherhood nurturing Christ in those persons who form her family in God. Her loving care is for the holy children whom she has conceived by the action of the Holy Spirit; for them is the warmth of her loving concern and her maternal interest and love. To be pure and untouched and wholly belonging to God and yet to be mother is the unique marvel of the mother of God in the physical order and of the Church in the spiritual. But this lies also at the very heart of the vocation to virginity in the case of the woman. It is only in this way that she can continue in her own existence the function and role and mission and aposto-late of Mary and the Church--to teach the world that only a virginal motherhood is compatible with a divine motherhood. Consequently, the phrase which the Church in her liturgy applies to Mary type of the Church can also be applied to the consecrated virgin: "Having the honor of virginity, you also have the joy of mother-hood." 25 This does not mean that the life of perpetual virginity does not have its difficult moments when the person so committed feels the renunciation involved in giving up all hope to physical motherhood. But this is part of her God-given vocation. "He who wishes to follow me let him take up his cross and follow me." While the cross stands as a symbol of triumph it also stands as a sign of suffering and love. With her Lord the virgin has chosen suffering and silence and suffering in silence. For she knows that it is only at the foot of the cross that she, like Mary and like the Church, will be enlarged in heart and mind to mother the world for Christ and unto Christ. She freely and lovingly accepts the crucifixion Antiphon [or First Vespers of September 8. implied in her renunciation of motherhood so that she like the Lord can bear about in her body the death of Jesus, the death that works life in man. It is in the pain of renunciation that the ~;irgin begets her spiritual children. It is extremely important that the crises involved in this renunciation be faced before the commitment is made. For there are shadows in every life, in virginity or marriage to Christ as well as in marriage to man. As a matter of fact, the virgin may actually experience more depressed hours when life seems fruitless and empty than her married counterpart in the world. The basic need for maternal fulfillment will be felt. The reason for this is that the sexual instinct has not merely to be controlled and mastered; it must be made an integral part of the spiritual life. It is a mistake to think that the lofty ideal of spiritual motherhood can be achieved without travail and without periods of discouragement and disappointment. And it is characteristic at such times that renunciation seems overwhelmingly real, while fulfillment on a spiritual plane is so remote as to seem effectively non-existent. And then the virgin will be in-clined to think of the joys of family which she has re-nounced and may even be tempted to regret or seriously question her lifelong decision made previously. She should then recall that all motherhood, spiritual as well as, perhaps even more so than, physical, is achieved only through suffering. Thus, her renunciation of physical motherhood is not something that she does once and for all by means of some formal resolve. She must constantly renew this commitment and gradually impress upon all the various levels of her personality her faith conviction in her spiritual motherhood in and through her union with Christ. It is only in this way that she can experience a sense of fulfillment that will parallel the fact of fulfill-ment with reference to this basic and natural need of woman. The proper attitude of mind is so important. For the way a virgin thinks about her life will determine to a great extent how successfully she lives it. Thus, sex iden-tification before embracing the life of virginity is essen-tial. For the sex role of the woman who dedicates her person to Christ is quite different from that of the woman who marries and bears children or that of the woman who anticipates doing these things. The virgin must accustom herself to think differently from the lay woman; and yet she must accept herself as a woman, as one having in God's plan who made her a woman, a definite sex role to play. She renounces the expression of sex on the natural plane, but she does not and cannot renounce her womanhood and consequently the fulfillment of her sexual role. In her sex is supernaturalized and eschatol-÷ ,4- 4- Virginity VOLUME 24, 1965 85'7 C. A. $chlech; C.S.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 858 ogized, not excluded. Thus it is very important for her never to renounce her womanhood even subconsciously but rather to think often of herself as spouse and mother on the supernatural plane. The invitation to virginity is not simply nor primarily an invitation to a life of re-nunciation. It is rather an invitation to a life of unioa with Christ, a union which is spousal and maternal. The virgin can achieve her womanly fulfillment only if she succeeds in living this life in union with Christ. Once she realizes this truth and lives it and loves it, her life, like that of the Church after the Easter Vigil and that of Mary after the Resurrection, will become a quiet Alleluia, a gentle song of joy which meets the rise of day in the suffering night which we call time. Like the woman of the Apocalypse she will stand as a sign in the heavens, above the changing vicissitudes of time represented by the moon, and yet still in some way undergoing the pains of childbirth3G For the virgin of the New Testament like. the bride of the Canticle must still seek her Beloved and find Him in the night of faith.'-'7 Thus, while virginity is often associated with impo-tdnce and sterility, it is in reality associated with omnipo-tence and fruitfulness. It enriches the woman's capacity for love and for motherhood rather than diminishes it. There is a virginity about God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Never is man more manly nor woman more womanly than when he or she gives his or her virginity to God. I think that it is true to say that behind each of the active and contemplative religious women of the world there ought to be one single inspiration--the maternal love of the Mother of God for Christ and that of the Church for the Lord and for His Mystical Body. It is only where this spiritual reality truly shines forth in a religious sister that her vocation will become ti'uly attractive and serve to correct so many of the aber-rations'and sins which are part and parcel of modern life. For her fruitfulness is unlimited. It is as radiance emanat-ing" from her person, and those who app~'oach her will be embalmed with what Paul has called the sweet fra-grance of Christ.2s There will be always a kind of divine force that will ~o out from her to touch souls and to make them show forth the glory of her Spouse. From what we have just seen regarding the aims of virginity, it should be quite clear that virginity does have a very profound apostolic dimension. It is quite definitely ecclesial or Church orientated. It is extremely important that there exist within the Church as a service and Ap 12:1-4. Cant 3. ~s 2 Cor 2:15. mission or apostolate to it the profound and total con-secration of one who renounces all else so that she may know Christ and the power of His resurrection.29 Far from being out of commission or decommissioned, the virgin, by her consecration alone, without any added work of charity, is taken from the ranks of the faith-ful and commissioned for another task which has a profonnd ecclesial perspective. It is extremely important that she be convinced of this unwaveringly, since it will be very helpful in the resolution of the conflicts that she will often experience between her professional and re-ligious duties and obligations. Moreover, from a scriptural point of view virginity is undertaken or embraced by one as a special giving of oneself to the kingdom on God on earth as well as in heaven. It is seen to be a close personal bond with the Lord in apostolic service to the Church, such that the personal bond with Christ is seen also as a more intense bond of service toward the community of the brethren. Thus the woman whose capacity and forces are unfet-tered by the duties of generation remains totally free for the communication of the Father's love and totally free to be a sacrament of grace. It is not at all accidental that charitable works in the Church have been and are still being performed by virgins consecrated to God. For the personal bond with Christ develops of its own accord into brotherly love. And in this way also does the life of virginity fulfill a social mission with regard to the Church and especially with regard to married life: the virgin points out in her very existence the very heart of married life--the two-in-oneness opening up into dis-interested selLgiving. She has become one with Christ for the purpose of giving her entire life to His service as well as to that of the Church, His spouse. It is in this way that she proclaims not only that she wishes to see God but also that she is preeminently a daughter of the Church.a0 How simply all this has been stated by the fathers of the Second Vatican Council in the Constitution on the Church: Through the vows (or other sacred commitments similar in their own nature to vows) by which he obliges himself to the three evangelical counsels already mentioned, a member of the faithful is totally dedicated to God loved above all things with the result that he is destined to the service and honor of God by a new and special title. It is true that by baptism he is dead to sin and consecrated to God; however, in order that 'he might derive greater fruit from his baptismal grace, he decides to free himself by his profession in the Church of the evangelical ~ Phil 3:10. ~0See E. Schillebeeckx, O.P., "Priesthood and Celibacy," Herde~" Correspondence, v. 1 (1964), pp. 266-70. + + + Virginity VOLUME 24, 1965 859 ÷ ÷ C,. A. Schleck, .$. . REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS counsels from the impediments which might keep him from the fervorof charity and from giving God a perfect worship; and he consecrates himself in a more intimate way to the divine service. This consecration will be the more perfect in propor-tion as stronger and more stable bonds provide a better rep-resentation of Christ who is joined to His Bride the Church by an indissoluble bond. Since the evangelical counsels, by reason of the charity to which they lead, unite those who take them to the Church and her mystery in a special way, the spiritual life of those taking them should be consecrated also to the good of the entire Church. Hence there arises the duty of labor--in accord with their capacities and the nature of their vocation and either through prayer or active work--to enroot and strengthen the kingdom of Christ in souls and to spread it everywhere. It is for this reason that the Church preserves and fosters the character-istic nature of her various rehgious institutes. Accordingly, the profession of the evangelical counsels ap-pears as a sign which can and should effectively influence all the members of the Church to be unwearied in carrying out the duties of their Christian vocatior~. Since the People of God do not have a lasting city here below but are seeking the one that is to come, the religious state, by giving to its members greater freedom from earthly concerns, also gives to all the faithful a greater manifestation of the heavenly goods already present in this world, not only witnessing to the new and eternal life won by Christ's redemption but also prefiguring the resurrection that is to come and the glory of the heavenly kingdom . Finally, in a special way it clearly points out the preeminence of the kingdom of God over all earthly things as well as the supreme imperatives it entails; and it shows to all men the supereminent greatness of the strength of Christ the King and the infinite power of the Holy Spirit that is at work in the Church in so wonderful a way.~ Finally, one other apostolic service which virginity serves to keep before us is the dignity and value of the human person. Like the solitary flower of the mountains far up at the fringe of the snow line, like the unap-proachable beauty of the poles and the deserts of the earth that remain forever useless for the service and purposes of man, the virgin proclaims that the creature has significance but only as a glow from the eternal ra-diance and purity of the Creator. Her inviolability which if it be purity always includes pain denotes a sacrifice that is the price for insight into the immortal dignity and value of the human person. The contemplative life which regarded from a religious angle gives service in evidencing man's final destiny in God, when humanly considered, means for the most part a lack of fulfillment. So too, the virgin by calling forth a complete release from every visible womanly fulfillment enables us to catch sight of the ultimate, the transcedental meaning of the human person. If it belongs to the mother to transmit man's history-making capabilities into a given generation,' sl Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Chapter 6, paragraph 44; English translation, REVIEW fOR RELXG~OUS, V. 24 (1965), pp. 714--5. it belongs to the virgin to guarantee these capabilities of man as a person, to point to the "sublime significance and meaning and value of the individual person. In this way, the virgin is also mother. For her very virginity ren-ders a service to the race and communicates something extremely vital and important to the generation in which she lives. The Fruits o[ Virginity Virginity might be considered to be a special charism of the new covenant, just as is the visible activity of the Spirit of God, the Person of Love in the Trinity. And it points tangibly and constantly and. visibly to the superi-ority of the law of Christ over the old law. For the law of Christ is not written on tablets of stone but rather on the hearts of those who believe, who commit their persons totally to the demands of Christ. It is the law of the Spirit, breathing where He wills; it is the law of generos-ity, one that imitates and reflects that of Him who gave birth to the Church in the act of His complete surrender, His exodus to the Father. Virginity is an act of [aith in the significance of the paschal mystery which is the beginning of end-time for humanity. It is an act o~ hope because it can be undertaken only at the invitation of the Lord upon whose strength and assistance those whose hearts have been made large enough for this gift depend. But it is above all an act o~ love, because it indicates a preference of love for a Person or Persons who alone can fulfill the depths of the human heart's desire to love and to be loved. Thus love is perhaps the outstanding fruit which comes as a result of fidelity to virginity. The more pure a religious is in her life, the more faithful she is to Christ, the more clearly will He unite Himself to her in love. The reason for this is in reality quite simple. The more we think about a person, the more we begin to love him if he has attractive qualities. Since virginity is embraced precisely in order that one might think about the Lord, as Paul says, the more ought the virgin to love the person of the Lord, to possess Him and to be possessed by Him even though this be in the darkness of faith. Thus virginity by its very tende.ntial nature, is meant to bring about the fullness of divine love or charity. It is in this way that its observance enters into the theological order of things. Just as poverty, as we saw, was ultimately or-dered to the perfection and development of the virtue of hope, so too, the observance of virginity is ultimately ordered to the growth and increase of charity, thereby making its unique contribution to the trinification of the human person through faith, hope, and charity. It is in this way that the very nature of woman which is love (a personification of the essential and proper note of 4- 4- Virginity VOLUME 24, 1965 86! C. A. $¢hleck, C.S.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 862 the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity) finds its most perfect flowering in the institution of virginity. As the virgin grows in love for Christ, her heart and her mater-nal dimensions will open and widen more and more; [or she will see more and more that her home is God, her children the world, and her possession and being pos-sessed personally, the peace of willing and complete sacrifice. In addition to this growth in charity through vir-ginity, several of the gifts of the Holy Spirit are also per-fected and made more operative in the spiritual life of the virgin. The first of these is the gift of understanding. The connection between virginity and this gift is indi-cated by St. Thomas when he remarks: "Pleasure fixes one's attention on that in which he takes pleasure. Thus, indulgence in the pleasures of the body causes one's attention to be firmly fixed on carnal things, thereby weakening his opera,tion in regard to intelligible things. The observance of chastity disposes a person quite well for intellectual operation." as The very nature of woman as we mentioned in the first of these articles includes the gift of intuition. And that is exactly the kind of knowledge that is given to one in and through the activity of the gift of understanding. In the case of men where we find logical operation predominating, we also find rather predominant the gifts of the Holy Spirit that are connected with reason. In the case of woman, how-ever, who is more intuitive, more spontaneous, and more instinctive by nature, we find the gift which corresponds more to instinct and feeling. It seems only logical to suppose that God would reveal Himself to woman in a way proportionate to her sex as a God sensible to the heart. Since the gift of understanding is closely con-nected with intuition, it would seem that woman pre-sents to the Holy Spirit a more connatural subject for His activity in relation to this particular gift. Was this not perhaps what our Lord meant when He said: "Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God"? 8s Still another gift of the Holy Spirit that is deepened and made more operative through the practice of vir-ginity is that of wisdom. The more closely united to one another two persons are, the more intimately do they exchange the innermost secrets of their hearts; they do not consider they are revealing these so much to another person as rather to their other half. Consequently, it would seem that virginity, because it involves the perfec-. tion of love and the centering of one's entire affective life on God, opens up to the person making this com- ~ 2-2, q.15, a.3. ** Mt 5:8. mitment an availability for the knowledge-communica-tion of the Holy Spirit that comes through love. This is the function of the gift of wisdom--to dispose one for connatural affective knowledge. It is by the presence of this gift in her heart that the virgin can voyage far and wide into that world which for the majority of others lies far beyond the present one. And it is only on con-dition that she herself make this journey and make it often that she can truly return bringing back something of what she herself has tasted and seen. Finally, another effect or fruit deriving from the prac-tice of virginity is the increasing possession of something like or similar to the grace of Mary's Immaculate Con-ception. One of the purposes of the grace which is given to one consecrating her virginity to God is to establish a stance with regard to purity and the complete emancipa-tion from sin which this implies and also with regard to a certain fullness of grace, at least by way of availabil-ity. When God loves someone He pours or infuses into her a share of His own goodness and perfection. Since He loves the one whom He calls to virginity with a special love, it would seem that He makes available for her a rather special grace-communication. Just as Mary be-came filled with grace and communicative of it through the grace of her Immaculate Conception, so too the vir-gin's call by God is meant to communicate to her some-thing of this same gift; that is, a fullness of grace with respect to emancipation from sin and to mastery over sinful tendencies and with respect to gr~ice-communica-tion or to being a sacrament of grace. Like Mary she is meant to be pure and communicative of grace. Practical Suggestions With all this before you, Mothers, you might be wondering what practical steps you can take in order to educate your religious to an understanding of the vow and consecration of virginity. Without pretending to present any sort of exhaustive list of suggestions the following might serve to point out some areas where a start could be made. 1. Part of virginity as we mentioned above consists in the renunciation of the goods of marriage--the physi-cal, the physiological, the psychological, the emotional, the genital, and the spiritual values that are involved in wifehood and motherhood. Consequently, these things should be recognized positively and specifically for what they are. I might suggest that sometime before the novi-tiate all candidates have had a course in marriage; that is, the normal and complete course that would be given in the ordinary girls' high school. This should include or be completed by a course in anatomy and human physiol-÷ ÷ ÷ Virginity VOLUME 24, 1965 863 ÷ ÷ ÷ C. A. Schleck, C.S.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 864 ogy as well as biology. Many o[ your candidates already have these when they come to you, but it should be made a mandatory thing for all seeking entrance to the novi-tiate. I do not mean of course that you are going to leave the matter at this. In juxtaposition to the course on marriage the lif~ of virginity and the values involved in it should also be explained, not as fully as in the novitiate and the later years of formation, perhaps, but in such a way that the excellence of virginity over marriage (ob- ¯ jectively speaking, o[ course, not subjectively) might be grasped. In the educ~ition to chastity two things are to be stressed: (1) the presentation of virginity in such a way that it be seen as perfectly capable of fulfilling the highest aspirations of the woman; (2) the establishing within this way of life, embracing as it does one's whole being and person, body, soul, emotions, and spiritual powers, nature and grace, such order that each element will fit into its proper place. The reason for this rather thorough education is quite simple. Consecrated virginity is a supernatural reality, but it must be lived in the reality of human conditions. In its profound ideal, it involves a person in her en-tire or complete being. It is the whole being, the total woman that is voluntarily handed over to Christ and to His transforming love. Such an act of surrender presup-poses that the person making it has full knowledge of herself. A woman is not really committed until she gives her whole person, for the love gift which is proper to virginity must be expressed within the framework of a body-soul composite wherein the body also becomes a means of expressing the love that is entailed in the con-secration. During the period of formation, postulancy, and novitiate, the candidate should be informed especially about the conditions that are required for the growth and development of religious chastity. Thus, the physical conditions should be explained; that is, the normal conformation of the sexual organs. Otherwise there is the risk that organic disturbances would complicate or render the problem of chastity more difficult or that psycholog-ical disturbances would arise from a sexual malforma-tion that is not properly grasped for what it is. Again the psychological conditions required for growth in chastity must be explained. She must be informed of the meaning of sexual continence and of the risks that are inherent in it. This education mnst not be merely cere-bral, so to speak, reaching only the mind of the candidate. It should be aimed at forming the entire person, intel-lect, will, imagination, heart, emotions, bodily reactions. She must accept sexual reality as an adult, without fear or shame or disgust. And she must accept and consent to virginity and all that this implies on all levels of her personality, if she is to make profession, and she must do this freely, totally, joyfully, and forever, at least inten-tionally. She must also have explained to her the spiritual conditions necessary for religious chastity to take root and develop; that is, the mystery of consecrated virginity or chastity, the mystery of the Church, and the relationship between the consecrated virgin and the Church. This training would also include certain theological attitudes or stances--of perpetual chastity as an act Ofo free and voluntary charity or love, implying an exclusive intimacy with Christ and leading to a spiritual motherhood. Again during this same period of formation the can-didate must be educated to respect certain things that are involved in her consecration. First, she must be taught to respect the being of man and the being of woman. Vir-ginity is not lived nor expressed in the same way by man as by woman. It is most important that in regard to chastity each retain the character of his or her own sex. From the very beginning of the Church as we men-tioned above there has always been in the Church a special relationship between virginity and woman. It is woman who is bride; it is woman who possesses a cer-tain delicacy of attitude toward the Lord; it is woman who possesses naturally and to a greater degree the self-giving generosity, and the joyful devotion in sacrifice that is involved in virginity. In fact, men draw their inspira-tion in reference to the delicacy involved in virginal con-secration from women. Thus, this education to respect must start with what man, and woman really are and it should leave intact what they are. Second, she must be taught that she has to respect her own development. Every person has an age, often two of them, the ap-parent age--the physical age, and the real age. So often a young woman of 18 or 19 seems to be far in advance of her counterpart of twenty years ago; and she is per-haps intellectually. But it does not at all follow that because she has seen or heard so many things that her counterpart saw or heard only at a much later age, that she is thereby formed or matured. In reality the real age of such a person, at least emotionally, is often closer to 14 or 15, since the social structure in which we live gives birth to what might be called for want of a better term, emotional retardation. Thus it may happen that such persons will undergo emotional crises proper to adoles-cents at a much later date than was considered normal a decade or so ago. And it is at these moments that they will seem to be and are at sea as an adolescent normally would be. It is not only the supernatural which they need at these moments; they have to learn to accept and humbly bow to a certain number of conditions, feelings, + ÷ ÷ Virginity VOLUME 24, 1965 865 ÷ ÷ ÷ .4. $chteck, .$.(2. REVIEV~ FOR RELIGIOUS 866 reactions, and transitions which are natural and normal to persons of what we called above their real age. And finally, they must be taught to respect their own personal history. Before one is capable of free and voluntary acts she is already determined to a certain degree, according to many modern psychologists. She has her heredity, her background, her temperament, and her childhood ex-periences. Her freedom does not consist in trying to repudiate all this, or change it, or wipe out the past, or start from the beginning. This is impossible. She must accept the fact that she enters the religious life with what she is, with what she has, and with what she has done, and with what has happened to her. It does her no good to run away from all this, or to pretend that it has never happened. No, the very first act of her liberty or freedom should be to know herself and to accept herself for what she is in reality, and again, at all levels of her personality. This acceptance is absolutely ]undamental in the matter of chastity. If she does not consciously accept this, she runs the risk of building her religious life on a falsehood, on an impossible ideal for her own person, on a vain hope of some spiritual existence that is totally ephemeral. And sooner or later this will most likely bring on a psychologically disturbed climate rendering the life of perpetual chastity difficult if not unbearable. And the religious herself would most probably be un-aware of the possible causes of her disturbances.~4 Thus because of a failure to accept one's history and sex certain spontaneous though involuntary reactions in the genital and emotional spheres could ,easily cause anxiety. They could seem to be intrinsically evil rather than natural and normal given her personal history, and she might at-tempt to oppose them by trying to drive them out of the field of consciousness. This constant action on her part could create a psychic tension that would prove to be rather favorable as a climate for the appearance of some kind of neurosis in the future. By dint of repressing her sexuality or of allowing it to infiltrate illicitly into her daily activities, the religious woman who would not have resolved or faced up to the frustrations which she ex-periences in the genital and emotional spheres of her personality could very easily become the victim of some psychic disorder requiring the intervention of a com-petent psychiatrist. Moreover, she would probably risk seeking uncon-sciously and by rather devious ways the satisfaction of these sexual impulses which would be disguised perhaps under the appearance of genuine and apostolic and there-fore acceptable "involvements." And she would perhaps, refer the reader to what was said in footnote 10 above. without even being aware of it, permit the establishment within her person of a rather unhealthy psychological and affective climate wherein a disturbed sentimentality would evoke images and arouse desires of a partly dis-guised sexual nature and import. In such a person, an exclusive friendship would find a rather favorable and fertile field for inception and growth. Finally, during these years there should be a thorough education in regard to modesty and all that this means, the necessary duty flowing from the virgin's commitment to Christ, of guarding her human affection and of using it properly, of regulating the use and non-use of her senses especially through recollection and custody of the eyes. The training of the affections both as to use and re-straint is most essential. Previous to a short time ago, perhaps the emphasis was somewhat one-sided--the re-straint of the use of the senses. Perhaps this very neces-sary aspect of modesty can be balanced with a more positive phase: the various uses and ways in which their love (which must be personal and directed to a person) is to be used. However, they are also to be reminded that their sacramental mission and service to the Church will always demand a much greater restraint in regard to the use of their senses, especially the eyes, than their secular counterpart. Religious always have the added mis-sion of proclaiming visibly the Christian truth that we have not here a lasting city. Their very religious vocation demands the renunciation of certain values perfectly legitimate for the secular. As the Constitution on the Church has it: Furthermore, all should clearly realize that the profession of the evangelical counsels, though it involves the renunciation of values which without any doubt are of great worth, neverthe-less does not prevent a true development of the human person but by its very nature makes a very great contribution to that development. For the counsels, freely undertaken according to the individual's personal vocation, are a great help to purifica-tion of heart and to spiritual liberty; they constantly enkindle the fervor of charity; above all, as is shown by the example of so many holy founders, they are able to give the Christian a greater conformation to the type of virginal and poor life which Christ the Lord chose for Himself and which His Virgin Mother embraced. Nor should anyone judge that by their consecration religious alienate themselves from men or become useless as far as earthly society is concerned. For even if in some cases religious do not directly associate with their contemporaries, still in a deeper sense they are present to them in the Heart of Christ and work with them in a spiritual way so that the building up of earthly society may always be based on the Lord and orientated toward Him lest those who build this society should labor in vain.~ ~ Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Chapter 6, paragraph 46; English translation, REWEW FOR I~Lt¢~OUS, V. 24 (1965), pp. 716-7. VOLUME 24, 1965 867 + REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 868 It is absolutely essential that you recall this to your religious from the very first days of their training. For we are living in the days of a return of humanism in which as the same Constitution on the Church mentions "the faithful must learn the deepest meaning and the value of all creation." s0 But we must not forget ours must be a Christian humanism--one that is not free to arbitrarily choose between the mysticism of the cross and the mysticism of the resurrection. Moreover, ours is a human-ism that is proper to religious, that is, one that renounces and voluntarily so (otherwise hostility to this renuncia-tion will be the result) certain values for some other service to the people of God. The recent letter of Pope Paul VI to all religious rather clearly pointed this out: With singular care religious should preserve chastity as a treasured gem. Everyone knows that in the present condition of human society the practice of perfect chastity is made difficult, not only because of the prevalence of depraved morality but also on account of the false teachings which glamorize excessively the merely natural condition of man, thereby pouring poison into his soul. An awareness of these facts should impel religious to stir up their faith more energetically--that same faith by "which we believe the declarations of Christ when He proclaims the supernatural value of chastity that is sought for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. It is this same faith which assures us beyond doubt that, with the help of divine grace, we can preserve unsullied the flower of chastity. To obtain this blessed objective it is, of course, necessary to practice Christian mortification with more courageous zeal, and also to guard the senses with more diligent care. Therefore, the life of the religious should find no place for books, periodicals, or shows which are unbecoming or indecent, not even under the pretext of a desire to learn things useful to know or to broaden one's education, except possibly in the case, duly ascer-tained by the religious superior, where there is proven necessity for the study of such things. In a world pervaded by so many sordid forms of vice, no one can adequately reckon the powerful effectiveness of the sacred ministry of one whose life is radiant with the light of chastity consecrated to God and from which he draws his strength?' In regard to this education in modesty, we should not forget that education in chastity includes an education in the over-all significance of temperance. Thus all the virtues which share in the spirit of temperance should also receive attention in the formation to religious chastity, for example, clemency, kindness, moderation, humility, studiousness, moderation in gestures and dress. This education in the early formation is necessary for two reasons. First, there is no greater danger to the perseverance in perpetual chastity than ignorance of ~ Dogtnatic Constitution on the Church, Chapter 4, paragraph 36; English translation, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, V. 24 (1965), pp. 704-5. arAddress on Religious LiIe, May 23, 1964; English translation, REVIEW fOR RELIGIOUS, V. 23 (1964), p. 701. what it involves. Knowledge of what one is, of what one is giving up, and of what one is positively embracing is the greatest preventive of future disappointments. Sec-ond, the more a girl sees the excellence and beauty of virginity, and the more she sees that its negative implica-tions have not been hidden from her, and the more she sees that the beauty of marriage has not been cloaked over, the more will she begin to love the special grace which God has given her in calling her to the religious vocation and the more gratitude will she have toward the community's openness with her, and the more free and entire will be her response to the values as well as the difficulties involved in her vocation. 2. The knowledge given during these early years of formation will not and cannot and should not necessarily be exhaustive; nor will the young candidate under-stand everything that may be given. Consequently, this education and training in chastity is something that must be developed through the next years of formation espe-cially but also even throughout the entire course of the religious life. This can be done through conferences, through private and guided reading, through discus-sions, and through the formal courses in theology espe-cially those treating of marriage and the states of life. During the years of the juniorate and the summer pre-ceeding perpetual profession, and again during the spirit-ual renewal, a very frank treatment of the crises, emo-tional and physical, which the religious woman will undergo at certain ages should be clearly pointed out to them. Thus, often today because of the emotional retarda-tion of society as a whole, there is the crisis of high adolescence occuring in the late twenties. At this time very strong desires for physical union with man and for motherhood can be felt rather intensely. There is also a rather profound psychological crisis through which a religious sister passes in her thirties. At this time she generally experiences a certain boredom with the re-ligious life and vocation. It no longer seems to satisfy her emotionally, nor does it seem to be producing the womanly fulfillment that she had expected when em-bracing this way of life; hence she experiences a certain frustration. Moreover, at this time she becomes much more deeply aware of her own personal capabilities and begins to resent the restrictions of the religious life claim-ing that they reduce her to the level of a child; hence she seems to need more independence. This state brought on often by the psychological or emotional change (a kind of a drying up in this area) through which she is pass-ing can very easily induce problems in regard to obedi-ence and authority (especially if her predominant in-÷ ÷ ÷ VOLUME 24, 1965 869 C. A. Schteck, C.$.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS clination is toward independence) and/or in regard to sensuality (especially if her predominant inclination or need lies in this direction). As a result she often tends to seek compensations for these situations: criticism of authority, the circumvention of authority in regard to permissions, the maintenance of rather odd or haughty positions on questions of discussion, or the forming of very close friendships, tending to the exclusive side, or deep involvement with the personal problems of students or patients, or romantic day-dreaming or solitary sin--in brief, the usual compensations a human being seeks when the burden of obedience and chastity is really brought home. These compensations can take and very often do take the form of less harmful involvements: an exaggerated interest in sports, or in music or other forms of culture, or an over-immersion in one's pro-fessional work, and so forth. Regardless of what form this compensationalism takes, it is a running away from an unpleasant experience rather than a facing up to it and a deriving from it what God intends it to pro-duce-- a deepening of one's commitment to Him. This transition period should serve to make the woman's service and commitment and love go to deeper levels of her personality so that it becomes more deeply human, more spiritual, and less dependent on emotional satisfac-tion than was true earlier in her religious life. It is a kind of a "dark night" if you will; but one intended to pro-dt~ ce the same result as the one spoken of by St. John of the Cross, namely, a more profound and ultimately a more peace-communicating union with Christ. It is not something to be feared, but rather looked forward to since it is an invitation on the part of God who created our nature to advance one step further in the maturation process of the human person. Far from destroying per-sonal fulfillment, it makes it more available. Again it is another instance in which the application of Christ's words are so true: Unless the grain of wheat die and fall into the ground, it remains alone; but if it dies, it will produce much fruit. Again there is the crisis of the menopause years which brings on, generally speaking, rather profound emotional changes and" disturbances. It often produces a revival of almost adolescent urges and feelings and impulses of a sensual and sentimental nature, quite humbling to say the least. Very often this transition period in the woman's life brought on by a profound transformation of her organism brings on a loneliness and a deep feeling of uselessness brought on by the loss of what she has come to identify with the very essence of womanliness--regular ovulation and the ability to bear children. At this time, too, just as was true in the above transition period, the religious sister can run away from her predicament rather than face up to it and even embrace it with eagerness, since this transition too is provided for by God Him-self, the author of her nature, and is an invitation from Him to advance another step forward in the overall matu-ration process of the human person in its feminine expres-sion. Far from destroying or annihilating her femininity, this transition is intended to expend its activity, making the woman more available for society, more capable of bringing to its service the wealth of her emotional and spiritual qualities enriched by the maturation of her personal experience, and possessing the peace and calm and serenity that are so necessary to give a more balanced direction to its many needs. The experience of these transitions is, of course, unique for each woman; but a knowledge of it and

Issue 19.2 of the Review for Religious, 1960. ; Review Prayer for the General Council by The Sacred Apostolic Peniten~tiary The Psychological Possibility of Intellectual Obedience by Thoinas Dub'ay, S.M. Temptation: A ÷ R = S by John Carroll Futrell, s.J. Charity the Unifying Principl'e of Religious Life by Sister Consuela Marie, S.B.S. Neuroticism and Perfection by Richard P. Vaughan, S.J. Survey of Roman Documents Views, News, Previews Questions and Answers Book Reviews 65 67 77 83 93 102 106 109 119 . Prayer for the General Council Sacred APostolic Penitentiary [The following prayer and the declaration of the attached indulgences is translated from Acta Apostolicae Sedis.I DIVINE SPIRIT, who were sent by the Father in ~.he name of Jesus and who remain present in the Church to govern her unerringly, pour forth, we ask of You, the fullness of Your gifts upon the ecumenical council. Tenderest of teachers and of comforters, enlighten the minds of our holy prelates who, in eager allegiance to the Roman Pontiff, will make up the assemblies of the sacred synod. Grant that abundant fruit thay come from this council; may the light and the strength of the Gospel be diffused'more deeply and more widely throughout human society; may the Catholic religion and the diligent work of the missions flourish with increased vigor; and may the happy result be a fuller knowledge of the teaching of the Church and a salutary progress in Christian morality. 0 welcome Guest of the soul, establish our minds in truth and bring our hearts to a ready obedience so that what is determined in the council may be sincerely accepted and promptly fulfilled by us. We also pray to You for those sheep who are not yet of the one fold of Jesus Christ; as they glory in the name of Christian, so may they finally come to true unity under the guidance of the one Pastor. By a kind of new Pentecost renew your marvelous works in this our time; .grant to Holy Church that, unanimously and insistently persevering in prayer together with Mary, the Mother of Jesus, she may, under the guidance of St. Peter, enlarge the kingdom of the divine Savior, a kingdom of truth arid of justice, of love and of peace. Amen. September 23, 1959 By virtue of ~he powers given to it by His Holiness John XXIII, the Sacred Apostolic Penitentiary makes the following grants: 1) a partial indulgence of ten years to be gained by the 65 PRAYER FOR THE GENERAL COUNCIL faithful who recite the above prayer devoutly and with contrite heart; 2) once a month a plenary indulgence under the usual conditions if they have :piously recited the prayer for an entire month. All things to the contrary not withstanding. N. Card. CANALI, Penitentiary Major S. de Angelis, Substitute 66 The Psychological Possibility of Intellectual Obedience Thomas Dubay, IF ANYTHING is anathema to our western world it is thought control in whatever guise it may appear. Understandably enough, our democratic horror at the least restriction on freedom of thought and expression strikes a sympathetic note in the heart of the western religious, for even he cannot escape the moods of a pluralistic society. So true is this sympathy for freedom, that not a few religious find the commonly taught doctrine on obedience of the intellect an incomprehensible, if not impossible bit of spirituality. One can encountei good religious whose very constitu-tions carry a stipulation on obedience of the judgment and yet who are almost scandalized by that stipulation, who may even think it a mistaken insertion because they view it either as im-possible of fulfillment or as an unjust attempt to curtail reasonable freedom. In this article we. propose to investigate psychologically the theory and the practice of intellectual obedience, that is, the conforming of one's judgment to the judgment of the superior. We will preface our analysis, however, with a review of the com-monly received doctrine on obedience of the intellect, a doctrine classically enunciated by St. Ignatius of Loyola in his well-known letter on obedience and recently sealed by the strong words of Pope Pius XII in his 1957 address to the General Congregation of the Society of Jesus. What Is Intellectual Obedience? Before answering our question positively, we might with profit dwell for a moment on what intellectual obedience is not. Con- " forming one's judgment to the superior's judgment d~es not mean merely that upon receiving an apparently unwise command, the subject judges that in these concrete circumstances he (the subject) ' intellectually agrees that the superior is to be obeyed. A religious does not make the superior's judgment his own simply by ac-cepting the intellectual proposition that this command must be The Reverend Thomas Dubay is presently stationed at Notre Dame Seminary, 2901 S. Carrollton Avenue, New Orleans 18, Louisiana. 67 THOMAS DUBAY Review for Religious executed, for that is accepting a solid truth of ascetical theology, not a superior's judgment. Obedience of the understanding is more than an intellectual acceptance of the theory behind religious obedience. Secondly, obedience of judgment does not mean that a religious violates his intellectual honesty by "agreeing" with the superior no matter how patently wrong the latter may be -- and sometimes is. Nor does it mean that a subject must think as his superior thinks on any subject whatsoever. The superior has no infallible authority from God and no universal commission to teach, and so he has no right to expect his subjects to be of one mind with him on free questions unrelated to religious obedience. If intellectual obedience is none of these, what, then, is it? Although a religious can avoid an offense against the virtue or the vow of obedience by a mere execution of the matter commanded, yet perfection adds to execution a full surrender of both the will and the intellect. There are, consequently, three elements nec-essarily included in an act of lJerfect obedience: execution of the superior's directive, wanting to execute it because of the superior's authority, and thinking in its regard as the superior thinks insofar as such is possible. As regards this third element, we can hardly improve on St. Ignatius' explanation, an explanation ratified by the explicit authority of the Sovereign Pontiff: "He who aims at making an entire and perfect oblation of himself, besides his will, must offer his understanding, which is a distinct degree anal the highest degree of obedience. He should not only wish the same as the Superior, but think the same, submitting his own judgment to the Superior's, so far as a devout will can incline the understanding. For although this faculty has not the freedom which the will has, and naturally assents to what is presented to it as true, there are, however, many instances where the evidence of the known truth is not coercive, in which it can with the help of the will favor one side or the other. When this happens, every obedient man should bring his thought into conformity with the thought of the Superior" (Letter on Obedience, translated by William J. Young, S.J. [New York: America Press, 1953], p. 10). It is not our purpose here to develop the idea of intellectual obedience, but rather to analyze its possibility from the psycholog-ical point of view. Our aim, then, can be ~atisfied by two or three illustrations of the Ignatian teaching. Father X, a religious priest, is attached to a parish, and during Lent is charged by his superior to preach a series of sermons on the capital sins. Father X rightly 68 March, 1960 |NTELLECTUAL OBEDIENCE believes he knows the parish and its needs well, and he further thinks that those who come to Lenten devotions need a series of sermons on fraternal charity far more than one on the capital sins. Surely the difference of opinion between Father X and his superior is not~black and white either way. As is the case with most com-mands in religious life, the evidence is not coercive; the matter is at least debatable. If Father X has a "devout will" in the Ignatian sense, he will try insofar as he can to see and accept his superior's judgment about- the advisability of a series on the capital sins. Rather than adduce mental or vocal reasons against the superior's view (and that is his natural inclination), he summons up reasons that support' the superior's position, and he tries to solve his own objections. In other ~words, he makes a serious attempt to judge .the matter as his superior judges it. Sister Y is denied permission to invite to the pa['lor someone she thinks'she could aid spiritually by a word of encouragement or advice. Sister conforms her judgment to her superior's, not merely by agreeing to the proposition that she ought not to invite this person because she has been denied permission, but by trying to agree to the proposition that, all things considered, seeing this individual now is not wise in itself. Brother Z is refused permission to buy tools that he obviously needs to do his job competently. Brother knows clearly that the monastery is not h.ard-pressed financially; and he knows, too, that his present set of tools is simply not adequate. What must Brother's "devout will" do. in this situation? Rest in peace. He need not even try to conform his judgment to his superior's, because the case is clear (in our supposition, at least). Since it is patent that the superior is wrong, even the perfection of obedienc~ does not require Brother to believe that he is right. Nature of Intellectual Assent The difficulties involved in seeing the advisability and even the possibility of a submission of the judgment are prominent in the cases of Father X and Sister Y. Brother Z's situation offers no great problem. If the intellect is a necessary, determined, non-free faculty, how can it be moved to accept one view rather than another? If Father X's intellect is determined by the evidence at hand and if he can see his motives for assent but not his superior's, how can he honestly conform his judgment to his superior's? And the same is true of Sister Y. " 69 THOMAS DUBAY Review for Religious The intellect, the faculty that knows in an immaterial manner, the faculty whose proper object is the universal idea, is admittedly a non-free cognitive power. It can know only what is given it, for °the knowing intellect is what the scholastics call the possible intellect, and the possible intellect is determined by the impressed species. Though this terminology may be obscure to the non-philosopher,, the fundamental idea is quite simple. Just as the eye is passive and determined in the sense that it can see only what is given to it, so also on the more immaterial plane is the intellect passive and. determined because it can "see" only what is given to it to understand. While we readily grant the non-free character of the intellect's grasp of the idea (the simple apprehension of the philosopher, the knowing of what a thing is), we do not grant that all of his judg-ments are determined or non-free. By a judgment we mean, of course, the attribution of one idea to another or the denial of one idea of another. I attribute white to house in the judgment, "the house is white," or I deny right of James in the judgment, "James is not right.": Some of our judgments are necessary: "seven times four is twenty-eight," or "any being has a sufficient reason for its existence." These propositions are overpowering in their evidence; the intellect must accept them. It cannot do otherwise, for there is no theoretical or practical difficulty in the propositions that could distract the intellect's attention and so render the assent unnecessary. ~ "But--and this is important for religious obedience--most of our judgments are not necessary. Even more, many of our certain judgments are free even though perfectly certain and established by irreproachable evidence. Although the judgment, "God exists," is certain, and metaphysically certain at that, it is a free judgment, for it is not coercively obvious. A man can choose to be unreason-able, to look rather at difficulties practical and speculative, and thus choose to reject a truth that is amply demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt. Because the intellect is not necessitated by the evidence in these many free certitudes, the will must enter into the picture and decide whether a~judgment is to be made, and, if so, what kind. The fact that the certitude of faith (another example of a free assent) is free is one reason that it is meritorious of eternal reward. And so the will has a decidedly large part to play in our intellectual life--far more than most of us would like to admit. If I am a Democrat (or a Republican), I am such not because 7O March, 1960 INTELLECTUAL OBEDIENCE of clear, cold reason alone. The positions taken by the two parties are by no means obviously right or wrong, at least when considered as two sys~ms. If I am a Democrat, there are intellectual reasons, of course. But there are also a host of factors that have influenced my will quite aside from my desire for efficient government: parental persuasions, educational exposures, attitudes of friends, personality traits of political figures, my home city and state, income bracket (if I had one!), social position, religion. If you wonder whether rural life is superior to urban, whether married women ought to work outside the home, whether your religious superior is right or wrong in a given case, you may be quite sure that your will is going to have an important role in your final yes or no to each question. The will exercises this role in two ways, indirectly and directly. The will indirectly influences our intellect in its act of judgment by determining whether and for how long the intellect is to consider the various pieces of evidence pro and con. If a man refuses to study the evidence for the divine origin of the Catholic Church, his final judgment, "She is not Christ's Church," has been very much determined by his will, even though he might flatter himself that he has been quite intellectual in building up his case against her. If a religious refuses to examine carefully the favorable motives for his superior's decision, his judgment that the superior has erred is shot through with the volitional element. ¯ The will plays a direct role in the formation of a judgment, not because it elicits the very act of judgment (this is a cognitive act and therefore an operation of the intellect), but because it im-perates or commands the intellect to pass judgment, to link one idea with another. This direct role is found in both certain and opinionative assents. Although we have thus far considered chiefly the certain assent, what we have said bears even more pointedly on the opinionative. If certitudes can be free, it is obvious that opinionative assertions.' must also be free. If certain motives often do not determine the intellect, surely probable ones do not. And so because the opinionative judgment is not one forced by the evidence, the will must enter into the matter directly and command the intellect either to assent, not to assent, or to suspend assent altogether. Application to Religious Obedience From all that we have said it appears, then, that a definitive disagreement with one's religious superior is not usually a purely 71 THOMAS DUBAY Review for Religious intellectual affair. The reader will note that we specify a definitive disagreement, that is, not a mere difficulty in seeing the superior's position, but rather a mental assent, certain or opinionative, that the superior has erred. If we may return to a previous example, our point may be clarified. If Father X makes a judgment that his superior is wrong in directing a Lenten series on the capital sins, Father X's will has probably entered into his~ decision both in-directly and directly. On the first score, Father X's judgment has been influenced indirectly by his will, if he declined to look for and consider reasons supporting his superior's view. If, in addition, he chose only to adduce mental evidence to prove his own view, he chose so to act by his will, not his intellect. On the second score, Father's judgment has been directly influenced by his will, since the evidence is not compelling for either opinion, and in order for him to make an opinionative or a certain assent either way the will must intervene. It now becomes apparent that obedience of the judgment involves both the intellect and the will though in different ways. It is the intellect that is here conformed to the superior's, but it is the will that sees to the conforming operation. However much he might like to think so, the religious is not subject merely to ob-jective evidence in his intellectual reaction to his superior's com-mands. His final assent or dissent is 'very much determined by his desire to assent or dissent, and that desire will be shown probably by both an indirect and a direct influence on the part of his will. We may next inquire into the reasons why the will enters so pronouncedly into a realm that seems no great affair of its own. ¯ Why does the will step into the intellect's own proper sphere and influence its own proper act, the judgment? The underlying answer to this question may be deduced from what we have already said about the indetermination of the intellect in any of its judgments that lack dompelling evidence. In these cases it is the will that must decide finally whether an intellectual assent is going to be made and, if so, what kind: affirmative or negative, certain or opinionative. Without this volitional push the intellect would operate only when the evidence for its assent is overwhelming and bereft of any difficulty, practical or speculative. While the in-tellect's frequent indetermination is the underlying reason for the will's entry into the act of judgment, we may still ask why the will chooses an affirmative assent rather than a negative one (or vice versa) or a certain rather than an opinionative one (or vice versa). 72 March, 1960 INTELLECTUAL OBEDIENCE Why, in other words, do we choose to hold what we do hold? Does our will always follow the objective state of the evidence? To answer this question is to answer also the problem of why we err when we do err. St. Thomas does not hesitate to place the root cause of error in the will, and he therefore finds at least a material sin (one without guilt) if not a formal sin (one with guilt) in our errors of judgment. "Error obviously has the character of sin," points out the Angelic. Doctor. "For it is not without pre-sumption that a person would pass judgment on things of which he is ignorant. Especially is this true in matters in which there is a danger of erring" (De rnalo, 3, 7). Why the sin? Because there is a deordination in the will's extending an assent beyond evidence, in judging without adequate information. We do not err because our senses and/or our intellects deceive us. l Being passive faculties they cannot register except what is given them, any more than a catcher's baseball glove can catch a golf ball if a baseball is thrown at it. If as I ride down the highway I see a peach tree and declare it to be a plum tree, I have erred not because my eyes deceived me (for they indicated precisely what is there), but because through an over-eager will my intellect was pushed to extend its assent, "Look at the plum tree," beyond the given data. An ordered judgment, one supportedby available evidence, would have been, "Look, I think that is a plum tree." In this judgment ~here is no error for it does appear to be a plum tree. In pinning down exactly why the will imperates unjustified assents epistemologists offer a wide variety of causes and occasions. These may be seen in any complete text on the validity of human knowledge. We will apply these same reasons and add some of our own to the subject's judging of a superior's command when the rightness or wrongness of it is not obvious. We may note that in the subject's disagreement with his superior there will often be an inordination of one kind or another. We qualify our statement by the word often because it can also happen with some frequency, and even in matters debatable, that a subject judges his superior wrong for objectively valid reasons. But even in this latter case perfect obedience will prompt the religious to seek to conform his thought to the superi0r's insofar as he can, and that by trying to see the superior's reasons rather than his own. What, then, are the inordinate causes for- a. subject's willed intellectual disagreement with his superior? ~Th~ senses can err, of course, when either they or the medium are defective. Of themselves, they are inerrant. 73 THOMAS DUSAY Review for Religious 1) ,Precipitate judgment due to levity or lack of maturity. Many people, ndt excepting religious, have a tendency to pass judgment on ideas or persons or events on the spur of the moment and without allowing themselves the leisure fo~ mature consideration. This undue haste could be willed insofar as an individual realizes his tendency to ill-considered conclusions and yet does not take adequate means to overcome it. A religious who is wont to have and express an immediate opinion regarding decisions of authority is probably beset with this defect. 2) Innate tendency to disagree. Closely allied with our first cause for a religious' intellectual disagreement with his superior is the odd perversity by which some men almost automatically choose the contradictory pqsition to an expressed proposition. This type of person, when a religious, will find himself sponta-neously thinking that the community should buy a Ford once the superior has decided upon a Chevrolet. 3) Desire to appear informed and/or as having a mind of one's own. To suspend judgment upon hearing a statement or to agree with it can in the first case appear to be due to ignorance of the situation or, in the second, to a lack of intellectual initiative and originality. Sister X may disagree with a ~uperior's directive re-garding classroom procedure primarily because she wants her community to realize that she, too, knows something about matters educational. Brother Y may be at odds with his superior about some extracurricular activity just to let it be known that he still has the use of a good set of reasoning apparatus. 4) An attachment to an idea or to a thing with which the superior' s directive is incompatable. Father X in our above example Gould have been willing his intellectual disagreement with his superior because of an unreasonable clinging to his own idea of what the people need most to hear about in a Lenten series. Although this clinging to an idea may be solidly motivated, it may also spring from an in-tellectual pride or from a self-centered attachment. If we refuse to examine honestly the evidence supporting the superior's view, we have cause for suspecting a self-centered attachment. 5) A preformed set of pseudo-principles. Not unrelated to simple prejudice is the phenomenon by which a religious builds his own cozy living of the religious life upon a set of principles hardly deducible from gospel asceticism. When his superior's directives clash with these "common sense" principles, the 'former are judged to be defective, not the latter. Fit forms of recreation, the amount of money available for a vacation, types and amount of work 74 March, 1960 INTELLECTUAL OBEDIENCE assigned are all illustrations of the kind of material in which intellectual judgment is likely to be mixed with an abundance of will. 6) Dislike for the consequences of the superior's judgment. Even when no principle is immediately apparent, a religious can disagree with his superior's judgment because he can see that it is going to conflict with his own plans and purposes. A teaching sister who wishes secretly to run a particular extracurricular activity can easily be tempted to find intellectual fault with a command whose execution will disqualify her for the job she seeks. If she succumbs to the temptation, her judgment is probably rife with will. 7) Dislike for the person of the superior. If my memory does not fail me, Ovid once observed that love is a credulous sort of thing. And we might add that hatred is incredulous. The same man will strain to put a favorable interpretation on a wild remark of a true friend, while he will unabashedly reject a moderate statement of an enemy. A religious who feels a natural antipathy towards his superior is by that very fact predisposed .to disagree with his judgments on non-intellectual grounds. Because women admittedly tend to judge with their hearts to a greater extent than men do, sisters who note this incllnation in themselves should observe carefully its bearing on intellectual obedience. These, then, are some of the volitional factors that can be present in the religious' failure to conform his judgment to that of his superior. Lest we be misunderstood, we repeat that a lack of conformity of judgment can also be due to solid intellectual reasons held by the subordinate; and in this case he is not at fault, provided he has honestly tried to see the superior's point of vie.w. But we do insist that many of our disagreements can be influenced, perhaps strongly,, by any one .or several of the factors we have outlined. When such be true, our disagreement may not be flattered by the pure name of intellectual. Some Difficulties Does not intellectual obedience smack of the unreal, the dis-honest? Is not a mature man or woman being asked too much in being urged to surrender not only the will but the very intellect itself? Is the religious to enjoy no personal independence at all? These questions almost answer themselves in the asking. Intel-lectual obedience is honest and realistic for the simple reason that it requires only that a subject look frankly at evidence favoring 75 THOMAS DUBAY the superior's viewpoint. Since he already knows his own opinion, the subordinate violates no honesty in trying to see and accept that of God's representative insofar as such is possible. Nor does this ask too much, for every faculty 0f man belongs to God, his intellect included, and they all, therefore, should be surrendered to Him. As regards independence, we must note that no man is independent of God. A religious obeys with his understanding, not because the superior is more intelligent than he,. but because he commands with God's authority. There is an immense difference between the two motives. Would not the faithful practice of intellectual obedience cripple a religious' later ability to rule? Hardly. This difficulty is based on the tacit premise that the subbrdinate's viewpoint on a debatable command is the more correct because it is the subordi-nate's, that he will learn how to rule by attending to his reasonings rather than those of the superior. The contrary seems more ~ikely. A subject already knows how he would judge in a given situation ¯ and why he is inclined to disagree with his superior. It stands to reason, then, that he will be broadened, not narrowed, if he honestly tries to see this same situation from another man's vantage point. I Would expect obedience of judgment to improve a subject's later ability to govern wisely rather than hinder it. After all, who of us. is so brilliant that he has nothing to learn from another? And finally, does not the conforming of one's ju.dgment to that of another tend to smother magnanimit~ and zeal, bigness of mind and aqcbmplishment? I think I might be pressed if I had to give a convincing theoretical answer to this objection, but I find that an adequate concrete answer could scarcely be easier. We need only look at the lives of the saints and then ask whether their perfect obedience of intellect and will smothered their zeal and a~c0mplish-ment. We need only recall, for example, that towering figure of magnanimity, St. Francis Xavier, corresponding with his superior on his knees. The objection melts away. Intellectual obedience, then, is not only psychologically possible; it is logical, helpful, desirable. Without it obedience of execution and will can hardly be perfect. The subject who is at intellectual odds with his superior's directives is likely to murmur, to cut corners, to be lacking in promptness and cheerfulness. With intellectual obedience he is completely subordinated to God. He enjoys peace because his holocaust is entire. 76 Temptation." A÷R--S John Carroll Futrell, S.J. EVEN THE GREAT St. Paul complained that he found himself doing the evil he did not wish to do. Religious men and women, professionally dedicated to the pursuit of perfection, under-stand from their own humiliating experience what the Apostle was talking about. It is one thing to possess and pursue ideals of perfect virtue and high sanctity and quite another to realize them in the heat and rush of daily life. All of us suffer from plaintive moments when we see the embarrassing divide between what we are and what we are supposed to be. "What a rain of ashes falls on him / Who sees the new and cannot leave the old." More often than not it is only in profound moral crises that we find out what values truly shape our character. Men in general tend to live their lives without finding out who or what they really are. Most of the time we can successfully fool ourselves into believing that we are in our souls what we appear in our religious garb. Whether this be due to superb play-acting or to some inner veil we draw across the mirror that would show us ourselves, at least this much is clear: we fight like Tartars against the knowledge of what we really are, barring no holds and respecting no rules. It takes a crisis to reveal us to ourselves, and even then we can sometimes throw off uncomfortable truths by a kind of mental judo. The source of our troubles and the root of our self-deceit, we know, is the old Adam within us all. Man is split; his heart is divided. If, as the Psalmist and the poets have said, he is noble and splendid and but a little less than the angels, if he is of almost .infinite faculty in his mind and in apprehension like a god; still, he is also a mean-spirited reed and his own demon. He is capable of heroic grandeur shining out against the dark magnificence of things; but in the main he is rather ignoble, mean in his pleasures, slavish in his conformity to unworthy standards. We religious share this fallen nature (how well we know it!) and this divided heart. We run the constant risk that we shall live out our lives without really seeing our true face or speaking out our authentic name, who we are, why we are here. When the time comes to us, perhaps only at Judgment, when we will be forced at last to utter The Reverend John Carroll Futrell is presently stationed at the Institut Saint-Bellarmin, W~pion, Belgium. 77 JOHN CARROLL FUTRELL Review fo~ Religious the speech which haslain hidden at the center of our souls for years, we will be abashed and not a little astounded. It will be too late to deceive ourselves. If we have failed to realize our religious ideals, the reason is that we have in one way or another succumbed to temptation. Modern psychoanalysis has taught us that the best way to uncover the authentic self is to dig back under the layer of our surface personality and lay bare the subsoil from which it has emerged. Ultimately, one can do this only for himself. It is helpful, however, to consider how temptation works in general in order to be equipped to analyze its victories in ourselves. The purpose here is to consider how temptation works and why it overcomes us. In his brilliant discussion of the roots of sin St. Thomas Aquinas explains the division man discovers within himself. The philosophers have a dictum that action follows upon knowledge. How, then, can a man do the evil he does not wish to do, follow what is base, when he could write a perfectly accurate analysis of the ideal? How can he act against his own knowledge? St. Thomas gives the answer (Summa Theologiae, 1-2, 77, 2~. We have two kinds of knowledge: a general recognition of moral principles which is habitually possessed by our minds-- for instance, we know that all forms of sensuality are to be avoided- and a practical knowledge in the here and now situation that faces us which governs what we actually do-- we do not recognize that this sensual action here and now ought to be avoided. The process is obvious: we fail to consider here and now what we habitually recognize as true. What is the cause of this crucial failure to call upon our habitual knowledge when we most need it? Why is man divided? According to St. Thomas there are several possible explana-tions of this lack of consideration of moral principles. In a malici-ous man it may simply be the result of an evil intention; he does not want to pay attention to the demands of morality. More often, the source of the trouble is less direct. Some impediment gets in the way and blocks out the habitual knowledge which should step in to save us. This impediment might .be so simple a thing as a very demanding external occupation. We are so busy doing that we have no time for thinking. Or it might be the result of physical weakness. The mind is very much tied to the body. But for most of us most of the time the biggest impediment to moral .considera-tion is the force of our feelings. We are carried away from our ideals by the drive of self-propelled desire. The most insidious wile 78 March, 1960 TEMPTATION; A ~- R = S of feeling is to distract us from our habitual knowledge of what is meet and just by compelling our attention to its own attractive object. Or it may simply set itself openly against the ideal, inclining us away from it and toward the flowers of evil. Fina.lly, (St. Thomas is always thorough) feeling can actually bring about a bodily change in a person, pressing him on so violently that reason is chained and actions are no longer free. Passion can make a man insane. What we face in temptation, therefore, is a here and now compulsion to yield to an evil desire, a craving so intense that it tends to drive from consciousness our habitual intellectual knowledge of right and wrong, our higher ideals and hopes. Man is divided; and if temptation overcomes him he finds himself doing the evil he does not wish.to do. How exactly does this sway of feeling manage to upset moral consideration? What is the psychology of temptation? Perhaps we can express it as a formula: A÷R =S. A stands for appetite. Our problems begin when something catches our attention which shows itself to be highly desirable. It is not good for me, but I want it. Hold out a piece of candy to a little child, then draw it away, and the process will be clear. What feeds appetite? It is a complicated process. The initial cause may be memory of some pleasure experienced in the past, or imagination of some hitherto unknown desirable object. Or it may be that our senses are sur-prised by some unexpected stimulation. What I see or hear makes me want to gain possession. In any case, a circuit has been estab-lished. Like an electric current, desire runs back and forth from imagination to the senses, one strengthening the yearning of the other. What I want in imagination, I decide to look for or reach for, and sense action results. But the action of the senses causes imagination to paint in ever more glowing colors the object I desire, and this results in more definite sense activity. All the while feeling is being fed and is growing stronger. But it runs the risk of being crushed. Reason hastens to the rescue. R stands for rationalization. In a religious, especially, ideals, convictions, habits stand in the way of surrender to appetite. If feeling is to have its way, it must seduce reason into approving the here and now choice of an action which is completely at variance with the religious's habitual knowledge of right and wrong. This requires some ingenuity, playing off against one another various considerations of what ought to. be in general, and what ougl~t to be under these circumstances; when one should strive to be a 79 JOHN CARROLL FUTRELL Review ~or Religious saint, and when one should give a little to weak human nature; what is splendid as a hazy ideal, and what is practical at the present moment. Appetite slowly takes control of reason~ leads it away from consideration of good and evil, brings it around to the judgment that what appetite wants it should have. This step of rationalization is essential to the victory of temptation. It cannot win without it. Man will not act while he is divided; he comes to realize the division only after he has done the evil he did not wish to do. Two forces are at work in the rationalization process which favor the success of temptation. Obviously, the first is self-deceit. We manage to fool ourselves into thinking temporarily that we can be both good religious and self-indulgent at the same time. The more we give was to the onrush of appetite, the easier it becomes, to fabricate logical reasons for satisfying it. Our mood becomes one of great kindliness towards ourselves, paternal under-standing of our weaknesses, and gracious indulgence towards our felt needs. Finally, we convince ourselves that for the moment surrender is the better part of valor. The second force which bolsters up the campaign of ap-petite during rationalization is procrastination. When we manage to retain a toe-hold on reality and have a sneaking suspicion that we cannot sincerely strive to be perfect and holy religious while giving way to self, feeling strikes directly at this resistance. It allows us to admit that what we desire is honestly not the greater good, is truly not consistent withototal consecration to God. Yet, here and now it is needed. No one becomes holy in a day. Even though we surrender to appetite on this occasion, well, we will be striving for perfection all our lives. The particular kind of mortification involved in resisting this temptation can come at a later date. Put it off for the time being. Reason has. the satisfaction of feeling self-righteously honest at the same time that it approves the drive of appetite. Temptation wins again. A variation on the usual campaign of procrastination may be termed the datur tertium feint. If reason p~rsists in protesting that the object of appetite just cannot be squared with religious dedication, then the object is shifted somewhat to make it appear more acceptable. This type of rationalization is most effective when the temptation is not to do something difficult .which the pursuit of perfection clearly demands. Appetite is revolted be-. cause the prospect is painful. Therefore, some less unpleasant act of virtue is proposed. One need not experience the shame of out-right refusal to a call to greater holiness, but neither need he be 8O March, 1960 TEMPTATION: A ÷ R = S quite so extravagant as seems indicated by the movements of grace. Datur tertium -- something else can be done which will serve as a sop to conscience and yet not unduly inconvenience the precious self. Later on, perhaps, it will be possible to ascend to the heights along the highroad of the saints --but not quite yet. Once again, .temptation has its way. S stands for surrender. The circuit is now completed. Appetite, fed by imagination and sense activity, entered into the mind and met all the counterattacks of reason. Having rationalized suc-cessfully, the tempted religious is now able to make the judgment that what is wanted here and now is good, or at least allowable, even though it runs counter to his habitual knowledge of what is right and wrong for one who is pursuing perfection. The choice is made. Temptation has won the battle and in its victory is transformed into sin, or at least into religious failure: A÷R=S. This, it would seem, is a fairly accurate description of the general psychology of temptation. How this general campaign is waged in each individual soul only the individual can say. But given that. this is the way temptation works, what would be the best general strategy of defense against it? The best beginning in a defensive war is to recognize the tactics of the enemy. These we have expressed in a formula -- A +R = S. Now,.a clever general tries to counter the very first hostile move. We must above all, therefore, attempt to overcome appetite before it can advance to the stage of rationalization. Here, one must cultivate awareness of the movements of imagination and the susceptibility of the senses. Since memory and imagination incite sense activity and sense activity feeds imagination, one must be ready at any time to shift his attention from the object, which incites appetite. If the feeling of desire has entered through the imagination, catch the feeling and overcome it before sense action results. If surprised by the senses into awareness of the desirable object, quickly occupy the senses with something else. In either case, the trick is to focus the attention away from what is tempting, and to do it immediately. The very practical and psychologically valid principles underlying the exercise of interior mortification and rules of religious decorum are immediately evident. These are simply helps to cope with our divided hearts. They are the guard over our outer gates. Further, one sees the wisdom of the practice of recollection and the habit of frequent interior aspirations. These. are positive ways of keeping our attentionwhere it belongs-~on God; and they provide a quick and easy way of shifting our atten- JOHN CARROLL FUTRELL tion away from temptation when it surprises us. The practice of corporal mortification, .too, is seen for the healthy thing it is: a means of training our senses to embrace what is painful when the call of grace summons us to higher holiness. Our conscious life is a vital rhythm which the soul itself cannot regulate. It needs power-ful allies on the level ,of sense and imagination. Rationalization is harder to cope with because it means that the enemy is already within the gates. Temptation has advanced beyond the stage of mere appetite. However, some defenses are still available. One can consciously cultivate the disposition for c.omplete honesty with one's self and with God. Then, when rationalization begins, it will be difficult not to recognize self-deceit. No one can give himself heart and soul to one thing while in the back of his mind he cherishes a yearning, a secret hope, for some-thing very different. If we are constantly striving to realize total consecration to God, temptation will conquer us less and less often. The cultivation of this desire demands unswerving fidelity to the practice of spiritual exercises, expecially examination of conscience and contemplation of the meaning of God. Adam failed in con-templation, and ever since the heart of man has been divided. A very practical means to expose temptation for what it really is is suggested by Eric Gill in his Autobiography. When the appetite draws us toward something which seems desirable and promises joy, he advises us to reflect on the true nature of enjoyment. "The only real enjoyment of life is in the memory. However enjoyable this or that activity may have been or have seemed to be at the time of action -- the ecstasy of sensation, the ecstasy of touch and taste and smell, of sight and sound-- unless the memory of it be good' we must, for our own peace, eschew such action" (New York: Devin-Adair, 1942, pp. 221-22). Finally, when we have done the evil we did not wish to do, when temptation has .conquered and we have surrendered, we must hold on with all our faculties to our faith in the mercy and for-giveness of God and our trust in Him at last to deliver us from the body of this death and to lead us home. If fall we must along the way, we know that if we have confidence in Him, He will bring us to victory and holiness in His own good time. Juliana of Norwich expressed it perfectly: "He said not Thou shalt not be tempested, Thou shalt not be travailed, Thou shalt not be distressed; but He said Thou shalt not.be overcome." 82 Charity the Unifying Principle of Religious Life Sister Consuela Marie, $.B.$. SOMETIMES in religious life the minutiae of observance, the multiplicity of regulations and injunctions, the unremitting insistence on the perfec~ observance of the rule may cause us to lose sight of the fundamental obligation of all spiritual living-- the observance of the first and greatest commandment: the love of God and its included second, the love of self and neighbor. Charity in its *unadulterated essence is the root obligation of all moral law; it is of the essence of the morality of religious observance. In this atomic age, religious find themselves caught in the activity whirls of modern living. All the gadgets and electronic time-savers available today somehow do not bring them extra time ¯ or leisure. Whether the religious exercises his activity in a class-room, a hospital, or the homes of the poor, he goes intensely from one activity to another only to find that all he hoped to do in a single day cannot be fitted into the twenty-four hours that bound it. Fortunately for him, there is a definite pattern of prayer around which he builds each day and a definite horarium for'the specific duties of the day that would seem to make for one calm, peaceful whole. But in this statistical age of records and super records, of state requirements and association reports, of development pro: grams, of theatrical productions and .seminars, he finds himself swamped at times as he tries to keep his head above a tide that carries him along whether he will or not. Stress is in the very air we breathe in America today. While the nation works feverishly for bigger and better missiles, we look for more and more mechanical teaching aids, larger and better equipped buildings, new modern motherhouses and participated TV pro-grams. And all of this is good. The far-seeing religious, heeding the many suggestions of His Holiness, Pope Pius XII, realizes that all modern developments, if properly used, are effective instruments for promoting the glory of God. He would be foolish to pass them by and keep to a horse while the rest of the world whirls by in convertibles. Sister Consuela Marie teaches theology and history at Xavier University, New Orleans 25, Louisiana. 83 SISTER CONSUELA MARIE Review for Religious But not for these did the young person enter religious life. Fundamentally, he entered religious life to find God, to live with Him, to carve out, with His grace, a way of life that would bring him into close contact with this God of love for whom his whole being cries out. How often the very force of circumstance will compel him to realize that God is not in the whirlwind; He is not ordinarily found in the blare of feverish activity. There must come to him those moments when he feels there is a roadblock between his activity and his God; .and he dreams of the green fields of the enclosed contemplative and feels himself in an outside barren waste where God seems to have crossed the horizon and left him watching the sun go down not on the glory of Galway Bay, but on ¯ the dried-up barrenness of an overworked field. At this point, however, help is nearer than he knows. He has only to cry out to God to experience new floods of grace poured out on him. Divine selection and abundant grace have set the religious apart for a special kind of efficiency in a special way of living. No human mind devised the religious state. Infinite Wisdom ordained and designed it. The Holy Spirit, breathing forever where He wills, inspired the minds of saints to organize its multiform varieties in the world today. No human need has been overlooked in the long list of religious institutes or the long category of their functions. Primarily, the religious state, whether active or contemplative, is a state of perfection in which one is surrounded by means of at-raining perfection by the observance, in addition to the command-ments, of the religious counsels. Because it implies a special way of approach to God, a special way of directing one's actions to one's last end, which is the eternal possession of God, "it implies a whole ensemble of moral obligations of unequal importance.''1 There is the fundamental obligation to strive for perfection; and this is the soul's direct answer to the challenge: "If thou wilt be perfect . " There is the essential obligation of the vows and their ramifications in the particular institute; there are the secondary obligations of the specific apostolate. Finally, there is the obligation of each professed "of impregnating his soul and his life with the particular spirit of his institute and assimilating its characterigtic virtues.''~ Each of these obligations is assumed under the protecting arms of Holy Mother the Church. It is the Church which puts the seal of approval on the specific rules of the various orders and gives its as- ~L. Colin, C.SS.R., Striving for Perfection (Westminster: Newman, 1956), p. ix. ~Ibid., p. x. 84 March, 1960 CHARITY THE UNIFYING PRINCIPLE surance that sanctity can be attained by the observance of these rules. The apostolates of the institutes become by this approval the apostolates of the Church itself. Underneath the multiplicity of orders and congregations, there is the unity of all religious living in the complete consecration of individual lives to the pursuit of perfection. In the spiritual order is thus achieved that unity in multiplicity so characteristic of all being, so particularly characteristic of the Church to which Christ gave the mark of unity. What striking illustrations of this unity of the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church: membership for every race, every clime, every age; sanctity on every level, married saints, doctor saints, children saints, royal saints, peasant saints, laborer saints, active apostolic saints, silent suffering saints. In his lucid expression, St. Thomas states it thus: "Even in the order, of natural things, perfection, which in God is simple, is not found in the created universe except in multiform and manifold manner; so too, the fullness .of grace, which is centered in Christ as Head, flows forth to His members in various ways for the perfecting of the body of the Church. This is the meaning of the Apostle's words: 'He gave some as apostles and some as prophets, and other some as evan-gelists, and other some as pastors and doctors for the perfecting of the saints.' "~ As in the Church, so too in each single order or congregation there is a leit motif, an underlying unity that binds all duties, all moral obligations in one. How necessary it is that one establish the rock bottom foundation principle of unity for the multiplicity of obligations in religious life: the vows that bind for life, the virtues to be acquired, the particular duties assigned, the diverse activities to be assumed. One element, one principle binds them all together. That element, that unifying force is charity. Once that is clearly grasped, accepted, and allowed to function unhampered, the inner well of peace is safely dug, the heart finds the refreshing inner spring; the storms, the hurricanes crash and lash; but they beat without impress; and the soul walks and talks with God in the quiet of the evening in a garden enclosed. And this is not mere poetry. It is basic theology. It was clearly taught with unerring simplicity by the eternal Word who, in answer to the Pharisee's question as to what was the greatest command-ment, answered: "Thoushalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second is like ~Summa Theologiae, 2-2, 183, 2; Eph 4:11. 85 SISTER CONSUELA MARIE Review for Religious it. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" (Mt 22: 37-39). Scripture repeats that declaration, again and again. Nothing sur-passes St. Paul's description of charity. The nature, import, vitality of charity have never been so deftly defined and so superbly summarized as in his classic encomium. The Corinthians were evidently interested in the startling and visible charisms granted freely to the new-born Church. But St. Paul urges them to strive for the greater gifts and points out to them a "yet more excellent way." All the charisms, tongues of men and angels, gifts of proph-ecy, knowledge of all mysteries, and strength to move all mountains ¯ . all are as nothing without charity. Three groups of dominant ideas in St. Paul's treatment of charity are pointed out by Father Fernand Prat.4 St. Paul, he tells us, establishes it first as the queen of virtues since all other gifts are as nothing unless they are ruled by charity. Secondly, he makes it the summary of the commandments: "Love is the fulfilling of the law" (Rom 14:10). Finally, he establishes it as the bond of perfec-tion. Fifteen different virtues are listed by St. Paul as the compan-ions of charity in his exhortation to the Corinthians (1 Cor 13). In his Epistle to the Colossians, he urges the practice of mercy, humility, kindness, meekness, patience (Col 3: 12-13), all of which are included in the list of companions of charity. But whereas in the first listing St. Paul breaks charity up into its component. virtues, in this second listing he holds them securely together by, making charity their bond. "But above all these things have charity which is the bond of perfection" (Col 3:14). At the outset of religious life, when the young person is being orientated into a new type of living, when new obligations and moral responsibilities are being explained, might it not be well to posit a course (new or review as the previous education of the aspirant would determine) on the theological virtues with strong emphasis on charity? With this theological knowledge, the balance of other moral obligations can be definitely determined. At the beginning the .air is cleared, the moral emphasis properly placed and perfectly poised. With St. Thomas for his teacher, the. young religious will know that "primarily and essentially the perfection of the Christian life consists in charity, principally as to the love of God, secondarily as to the love of our neighbor, both of which are the matter of the chief commandments of the Divine Law.''~ In discussing the question whether perfection consists in the observ- ~The Theology of St. Paul (Westminster: Newman, 1927), 2, 333. ~Sumrna Theologiae, 2-2, 184, 3. 86 March, 1960 CHARITY THE UNIFYING PRINCIPLE ance of the commandments or of the counsels,-St. Thomas makes very clear this distinction between primary, essential perfection and secondary, accidental perfection. After stating the primacy of charity, he goes on to explain: "Secondarily and instrumentally, perfection consists in the observance of the counsels, all of which like the commandments are directed to charity; yet not in the same way."" The commandments, he explains, direct us in clearing away those things opposed to charity; while the counsels direct us to remove things not contrary to charity themselves, but which could hinder it. He quotes the Abbot Moses: "Fastings, watches, med-itating on the Scriptures, penury and loss of all one's wealth, these are not perfection, but means to perfection, since not in them does the school of perfection find its end, but through them it achieves its end." Here we have obligations in their proper focus; we have the obligations of religious life in their exact and proper proportion. The obligation of charity-is primary and without measure or limit. Its boundaries are all the energy of heart, mind, and will. Faith and hope, it is true, as theological virtues, have God° as their end. But in faith, it is the knowledge of God on the authority of His revela-tion; in hope, it is confidence in God to be possessed in future beatitude. In charity however, the end is the immediate possession of God here and now, the possession of infinite Love whereby God infuses His love into the soul, and the soul loves God with I-Iis own love. "It amounts to this, that endowed with the actual love with which the Father loves the Son, and the Son loves the Church ('I am in the Father and you in "me, and I in you . He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him') we find within ourselves the strength to keep the commandments, to live the life of faith, and -- most blessed of all -- to love back.''7 Charity, we must remember, is infused; we cannot create it; we cannot increase or decrease it though we can posit the actions, we can set the conditions under which, or on a~ccount of which, God will pour deeper infusions. On the other hand, we can, by our neglect of grace, dry up the streams and eventually, by our own free act, lose this infused gift by mortal sin. Charity and grace go hand in hand. They grow together; they increase together. When we lose one, we lose the other. They are distinct but inseparable. Since on the authority of God, the testimony of Scripture and 6Ibid. 7Dom Hubert VanZeller, The Inner Search (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1956), p. 165. 87 SISTER CONSUELA MARIE Review for Religious the writings of the Fathers and the explanations of the Summa, charity is the first moral obligation of all Christian living, a clear concept of its theological implications serves not only as rock base for the spiritual structure; but, far and beyond the foundation, it provides the beginning and the end, the end and the means, the joy and the crown, the reduction to simplicity and unity of the many facets of religious observance and obligations. Once this foundation virtue of charity takes its proper place, all other virtues take their form from it; all other virtues are only so many ways of loving God. No one of them has any meritorious value before God unless.it is informed by charity. What a delight religious life should be if this is our first duty, this the prime obligation of our whole existence -- to love God and our neighbor as ourselves in Him. And all this because God has.first loved us. Before the uni-verse was created, God is love. He created the universe and man in an act of love. When man turned aside from His love in sin, God the Father decreed the redemption by His only-begotten Son; and the Holy Ghost, in an act of love, overshadowed the im-maculate Virgin and with her consent effected the Incarnation. "The free deliberate self-oblation of Jesus on earth is the realization in time of the eternal decree of redemption in Heaven which springs from the inmost sources of Love." 8 We were created in love; we are destined to be entirely pos-sessed by love. We have only to clear the way, to remove the obstacles, to take down the barriers of pride and self love to let the waters of the boundless oceans of love inundate our whole lives. Once the barriers are down and love's passage through us is free, all other virtues follow. Because we love, we find the practice of the other virtues an almost impelling necessity. "I have found my vocation," once exclaimed the Little Flower; "in the Church, I will be love!" Each religious should make the same discovery; and the sooner, the better. To each one is the quotation from Jeremias applicable: "I have loved thee with an everlasting love!" (31:3). What peace, quiet, refreshment in that thought. Ever-lastingly He has loved me; He has brought me into existence primarily to fill me with love, for His glory! Intellectually we should understand the nature of this charity and how it should function in our lives. We cannot build castles in the air or dream of the darts of love or the raging fires we see sur-rounding the pictures of the saints. We must seek the essence, SKarl Adam, Christ the Son of God (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1934), p. 266. 88 March, 1960 CHARITY THE UNIFYING PRINCIPLE not the extraordinary manifestations of it. There are three divisions in this precept of charity: the love of God~ the love of self, the love of neighbor. The human mind staggers when it attempts to analyze the love of God in itself. On God's side, charity is active and creative. According to Sty. Thomas, "It infuses and creates the goodness which is present in things."'~ We love something because we find in it qualities or characteristics that appeal to us. God loves His own reflection in objects pleasing to Him. God is love, so that in Him love is a bottomless spring diffusing itself endlessly to the works of His creation, making them beautiful because of His love poured freely into them. "Our God is a consuming fire" (Heb 12:29). The flames of that fire are eternal and boundless. They transform to white heat whatever they touch. The inner life of the Blessed Trinity is one of complete giving, coraplete giving in love in the eternal generation of the Son by the Father, and the eternal spiration of the Holy Ghost by the mutual love of the Father and the Son. The Incarnation of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity is the most stupendous demonstration of God's love for man. The Redemption, the establishment of the Church, the order of grace and the sacraments, are all gifts demonstrating a love on God's part so perfect, we can never begin to comprehend it. On our part, charity is a supernaturally infused habit of our souls, a virtue by which we love God as the sovereign good above all else and our neighbor as ourselves in His love. This love for God which is our prime duty must have definite characteristics. It must be a love that is summus, that is, a love of God above all else. This characteristic which ~he theologians label summus has two di-visions: appretiative and intensive. Amor appretiative summus loves God as the sovereign good. "It is a postulate of charity that we must love God as the.infinitely lovable Being above all else, that is more than any other person.''~" Amor intensive summus adds the additional note of loving God ardently. "It is the highest kind of emotional love of which a man is capable.''~ This ardor, however, is not essential. ~t is a gift of God not given to all. True, there have been saints who have experienced sensible darts of love or ardent affections; but there have been many, too, who experienced years of dryness and dereliction. Yet these also loved God with an amor appretiative summus. ~Summa Theologiae, 1, 20, 3. ~°Koch-Preuss, Handbook o[ Moral Theology (St. Louis: Herder, 1928), 4, 78. ~Ibid., p. 79. 89 SISTER CONSUELA MARIE Review for Religious The second characteristic of the love we should bear God is that it be effective. That means it must show itself in good works. Love that merely exclaims, "My God, I love you!" but does not show itself in good works, is ineffective love. Mere affective love is transitory and incomplete unless it ends in effective love. If we really love God, we give proof of the love by the practice of the virtues and. by positive effort to extend the Kingdom of God on earth. The love of. God is the first and greatest commandment, and the second is the love of neighbor as self. Not often is a religious instructed in the love of self, though since God established love of self as the measure of the love of neighbor, there is a perfectly proper love of self. Pope Pius XII has made this very clear. "There exists," he said in his address to psychotherapists (April 13, 1953), "in fact a defense, an esteem, a love, and a service of one's personal self which is not only justified but demanded by psychology and morality. Nature makes this plain, and it is also a lesson of the Christian faith. Our Lord taught 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.' Christ then, proposes as the rule of love of neighbor, charity towards oneself,, not the contrary." This love of self includes the proper love of our spiritual wel-fare before which we can put nothing else, and also in certain circumstances, a concern for our necessary physical welfare. St. Thomas says this explicitly: "When we are commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves, the love of self is set before the love of neighbor.""-' He hastens to add that we should love our neighbor more than our body. A proper uriderstanding of the nature of this love of self is essential. Before all else, we must love our soul's salvation. Before that we can put nothing. We can, however, and should put our neighbor's spiritual welfare before our physical convenience. It is worth noting, too, that God expects a reasonable care and concern for the physical nature He has given us. It has been said that some nuns push themselves too far. That can happen to a religious as well as to a hard-pressed mother or father. But here, a charity for oneself, for the physical health given by God, could help. All religious are well instructed on the third phase of the commandment of charity -- the love of neighbor. Love for others in religious life flowers into the manifold apostolates of the Church at home and abroad. So many dedicated apostles in so many dedicated apostolates, all loving God for Himself, and their neigh-r~ Surnma Theologiae, 2-2, 44, 8, ad 2. 9O March, 1960 CHARITY THE UNIFYING PRINCIPLE bors in. His love, ready to give them all they have, loving them truly as they love themselves! Now and then, however, it is well to recall that the first claimants to this charity toward the neighbor are the members of our respective communities. St. Thomas says so pointedly, "We ought to love most those of our neighbors who are more virtuous or more closely united with us.''1'~ We should wish them well, do good to them before outsiders. Helping them is part of our first moral obligation. Understanding the primacy of place, the primacy of obl.igation, and the formative influence of charity on all other virtues, the in-tellectual concept is clear. Intellectual concepts will help but they will not produce charity. God infuses it. Progress in charity is the lifelong concern of the religious. He is in the way of perfection. Can he attain to perfect charity? Discussing whether one can be perfect in this life,14 St. Thomas explains that absolute perfection is possible only to God, and that absolute totality on the part of the lover so that his affective faculty always tends to God as much as it possibly can, is not possible to human nature this side of heaven. But, he adds, there is a third perfection on the part of the lover with regard ¯ to the removal of obstacles to the movement of love towards God. This perfection, he assures us, can be had in this life in two ways: first, by removing from man's affection all that is contrary to charity, such as mortal sin (this degree is essential for salvation); secondly, by removing from man's affections not only what is contrary to charity but also what hinders the mind's affection from tending wholly to God. In this second area, there are ever-widening possibilities. In avoiding mortal sin, and as far as human frailty will permit, venial sin, there is an ever-deepening union of mind and soul with God. Affective love becomes effective in works of super-erogation assumed for the sake of love. At this point, all the theo-logical virtues, the cardinal virtues and their subsidiary virtues, are so many streams through which the current of charity flows far and wide. The stronger the charity, the stronger these other virtues which receive their merit from charity. This perfection is possible here and now --: that all that is done, is done for love of God at least through a virtual intention even though an actual intention does not precede every ac.t. The aim at this love should be direct and constant. The most important act a religious makes is an act of charity, and it is in his power to renew it actually and briefly countless ~3Ibid. l~Summa Theologiae, 2-2, 184, 2. 91 SISTER CONSUELA MARIE times during the day. Fulfilling all the obligations of his state for the pure love of God, he can still renew frequent acts of charity. "With frequently renewed acts of charity, the soul is capable of doing as much as it can in this life to make the meritorious influence of charity constant and complete.''~'~ Charity is the precious ointment, the sheer essence of all religious living, of all spiritual striving. It is the most precious element in the Church. St. John of the Cross states its position with startling simplicity: "More precious in the sight of God and the soul is a small portion of this pure love, more profitable to the Church, even though it seems to be accomplishing nothing, than are all other good works combined.''~'~ When life is over, faith will end, for we will see; hope will vanish, for the goal will be reached. Charity alone will endure. Before it is our eternal joy, it will be our judgment. St. John of the Cross tells us that in the evening "of life, we will be judged by love. How important that the morning, the high noon, and the late afternoon of life be directed to the perfection of charity! ~SDominic Hughes, "The Dynamics of Christian Perfection," The Thomist, 15 (1952), 268. ~The Works of St. John of the Cross (Westminster: Newman, 1949), 2, 346. 92 Neuroticism and Perfection Richard P. Vaughan, S.J. THE FIRST OBLIGATION of every religious is to seek perfec-tion.~ Generally speaking, the success of a religious as a religious will be measured by the extent to which he or she actually achieves this goal. Since perfec.tion and sanctit~ are synofiomous, every religious is also called to sanctity. This demand presents a special problem for the seriously neurotic religious, since the very nature of his disorder seems to militate against his achieving any degree of perfection or sanctity, and sometimes it even seems to eliminate the possibility of his striving to achieve a relative state of perfection. The question, therefore, arises: Can the neurotic religioug ever hope to attain perfection or sanctity? Or are the debilitating symptoms of almost all seriously neurotic conditi'~ns such as to exclude the possibility of sanctity? Obligation and Nature of Perfection St. Thbmas describes the type of l~erfection whibh is the primary obligation of all religious as "charity, first and foremost in the love of God, and then in the love of'neighb0r.'"-' The 'religiqus is especially called to love God with his whole heart and his neighbor as himself.:' Although few, if any, actually achieve this $odl, many have succeeded to an extraordinary degree. They have devoted the greater part of their lives to loving.God and neighbor. As a resul~, they now live among the saints of heaven. If one stops to analyze the lives of these eminently successful people, it becomes evident that this charity of which Scripture and the theologians speak presupposes many other virtues and counsels. First of all, one cannot fully love .God and his neighbor when the majo~ actions of his life are motivated by self-love. The person who is absorbed in himself finds it extremely difficult to turn his will outward toward God and neighbor. Even those who have achieved a relative state of sanctity on this earth, quickly dis- The Reverend Richard P. Vaugl~an teaches at the University of San Francisco, San Francisco 17, California. 'Code of Canon Law, canon 593. "-'~urnma Theologiae, 2-2, 184, 3. ¯ :~Adolphe Tanquerey, The Spiritual Life (Tournai: Descl6e, 1930), pp. 183-84. 93 RICHARD P. VAUGHAN Review for Religious covered that they must wage a constant battle against self, lest they find Selfish motives tainting that charity which perfection demands. Moreover, the enticements of pleasure turn the religious away from divine love. The man or woman who lives for the pleasures of the world cannot live for God. It is only by curbing the desire for. pleasure through the medium of numerous virtues that a religious will be able to center his full attention upon God. Fu.rther helps are the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. These three vows, shut out worldly interests which distract from the full development of charity. Hence, included in the notion of charity, which is the source of all perfection, is self-sacrifice, the practice of virtues, and fidelity to the three vows. Knowledge of God and Neurosis A thing must be seen as good before it can be loved. The more apparent the goodness, the greater is the possibility of a deep love. Thus, before we can love a person, we must know him. These are philosophical principles which affect our dealings with God as well as with others. In the natural order, all of us have probably ex-perienced at one time or another an initial dislike for a person, only to have this dislike after a number of months or years turn to a positive like or even to love. If we stop to analyze what has hap-pened, it becomes apparent that a new and deeper knowledge of the person makes us see him in an entirely different light. We begin to see him as he actually is and not as we have imagined him to be. When all his good qualities become apparent, we cannot help but" like him. The neurotic frequently ftnds himself in a similar situation in his relationship v~ith God. Due to his disorder and early experiences, he may harbor some v.ery hostile and angry feelings toward God. He is apt to think that God has unjustly persecuted him. He is apt to be resentful. Since all such thoughts and emotions provoke a great amount of guilt, many neurotics repress them. Unfortunately, repressed matter seldom stays fully repressed, but manifests itself in many subtle ways. For example, .a religious who is unconsciously very angry with God might ex-perience almost a compulsion to commit some type of a serious sin, and still never realize that one of the reasons for his actions is a .desire to get even with God. Once the neurotic religious through the medium of psychotherapy begins to realize why he feels as he does toward God, then he can begin to know God as others know Him. 94 March, 1960 NEUROTICISM AND PERFECTION None of us knows God directly. Our knowledge comes from experience. Some of this knowledge is the result of a long reasoning process. However, our initial knowledge of what God is like most probably springs from the attitudes and example of our parents. It is the mother or father who plants the germ of knowledge in the mind of the child. Since small children usually look upon their parents as gods, it should not be startling to. discover that our concept Of what God is like comes in part from experience with our own fathers. If, for instance, early childhood experiences with a father or father-substitute are unfavorable, as so often happens among neurotics, then one's notion of God the Father is not likely to be true to reality. The individual who has had a father who was a stern disciplinarian and unable to express any warmth toward his children is liable to look upon God as the God of ruthless justice, and not the God of love and mercy. This concept.bf God is the product of experience, and in all probability the individual does not realize that it differs from that of anyone else. This is but one example of how the neurotic mind might develop a warped concept . of God. There are numerous others, all of which profoundly affect the pursuit of sanctity. Since true love of God necessarily presupposes a true knowl-edge of God, the neurotic religious may often find himself with limited tools or even without any tools necessary for progress on the way to perfection. Any progress will first demand that the religious abandon his false notion of God. Generally speaking, such a change will require some type of psychological help. Almost all of us during the course of childhood and adolescence . de~velop some fal,se, or at least dubious ideas about God. It is only through meditation and study" that a religious comes to a true, although limited, knowledge of God. One of th~ characteristics of a neurotic' is self-centeredness. He has a tendenc~ to live inside ¯ him, .self. He frequently looks at the events of dail~ life only in so far as they affect his own personal problem.s. Often his morning meditations become mere ruminations over past hurts and failures; real of imagined. He finds it very difficult to consider things as they actually exist apart from his own disordered personality. Such an outlook does not foster that type of meditation which is likely to produce a .more realistic knowledge of God. As a consequence, the love of God which is demanded of those seeking perfection is either weak or completely ladking, since one cannot fully love God if he has an erroneous concept of Him. 95 ~ICHARD P. VAUGHAN Review for Religious Love of Neighbor The second obligation upon all those who are seeking perfec-tion is love of one's neighbor.4 This obligation poses a special prob-lem for the seriously neurotic religious, in so far as one of the major areas affected by a neurotic condition is that of relationship with others. A characteristic often found in a neurosis is an excessive striving for the manifestations of love and attention from others. This striving stems from early childhood frustrations which have been repressed. The neurotic will generally make use of some protective devices so that he is not forced to look at this anxiety-provoking part of his personality. Some handle the problem by creating a wall between themselves and others. They simply tell themselves that they do not need the rest of the community. Their lives are dedicated to God and their work. And so they withdraw deeper into themselves. Other religious make an initial but unsuccessful effort to satisfy their need for affection, but then turn against the very members of the community who have tried to help them. In general, they manifest a good deal of anger and hostility in their relationships with others. And finally, there are those religious who spend their lives seeking any small manifesta-tion of love and concern from the other members of the community or from the laity. They are very dependent. They are always leaning on someone else. Although they seldom show external resentment when others inevitably fair to satisfy their needs, still often they are seething inside with emotional turmoil. It is not only possible to love those whom we. dislike, but it is a commandment of God. "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you" (Lk 6:27). Still, if one has an almost constant tendency to be hostile and resentful of others, the task of controlling these feelings becomes extremely, difficult. In the case of neurotic reli-gious, the major obstacles for the practice of charity are feelings of the opposite nature which sp~ing from unconscious sources. One can learn to change erroneous attitudes and feelings if he realizes that he has them and can analyze to some degree why he acts accordingly. But when a person is almost entirely unaware of both his uncharitable actions and the source of these actions, then the practice of charity often becomes an almost insurmountable barrier. Over- Sensitiveness Coupled with the above-mentioned problem is the over-sensitiveness which is a part of most neuroses. The neurotic religious ~Ibid., pp. 157-58. 96 March, 1960 NEUROTICISM AND PERFECTION is more easily offended by a slight or a cross word. He takes all the actions and words of others in a personal sense. Thus, he is more apt to be tempted with uncharitable or even revengeful thoughts. Since he is so self-centered, he will probably find it considerably more difficult to resist these temptations. The slight or cross word is. striking at the most vulnerable part of his personality, namely at his self-esteem; the natural reaction is to protect himself by attacking the offender. The second obligation imposed by perfection, namely charity toward others, therefore, proves much more trying for the neurotic religious than for the rest of the community. In the case of the severely neurotic religious who has little or no insight into his hostile behaviour, the effect of the disorder could reach that point where the virtue of charity would seem to be almost impossible. In such instances, the degree of responsibility for the uncharitable-ness must be taken into consideration. The lives of the saints teach us that any advancement on the way of perfection calls for self-sacrifice and self-renunciation,s The person who is almost entirely taken up with himself has little room in his heart for love of God and neighbor. As it has been stated, one of the major characteristics of neurotics is self-centered-ness. Depending upon the degree of severity, being self-centered will present some kind of an obstacle to sanctity. In the case of religious, some become so absorbed in their own interior conflicts and frustrations that they have little time left for God and the members of their community. They are so filled with self-pity that God has but one meaning for them, namely a source of consolation and solace. These souls are unable to give love to God just as they are unable to give love to their fellow religious or to their students. As a result, self-sacrifice and self-renunciation play little or no part in their lives. Pseudo-Virtues A ~urther handicap resulting from a neurotic condition is the development of pseudo-virtues. These are repeated actions which give the semblance of virtue but in reality are just the result of the disordered personality. For example, pseudo-virtues are sometimes found among those who have deep feelings of inferiority and un-worthiness, which for the most part are uncbnscious. Under the guise of humility, some neurotic religious are constantly defacing themselves before others. Unfortunately, they never stop to analyze ~Ibid., pp. 166-69. 97 RICHARD P. VAOGHAN Review for Religious that what they are actually seeking is a word of praise to offset some very distressing feelings of inferiority. The function of this so-called humility is self-centered and not God-centered. Commandments and Counsels Striving for perfection demands the following of the command-ments and, to a degree, the counsels. "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments . If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast and give to the poor and thou shalt have a treasure in heaven" (Mt~19:17-21). If a religious is making a true effort to seek perfectio~n, he will strive to keep himself, at the very least, free from serious sin and to observe the demands of his three vows. In addition to grace, this observance of the commandments and following of the vows requires the habit of self-control. Yet one of the first parts of personality to be affected by any kind of mental illness is self-control. Both neurotics and psychotics find that as their disorders become progressively worse, they become less and less able to control their thoughts, feelings, and actions. After an emotional outburst, many a neurotic religious has been shocked and humiliated by his unusual behavior. He will tell himself that he did not act this way before. When he tries to .analyze why he became so angry and lost his temper, he can find no proportionate reason. The reason, however, for his behavior can be attributed to a loss of self-control, resulting from the neurotic disorder. This loss of self-control affects much of the neurotic's behavior. It impairs his pursuit of virtue and fidelity to the vows. The striving for sanctity is further handicapped by continuous periods of depression and fatigue, which seem to mark the path of most neurotics. When a person is unhappy and tired, he becomes an easy prey to temptation. He has less resistance. Pleasure becomes more enticing, since in a moment of darkness any fleeting joy be-comes much more desirable. The start of many a neurotic's escape into sin has begun with a peri6d of depression and unhappiness. Each lapse, especially if the lapses involve sins of a sexual nature, destroys some progress made in the life of virtue. Since repeated sinful actions are apt to become habitual, they make future progress much more difficult. Can a Saint Be Neurotic? What has been said up to this point would seem to indicate that perfection or sanctity is out of the reach of the neurotic religious. The.re are, however, modern authors who maintain that 98 March, 1960 NEUROTICISM AND PERFECTION some of the saints were neurotic. For instance, one states that St. Therese of the Child Jesus suffered from an obsessive-compul-sive neurosis.6 Still, it should be noted that this author says St. Therese appeared to be neurotic at the age of twelve or thir-teen. He does not affirm that she was neurotic when she died. Moreover, he does not state that she was severely neurotic, but that she suffered from a serious case of scruples, which in many cases is considered a neurotic symptom. During the past few decades at' least, it is highly doubtful whether a person could have been severely neurotic and still be considered an apt candidate for canonization. In the Code of Canon Law, we find: "When the cause is that of a confessor (that is, of a servant of God who is not a martyr of the faith), the following question is.to be discussed: whether in the case under consideration there is evidence of the existence of the theological virtues of faith,, hope, and charity (both toward God and toward neighbor) and of the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, forti-tude, and temperance, and of the subsidiary virtues in a heroic de-gree . ,,7 In view of our analysis of the seriously neurotic per-sonality, it is difficult to see how a religious could attain all the aforesaid virtues to a heroic degree, and thus be worthy of canoniza-tion. It might also be added that, where there is evidence of mental disturbance in a servant of God who is being considered for beati-fication and this disturbance in some way influences the exercise of that servant's freedom, the custom of the Congregation of Rites has been to dismiss or set aside the case. s Spiritual Fate of the Neurotic Religious What, then, is the spiritual fate of the priest, sister, or brother who is severely afflicted with some form of a neurosis? As long as he or she remains in this condition, there would seem to be little chance of attaining a high degree of perfection -- except through the help of a special miracle coming from the hand of God. This handicap, however, does not relieve the particular religious in question of the obligation to seek after perfection. He still has the same obligation as any other religious. He differs from other re-ligious only in so far as he must reconstruct the natural before he 6Josef Goldbrunner, Holiness Is Wholeness (New York: Pantheon, 1955),. p. 25. 7Code of Canon Law, canon 2104. 8Gabriele di Santa Maria Maddalena, "Present Norms of Holiness" in Conflict and Light, edited by Bruno de J~sus-Marie (London: Sheed and Ward, 1952), p. 168. 99 RICHARD P. VAUGHAN Review for Religious can build a solid supernatural life. Most religious have fairly well-balanced personalities when they enter the notiviate. They are, therefore, in a position to take full advantage of the spiritual benefits offered during these years of training. With the neurotic, such is unfortunately not the case. He is frequently so preoccupied with himself and his problems that much of the spiritual fruit offered during the formative years is lost. If a neurotic religious is to advance on the road to sanctity, he must first clear away the natural debris of conflicts, fears, and frustrations. Once this has been accomplished, he will then move ahead as rapidly, if not more rapidly, than the religious who has always had good psychological health. In most instances of severe neurosis, this can only be achieved through some form of psycho-therapy. Protective Devices At the heart of every neurotic condition, no matter how mild or severe, is the development of some kind of a protective device. For example, the individual who feels completely inadequate in his dealings with others may defend himself against having to face this side of his personality by putting on an air of bravado whenever he finds himself in a group of people. Usually the physical and psychological symptoms are merely protective device.s. During the course of our early lives, there is not one of us who does not develop some kind of a personality defect which we cannot bear to manifest, and so we repress it. The way we go about repressing it is to develop a protective device. For this reason, many psy-chiatrists and psychologists say that we are all neurotic to a degree, The difference between the severely neurotic person and the average person is quantitative. The seriously neurotic has many repressed personality defects, and he has built up a very elaborate system of defending himself. This system, however, either fails to give the needed protection, so that he has to face to some extent the repulsive part of himself, or the system itself is such as to prove ankiety-provoking. In the latter case, one could include the religious who uses the defense of compulsive prayer to solve an unconscious conflict. Soon the number of prayers reaches such a proportion as to make the fulfilling of his other obligations impossible~ Then, the religious is caught in a new conflict of obliga-tions which produces more psychological discomfort. The saints who, like St. Therese, gave some evidence of a neurosis built up protective devices or defenses; but they did not 100 March, 1960 NEUROTICISM AND PERFECTION construct those elaborate and complicated systems that char-acterize so many severe neurotics. Had they done so, they un-doubtedly would have also manifested such personality traits as over-sensitivity and self-centeredness. Many religious give evidence of minor neurotic symptoms, such as an unreasonable fear of high places or occasional attacks of scruples. These symptoms in themselves need not be handicaps to perfection. They may even become sources of spiritual progress. As soon as a religious, however, manifests not only these minor symptoms but also some of the neurotic personality traits, then the way to perfection and sanctity becomes progressively more difficult. Need of Psychotherapy The foregoing discussion should bring out the need of a solid natural foundation on which to build the religious life. The priest, brother, or sister who is plagued with numerous psychological problems has a poor foundation on'which to construct his or her spiritual life. In almost every instance, supernatural virtue de-mands natural virtue. This fact points to the importance of psy-chotherapy for the severely neurotic religious. For without psycho-therapy,- these religious will be unable to achieve or sometimes even to seek after the primary goal of the religious life. Sanctity and perfection are out of their reach. But once they have received and cooperated with some form of psychological help, they are in a position to use the grace God gives to every religious. It stands to reason that the sooner a religious has the opportunity to clear away debris of psychological conflicts, the sooner he can get to the prime purpose of his chosen life, namely his own perfection and sanctity. 101 Survey of Roman Documents R. F. Smith, S.J. THE FOLLOWING article will survey the documents that appeared in .Acta Apostolicae Sedis (AAS) during the months of October and November, 1959. All references in the article will be to the 1959 AAS (v. 51). Encyclical on the Rosary Under the date of September 26, 1959 (pp. 673-78), Pope John XXIII issued the encyclical Grata recordatio. The document is a brief one which begins by recalling the many Marian encyclicals of Leo " XIII. After emphasizing the desire he has for the devout recitation of the Rosary especially during the month of October, the Vicar of Christ then listed the matters for which he principally wished private and public prayers to be offered during the month of the Rosary. The "first intention was for the Holy See and for all ecclesiastical orders in the Church. The Pontiff's second intention was for all apostolic laborers that they may be granted the grace to speak the word of God with all confidence in its power. In the third place the Pope asked the faithful to remember in their prayers the leaders of the nations of the world. Catholics, he said, should petition God that these leaders may give the deepest consideration to the critical situation that the world faces today, that they may seek out the causes of discord, and that, realizing that war measures can lead only to destruction for all concerned, they may place no hope in such means. Let the leaders of the world, the Holy Father remarked, recall the eternal laws of God which are the foundation of good government; similarly they should remind themselves that just as men have been created by God, so also they are destined to possess and enjoy Him. The fourth and final intention for which John XXIII asked special prayers was the diocesan synod of Rome and the coming general council of the Church. Saints, Blessed, Servants of God Under the date of May 26, 1959, the Holy See issued two decretal letters (pp. 737-49, 750-64) concerning the canonization of St. Charles of Sezze (1613-1669) and St. Joaquina de Vedruna de Mas (1783-1854). Each of the letters begins with an account of the life of the saint, details the history of the cause for canonization, and finally gives the official account of the actual canonization. 102 ROMAN DOCUMENTS On August 11, 1958 (pp. 830-31), the Sacred Congregation of Rites formally confirmed the immemorial cult by which Herman Joseph, priest of the Premonstratensian Order, has been honored as a saint. The same congregation also issued a monitum (p. 720) in which it noted two mistakes in the text of the second nocturn for the feast of St. Lawrence of Brindisi. On April 22, 1959 (pp. 717-20), the same congrega-tion approved the introduction of the cause of the Servant of God Peter Joseph Savelberg (1827-1907), priest and founder of the Congregations of the Brothers and the Little Sisters of St. Joseph. On October 14, 1959 (pp. 818-20), the Pope addressed an allocution to a gro.up interested in the cause of Niels Steensen. The Pontiff praised Steensen for the remarkable scientific rigor with which he studied the works of God in order to better understand their structure and make-up; he also noted Steensen's pioneering work in anatomy, biology, geology, and crystallography. But it was Steensen's work after his conversion to the Church that the Pontiff principally emphasized. Once converted, he noted, the scholar gave up his chair of anatomy in the University of Copenhagen and began to study for the priesthood. After his ordina-tion and after his consecration as a bishop that soon followed, he began a life .of poverty, mortification, and suffering. He became especially noted for his zeal to lead non-Catholics back to the Church. His work in this area, the Pope remarked, was characterized by two notable qualities: his unalterable attachment to all points of revealed doctrine; and his great respec.t and love for those who did not share his own religious convictions. Miscellaneous Documents On November 4, 1959 (pp. 814-18), John XXIII delivered a homily in St. Peter's on the occasion of the first anniversary of his coronation as Pope. After recalling the feelings aroused in him by the first year of his pontificate, the Pope proceeded to outline a program of action based on the Our Father. His efforts, he said, will be directed to see that the name of God be blessed and acclaimed; that His spiritual kingdom may triumph in souls and in nations; that all human forces m~y be in conformity with the will of the heavenly Father. This last point, he insisted, is the essential one; from it will flow man's daily bread, the pardon of human offenses, the vigor of man's resistance to evil, and the preservation of men from all individual and social evils. On September 13, 1959 (pp. 709-14), the Holy Father broadcast a message for the conclusion of the National Eucharistic Congress of Italy. He told his listeners that the Eucharist is truly the mystery of faith, for it is the living compendium of all Catholic belief. In the Eucharist, he said, is found Christ, the only mediator between God and man; in it is found the lasting memorial of the sacrifice offered by Christ on Calvary; and in it is found the Head of the Mystical Body from whom come the sacraments which give fecundity and 103 1~. F. SMITH Review for Religious beauty to the Church. He concluded his broadcast by reminding his listeners that two thousand years of progress, in knowledge, in art, in culture, in economics, in politics, and in social matters have not diminished the truth of Christ's words: "Amen, amen, I~ say to you: if you do not eat the flesh of the son of man and do not drink his blood, you shall not have life in you" (Jn 6:54). A later radio broadcast on October 11, 1959 (pp. 777-78), was directed to the people of Argentina on the occasion of their Eucharistic Congress. He told the Argentines that if the human race would practice the lessons of love and unity which come from the Eucharist, then the miseries and discords of the world would cease to be. The Eucharist, he said, is the source of harn~ony and true peace for individuals, families, and peoples; for it restrains the passions, especially those of pride and egoism. On October 11, 1959 (pp. 766-69), the Vicar of Christ addressed a group of missionaries to whom he had just given their missionary crosses. He told the future missionaries that the peoples of the world await them, since they carry the secret of true peace and of tranquil progress. He ~lso reminded his listeners that the Church has received from her Founder the mandate to seek out all peoples so as to unite them into one family; accordingly no human force, no difficulty, no obstacle can stop the Church's missionary work which, will end only when God is all in all things. In his concluding words the Pontiff re-minded the missionaries that the cross they had just received should show them at what price the world is saved; the crucified Christ should be their model and their example; in their work, therefore, they should not put their trust and confidence in helps that are of purely human inspiration. On April 13, 1959 (pp. 691-92), the Holy Father issued an apos-tolic letter, raising to the status of an abbey the priory of the Sacred ¯ Heart in Ofiate. The new abbey belongs to members of the Canons Regular of the Lateran. On September 25, 1959 (pp. 706-9), John XXIII delivered an allocution to the Abbot Primate and other relS-resentatives of the Benedictine order. The Pontiff recalled with gratitude. the great debt of the Church to the Benedictine order and continued by reminding his listeners that the primary form of their apostolic work must be the chanting of the Divine Office. This, he said, is espec-ially necessary today, when so many men are intent on earthly matters to the negligence of celestial things. He also recalled the other works of the order and concluded by urging his listeners to keep faithfully to their traditions without hesitating, however, to use and accept new things that are proved to be good and useful. On October 19, 1959 (pp. 822-25), the Pontiff addressed an allocu-tion to the members, officials, and lawyers of the Rota. After giving a brief history of the Rota, the Pope told his listeners that they have been called by Providence to the defense of justice without regard to any other consideration including that of the authority or reputation of 104 March, 1960 I~OMAN DOCUMENTS those having recourse to the Rotao In this, he said, they must imitate the sovereign equity of the just and merciful God, before whom there is no acceptation of persons. In the latter part of the allocution the Vicar of Christ called the Rota the tribunal of the Christian family. By defending the sanctity and the indissolubility of matrimony, the Rota protects it from the attacks of a hedonistic egoism; at the same time, when it acknowledges the invalidity or non-existehce of a marriage bond, the Rota acts as the guardian of the sacred rights of the human person. On August 28, 1959 (pp. 701-2), the Pope sent a letter to Arch-bishop Martin John O'Connor, rector of the North American College in Rome, congratulating him on the hundredth anniversary of the college. Later on October 11, 1959 (pp. 770-75), the Pontiff gave an address to the students of the college, detailing to them the numerous ways in which the various Popes have manifested a special interest in the college. The growth of the college from its opening days with thirteen students to its large groups at the present time is, he continued, a sign of the growth of the Church in the United States. The Holy Father concluded the allocution by telling the students that the cause of Mother Elizabeth Seton had already passed the antepreparatory stage and that consequently there was good reason to hope that in a relatively short time the cause would be brought to completion. On October 13, 1959 (pp. 775-77), the Pope addressed present and former students of the Teutonic College of Sancta Maria de Anima on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of Plus IX's reorganization of the college. He congratulated the college on its past achievements and urged it to greater things in the future. On September 6, 1959 (pp. 703-6), the Pontiff talked to a group of Italian elementary teachers, telling them to have a profound and jealous esteem for their mission of education. This esteem, he said, should be based on the .following considerations: Teachers train the minds of their charges, a consideration which, he added, should make them eager to perfect themselves constantly in their own culture. Moreover, teachers form the souls of their children; to teachers, then, is ent~'usted the forma-tion of the men of tomorrow. Finally, he concluded, teachers should encourage themselves by remembering that by their work they are preparing for themselves a special reward in heaven according to the words of Daniel 12:3, "But they that are learned shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that instruct many to justice, as stars for all eternity." On October 17, 1959 (pp. 821-22), the Vicar of Christ spoke to a group of persons interested in the human values to be found in labor. He congratulated the group for putting the things of the spirit before every other consideration and recommended to them the exercise of Christian virtue. He especially urged them to follow the maxim of St. Benedict, "Pray and work"; they should, he said, make prayer their 105 VIEWS,' NEWS, PREVIEWS Review [or Religious very breath and their food in the conviction that every human activity, no matter how lofty and praiseworthy, is not to be limited to an earthly horizon, but should tend towards the City of God. On October 1, 1959 (pp. 764-66), the Vicar of Christ spoke to a congress of the Apostolate of the Blind. The ~lind, he said, teach other men to value the light of intelligence and of virtue. He also reminded his listeners that the cry of the blind man of the gospel, "Lord, grant that I may see," arises today from multitudes of men who are spiritually blind; accordingly he urged his listeners to direct their prayers to the Blessed Virgin that the day will soon come when "all flesh will see the salvation of God." In a letter of October 12, 1959 (pp. 809-10), the Pope accepted the resignation of Cardinal Pizzardo from his position as secretary of the Holy Office. On November 20, 1959 (pp. 810-12), he accepted the resignation of Cardinal Tisserant as Secretary of the Sacred Oriental Congregation. On the same day (pp. 812-13) he accepted the resignation of Cardinal Cicognani as Pro-Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Segnatura. On October 9, 1959 (p. 829), the Sacred Consistorial Congregation named Francis Xavier Gillmore Stock the military vicar of Chile. An apostolic constitution of April 17, 1959 (pp. 789-91), established ¯ an exarchate in Germany for Ruthenians of the .Byzantine rite. The see of the exarchate will be in Munich. On September 23, 1959 (p. 832), the Sacred Apostolic Penitentiary published the text and indulgences of a prayer for the coming general council. An English translation of the prayer and its grant of indulgences will be found on pages 65-66 of this issue of the REVIEW. Views, News, Previews A RELIGIOUS WOMAN who has had a ten-year struggle against serious mental sickness has sent to the REVIEW an account of her experiences and of the lessons that can be drawn from them. The account ~is given below in the sister's own words: To many individuals, both lay and religious, the thought of living with one whb has been an inmate in a mental institution seems foreign, until it strikes home. When the family ties are those of blood relationship, there is sometimes a feeling of love, of pride, or even of legal force that makes for an attempt to keep the person a part of the family unit, even if this may cause inconvenience, embarrassment, or added expense to the other members of the family. When the relationship is one of a spir-itual nature even greater love and understanding might be expected, since the bond which binds a religious family should reflect the love of Christ Himself. Why, then, are there a considerable number of religi-ous whose returfi to their religious communities, when recommended 106 March, 1960 VIEWS, NEWS, PREVIEWS by the medical staff of a mental hospital, brings with it a stigma that differentiates them from the sisters who resume their usual duties after regaining their health from a physical illness? Perhaps personal ex-perience over a period of ten years may be helpful to others -- both sick and healthy, both superiors and subjects. In September of 1949 my usual teaching duties began. Shortly afterwards I experienced symptoms I did not understand -- sudden spells of crying, with no apparent provocation, and at the most unexpected.times. Since that time I have been a patient in four mental hospitals, seen fourteen psychiatrists, and a slightl~ lesser number of experienced priests. There is no regret in my having been ill. In fact, I think God, in HIS goodness, timed it well to save me from a growing pride and possibly a rather shallow religious life. Is it impossible for a sistek emotionally or mentally disturbed for a short time to again be a useful member of the community? Could mental sickness occur in a sister who ordinarily enjoys good health and has no history of mental illness in her family? Both may be firmly answered in the affirmative. With the realization that a "yes" may be given to question number two, the ego in you (but we hope also your love of neighbor) may spark your interest to further information on question number one. With good medical help received in time, prayer, patience, and a determination to win on the part of the patient, and.a kind and sensible attitude on the part of other members of the community, a very sick person may again be an active and useful worker for Christ as a perfectly normal member of the community. Lacking one or more of these condi-tions, she may be an added burden financially, a loss to a much needed Christian apostolate; and there is no guarantee that her suffering is any more pleasing to God than her active work would be. Resignation to His will as an inmate of a mental institution calls for the highest degree of fortitude. How many reach this goal? And how many potentially good religious have the spiritual capacity to repel bitterness or at least apathy? What can be done to lessen the number of sisters who are lost to the active apostolate unndcessarily? Superiors may: (1) be informed of symptoms of emotional disturbance. Early recognition and treatment is important. For the bu~y superior Psychiatry and Catholicism by Van der Veldt and OdenwaldI ig fairly comprehensive. (2) Have a Christ-like attitude toward the sick sister which will inspire confidence. (3) If hospitalization is necessary, welcome the patient's return to the community and to her work on the same basis as one returning after an appendectomy or other physical illness. Subjects may: (1) on the patient's return from the mental hospital, ac-cept the doctor's decision that she is well enough to return to religious ~Editor's note: James H. Van der Veldt and Robert P. Odenwald (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1952). 107 VIEWS, NEWS, PREVIEWS Review for Religious life and treat her like any other sister. (2) Do not avoid her or show fear in other ways, such as locking bedroom doors at night, and so forth. The patient may: (1) accept her suffering as.coming from God, but not with a pessimistic outlook; (2) cooperate with medical help given; (3) determine to regain her health, with trust in God, if such is His will; (4) keep busy or try to help others when the type and intensity of the illness-permits. It's a wonderful way to minimize your own troubles. The proof of the pudding lies in the eating. Mine has been a pro-longed meal -- ten years -- but I hope soon to taste the sweetness of dessert. A short resume will crystalize the effectiveness of the suggestions above. November, 1949, forced to give up teaching, 1949-1954, in and out of mental hospitals, stays varying from tw~ weeks to three months. Returning to the community meant being a human chessman on the board, moved here and there with jobs ranging from teaching on all levels, elementary through college, to weeding the motherhouse garden. Duration of jobs might be anywhere from one to eighteen months. The feeling of "not belonging" anywhere was not easy to accept but probably forced me to a greater trust in Christ. 1952, my spiritual director first suggested I leave my community. After twenty-four years of religious life this came as an atomic blow. 1954, Rome granted me an indult of exclaustration. 1954-1956, I.looked like a secular, lived as much as possible a religious life, and discovered I Leapt Over the Wall was a bit exaggerated. The offices in which I worked and the public school which hired me to organize and supervise an art department offered opportunity for God's work. 1956, my doctor and my spiritual director advised me to return to my community. I thought this happy move was permanent. 1957, illness struck again. On the advice of my spiritual director, Rome granted another three-year period of exclaustration. 1957-1959, organization of another public school art department brought me to a New York State area where there is much work to be done with Catholic students, civic, educational and social organizations, the local Newman Club, and friends who just come to my apartment to paint, but end up talking what they really hunger for -- religion and good living! 1960, my doctor, my spiritual director, and the vicar for religious recom-mend my return to my community. I look forward to it with true joy and the hope that with God's grace, my own cooperation, and the help of my superiors and sisters, this will be my home, until Christ welcomes me to an eternal one. The fight against depression has not been easy, but God always provided the necessary help. as it was needed. There have been setbacks which I could never have surmounted alone. Even now I am not a 108 March, 1960 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Hercules of nerves.'Marsilid and equanil supplement my daffy prayers. These are not a cure but a purely natural means, not to be spurned, in keeping me fit to do a job for Christ. There are other religions emotionally or mentally ill at present, some in hospitals, some still devotedly "holding on" to their assignments in religious communities. There will be more in the futu}e. If this account gives hope to even one, I shall feel grateful to the priests and doctors who encouraged me to write. The Institute for Religious at College Misericordia, Dallas, Penn-sylvania (a three-yea~ summer course of twelve days in canon law and ascetical theology for sisters), will be held this year August 20-31. This is the first year in the triennial course. The course in canon law is given by the Rev. Joseph F. Gallen, S. J., that in ascetical theology by the Rev. Thomas E. Clarke, S. J., both of Woodstock College, Woodstock, Maryland. The registration is restricted to higher superiors, their councilors, general and provincial officials, mistresses of novices, and those in similar positions. Applications are to be addressed to Rev. Joseph F. Gallen, S. J., Woodstock College; Woodstock, Md. ( uestions and Answers [The following answers are given b~v Father Joseph F. Gallen, S. J., professor of canon law at Woodstock Col!eg~, Woodstock, Maryland.] Local Houses and Superiors Questions and cases on local houses and local superiors have been submitted with great frequency. Private replies were given to most of these, but it was thought profitable and even necessary to publish all " together and in l?gical order. Questions have been divided whenever this was demanded by the same order. The questions on local houses and local superiors will be continued through several issues of the REVIEW. I. Local Houses 1. We are a clerical exempt institute. We wish to rent a house in a summer resort, to be used only as a vacation place for our com-munity. Do we need the permission of the local ordinary to rent and use this house? The stable residence of religious and the customary tenor of life of the institute are necessary to have a religious house in any sense of this term. Therefore, a mere vacation residence owned, rented, or granted temporarily to an institute and used only as a vacation place is not a religious but a secular house. It lacks both of the requisites given 109 QUESTIONS AND ANSWEas Review for Religious above. Canon law contains no prescriptions on secular houses of religious, and therefore no permission of the local ordinary is necessary for any institute to build or open such a vacation or similar residence. It would usually be courteous to consult him before taking this action; for example, many such residences in one resort might cause difficulty for the diocese. The two requisites given above can be verified in residences which are used also as vacation places; if so, they are canonically erected or filial houses, which will be explained in questions and cases below. 2. What is the relation of the other buildings on our grounds to the religious house, that is, the building in which at least most of the religious reside? In its material sense, a religious house is the house or building in which the religious reside; but all buildings located within the same property, grounds, or premises and buildings not separated from that in which the religious reside are considered part of the. religious house; for example, separate buildings on the same grounds for a college, a preparatory or elementary school, library, science building, infirmary, gymnasium, and houses for workmen are all part of the religious house. Even when not on the same grounds nor contiguous to the residence of the religious, a building is not considered as separate if it can be judged morally to form part of the same group of buildings. It is certainly separate if a mile distant; but a building a few doors away from the residence of the religious, even if a street is between them, can still be said to be part of the same group of buildings. Because of this material sense, a novice is not absent if he is confined by sickness to an infirmary building on the same grounds but distinct 'from the novitiate building (c. 556, §§ 1-2). For the same reason, first profession may licitly be made in the college chapel on the same grounds, even though this building is distinct from that in which the community resides (c. 574, § 1). 3. Our constitutions 'speak of property owned and debts incur-red by the houses, provinces, and institute. How can any of these as such own property or incur debts? In the formal and more important sense, a religious .house is the same thing as a canonically erected religious house. It is the community as a distinct moral person, distinguished as such from both the province and the institute, which are also moral persons. A moral person in the Church may be described as an ecclesiastical corporation. It is a subject of rights and obligations, which are distinct from those of its members considered individually or collectively. A moral person can acquire, own, and administer property (cc. 531-32); is responsible for its debts and obligations (c. 536, § 1); can sue or be sued in court (cc. 1552, § 2, 1°; 1649; 1653, § 6); can receive privileges (cc. 72, §§ 3:4; 613; 615); enjoys precedence (cc. 106, 491), and so forth. The antecedent requisites for a canonically erected house are: (1) at the time of the erection it must 110 March, 1960 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS consist of at least three religions (c. 100, § 2); (2) a distinct community with its own proper superior; (3) the stable dwelling of religious in the house; (4) and the customary tenor of life of the institute according to its particular constitutions. It is not necessary that a religions institute be the proprietor of a canonically erected house, a filial house, or a separated establishment. All of these may be owned or rented by the institute or their use gratuitously given to the institute. All may be an entire building or a part of a building, for example, a floor or an apartment. The Code of Canon Law itself grants to a canonically erected house the character of a moral person consequent upon the fulfillment of the canonical formalities prescribed for an erection. 4. Our constitutions state that a parish school convent, because it is owned by the parish, cannot be a canonically erected religious house. Is this correct? No. As stated in the preceding question, the character of a moral person, of an ecclesiastical corporation, is something completely distinct from the ownership of the property where the moral person is located. Therefore, ownership of the property by the religious institute is not required for a canonically erected religious house. The sense of these particular constitutions may be that the institute will petition canonical erection only for houses that it owns. 5. Our hospital ,is civilly incorporated. The board of the civil corporation authorized the addition of a new wing to the hospital. This will cost $2,500,000. Do we need any permissions beyond the authorization of this board? Every religious institute, province, or house, by its erection as a moral person according to the norms of canon law, possesses, in virtue " of canon 531, the unlimited right of acquiring, owning, and administering temporal property (cf. c. 1495, § 2). This right extends to all species of property, all rights of use, and the right of receiving returns on property. The code permits the particular constitutions to exclude o~ limit this capacity. When the civil state, as in the United States, does not recognize an ecclesiastical moral person established by the Church, religions moral persons should incorporate civilly, so as to secure civil efficacy and protection of their property rights, which they actually possess from canon law. The incorporation therefore is a mere civil formality. The property rights are possessed in virtue of canon law, and the property must always be administered according to canon law and the constitu- ¯ tions (c. 532, § 1). In any transaction, the requisite civil formalities are to be fulfilled but only that the transaction may have civil efficacy and protection. The substantial law that governs the transaction is that of canon law and the constitutions. Care is to be taken, if externs are ad-mitted as members of the board, that religious of the institute are always in the majority. An institute may treat such a board also as an advisory 111 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Review for Religious committee, but in itself the authorization of the board is a mere civil formality. In the present case, the transaction is the expenditure of $2,500,000 for a new wing to a hespital. If the hospital already has this sum on hand, the permission of the mother general with the vote of her council prescribed by the general chapter will be necessary, because the trans-action is an act of extraordinary administration. If the hospital has to borrow money for the project, as is most likely true, the norms of canon 534 on contracting debts, supplemented by the enactments of the general chapter on the same subject, must be observed. In either case, the re-course to higher authority is required for the validity of the transaction. See Vermeersch-Creusen, Epitome Iuris Canonici, II, n. 819; Brys, Juris Canonici Compendium, II, n. 855; Muzzarelli, De Congregationibus Iuris Dioecesani, n. 163; Goyeneche, Quaestiones Canonicae, I, 253; Vromant, De Bonis Ecc~esiae Temporalibus, n. 8. 6. We have the house system of delegates for the general chapter, that is, each house of~ at least twelve religious sends its local superior to this chapter in virtue of his office and elects one non-superior delegate. Smaller houses are combined into groups of at least twelve and not more than twenty-three religious. Each group elects one superior and one non-superior delegate. Are filial houses considered smaller houses? In some institutes, all houses except the mother house are called missions, branch houses, or filial houses, which is not the strict sense. The essential note of a filial house in the strict sense is that it is not a distinct moral person but part of the larger canonically erected house to which it is attached. The one at the head Of a filial house is therefore not a superior in the proper sense of this word, even though he may have this title. He is a mere delegate of either a higher superior or of the superior of the larger house, and his authority is as wide as the delegation. In lay institutes, he is appointed by a higher superior, either for a specified term, for example, three years, or for no determined period of time. In the latter case, he may be removed at any time at the mere will of the higher superior. Since it is not a moral person, the filial house does not own property, all of which is owned by the larger house. There-fore, it has no bursar. Its local bursar is that of the larger house, but he may have an assistant in the filial house. A filial house has no coun-cilors, since it is not canonically a house (c. 516, § 1). Unless otherwise specified in the constitutions, the capitular rights of those residing in the filial house are exercised in the larger house, of which t.hey are to vote as members for the election of delegates~ to the provincial or general chapter. The number of religious resident in a filial house is usually small. The larger house to which the filial house is attached is ordinarily located in the same city or in a nearby place. The constitutions of brothers and sisters, whether pontifical or diocesan, most rarely mention filial houses. All such institutes may open 112 March, 1960 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS filial houses, unless this is expressly forbidden by the constitutions. A few constitutions have only a brief statement of the following type: "Communities of two or three sisters can be made dependent on larger houses when the mother general and her council consider it opportune." Such constitutions do not explain the election of delegates in ~elation to a filial house. Others contain such an explanation; for example: "Religious living in branch houses who cannot go to the principal house for the election of the delegate will send their sealed votes there. These votes will be, taken out of their envelopes in. the presence of the com-munity and placed in the ballot box with those of the religious who are present," "Branch houses have not the right of sending either superior or delegates to the proyincial chapter, but the vocal sisters of these branch houses will unite with the vocal sisters of the nearest house to elect delegates to the provincial chapter." Unless a special provision has been made in the constitutions, as in the last case, those residing in the filial house must vote as members of the larger house to which the former is attached for the election of delegates. This is evident from the fact that the filial house is part of the larger house. This essential argument is confirmed by the fact that the religious at the head of a filial house is not a superior and therefore has no right to be voted for as a superior delegate. Furthermore, the constitutions say that smaller houses are to be united (cf. Normae of 1901, n. 216). A filial house is not canonically a house but part of a house. The present difficulty in the election of delegates occurs only in the house, not in the group, system. Unless the constitutions state the contrary, as.in the second dase, all electors must be physically present for an election, according to the norm of canon 163. In lay congregations, a filial house ordinarily does not contain more than three religious; but this is not a matter of general law in the Church. Even in such institutes, filial houses are sometimes larger. The following authors explicitly affirm that the capitular rights are to be exercised in the house t'o which the filial house is attached: Maroto, Commentarium Pro Religiosis, 5 (1924), 128, note 14; Ver-meersch, Periodica, 13 (1923), 55; Schaefer, De Religiosis, n. 166; Jombart, Dictionnaire de Droit Canonique, VI, 700; Creusen, Religious Men and Women in Church Law, n. 12; Fanfanl, De Iure Religiosorum, m 20; De Carlo, Jus Religiosorum, n. 42; Flanagan, The Canonical Erection of Religious Houses, 31. 7. Our constitutions distinguish formal and non-formal

Issue 18.4 of the Review for Religious, 1959. ; Two, Prayers John XXIII Prayer for the Church of Silence [On January 23, 1959, the Sacred Penitentiary pub|ish~d the Italian text ~f a prayer composed by the Holy Father for the. Church of Silence. The original text, a translation of which appears.below, is to be found in Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 51 (1959), 112~13. A partial indulgence of three years can be gained by the faithful when they recite the prayer with contrite heart.] OJESUS, Son of God, who lovedthe Church and who gave Yourself for it to sanctify it and to make it appear before You glorious and immaculate (Eph 5:23-27), look down with mercy on the painful conditions to which Your mystical spouse is subjected in certain parts of the Catholic world and especially now in the great nation of the Chinese. ! See, O Lord, the treachery that threatens the souls of Your faithful' and consider the calumnious insinuations leveled against Your pastors, Your ministers, and Your faithful followers who long to spread the truth of the Gospel and that kingdom of Yours which is not of this world. How insistent and dangerous are the attempts to tear the seamless robe of Your spouse, the one, holy, catholic, apostolic, and Roman Church, by separating the hierarchy and the local communities from the only center of truth, authority, and salvation, the See of Peter! Before this spectacle of such grave evils, we ask first of all for pardon for the offenses which are being committed against You. In truth the words spoken by You to Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?" (Acts 9:4), can well be repeated today, as they could be in the course of recent and past history. We trust always in the efficacy of the sublime words You addressed to Your Father from the cross, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing" (Lk 23:34). As Your sacrifice was the source of universal salvation, so through your grace may the martyrdom which the Church, Your spouse 193 JOHN XXIII Review [or Religious and our mother, suffers in different regions bring salvation all men. O Prince of Peace, grant that the bishops and the priests, the religious and the laity, may always and everywhere be "solici-tous to preserve the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace" (Eph 4:3). May Your omnipotent power overcome every hu-man calculation so that pastors and flocks may remain obedient to the voice of the only universal Pastor, the Roman Pontiff, who feels in his heart the responsibility of that supreme desire of love: "Holy Father, keep in Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are" (Jn 17:11). Finally~ O Redeemer, look with satisfaction at the merits and prayers of Your and our Mother, the august Queen of the missions and of the universal Church; look at the labors, the sacrifices, and the blood of "the innumerable heralds of the faith who have always and are still giving heroic testimony to You; and, mindful above all of Your precious Blood shed for many for the remission oz sins, give Your peace to China and to the entire world, because in no other is there hope and victory .and peace, but only in You, our Lord and immortal King of the ages and of the nations. Prayer to the Eucharistic Christ [The following prayer, the orighaal text of which is given in Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 51 (1959), 163-64, was composed by the Holy Father as a preparation for the coming International Eucharistic Congress to be held in Munich, Germany. His Holiness (AAS, 51 [1959], 164) has granted a partial indulgence of ten years to the faithful who devoutly recite the prayer with contrite heart; moreover once a month they may gain a plenary indulgence under the usual conditions, if they have recited the pra~,er daily for a whole month.] O Jesus, King of nations and of ages, accept the acts of adoration and of praise which we, Your brothers by adoption, humbly offer to You. You are "the living Bread come down from heaven which gives life to the world" (Jn 6:33) ; High Priest as well as Victim, You offered Yourself on the cross in a bloody sacrifice of expia-tion to the Eternal Father for the redemption of the human race; 194 July, 1959 Two PRAYS.US and now each day You offer Yourself on our altars by the hands of Your ministers so that there might be restored in each heart Your "kingdom of truth and of life, of holiness and of grace, of justice, of love, and of peace~' (Preface of the Mass of Christ the King). O "King of Glory," may Your kingdom come! Rule from Your "throne of glory" (Heb 4:16) in the hearts of children so that they may keep immaculate the shining purity of their baptismal innocence. Rule in the hearts of youth so that they may grow in wholesomeness and purity and in docility to the voice of those who represent You in the family, in school, and in the Church. Rule in the heart of the home so that parents and children may live united in the observance of Your holy law. Rule in our country so that in the harmonious ordering of the social classes all its citizens may regard themselves as children of the same heavenly Father, called to work together for the common temporal good and happy to belong to that one Mystical Body, of which Your Sacrament is both the symbol and the everlasting source. Rule, finally, O King of Kings and "Lord of Lords" (Deut 10:17) over all the nations of the earth and enlighten the rulers of each nation that, inspired by Your example, they may nourish "thoughts of peace and not of affliction" (Jer 29:11 ). O Eucharistic Jesus, grant that all people may serve You freely in the knowledge that "to serve God is to reign." May Your Sacrament, O Jesus, be a light to the mind, a strength to the will, an attraction to the heart. May it be a support to the weak, a comfort to the suffering, a viaticum of salvation to the dying, and for all may it be a "pledge of future glory." Amen. 195 The Rest:oral:ion ot: All Things in Christ: Richard Cardinal Cushing, D.D., UL.D. [The following address by the Cardinal Archbishop of Boston was delivered as the main address of the Sacred Heart Institute for Nuns conducted by American Directors of the Apostleship of Prayer and held at Roberts Center, Boston College, on April 4, 1959.] THE DEVOTION TO the Sacred Heart makes no appeal whatever to those outside the Church and to some within the Church. It is the story of a nun who had a vision of our Lord in which He showed her a wound on His side. Then He said to her: "Behold the Heart which loves so much, and is loved so little in return." What is this but sentimentalism, and a kind of senti-mentalism which does not appeal to people of our times. My dear Sisters: Is there anything more undignified than the figure of the rejected lover who cannot keep his abandon-ment to himself, but must go about exposing his wounded feel-ings for all the world to see, inviting sympathy because he unloved? Yet that is the figure under which Divine Love rep-resented itself to the apostle of the Sacred Heart--St. Margaret Mary. Why? It may help to understand the answer if we recall that all through the Old Testament this is the kind of language in which Almighty God refers to the disloyalties of His people. The covenant which He made with the Israelites when He brought them out of Egypt was like a marriage contract com-mitting both sides to fidel.ity; and when they turned to the wor-ship of idols, he appealed to that covenant. "And thou," He says through the prophet Jeremias, "and thou with many lovers have been unfaithful; come back to me, and thou shalt find welcome." This is pleading language, and it is God who pleads. When a prophet of the Old Testament speaks like that, he is using a metaphor. The Old Testament is full of metaphors. When others talk about God raising His hand, stretching out 196 I:~ESTORATION IN CHRIST His arm, keeping a watchful eye over His friends, giving a ready ear to their prayers, we'do not think that God, who is pure spirit, has hands or arms or eyes or ears like ourselves. And so it is when God describes himself as a jealous lover. He means that if He were a man, this is how the infidelity of His friends would affect Him. If He were a man? In the fullness of time, He became man; He trod our earth, and was subject, as man, to the play of emotions; He wept and rejoiced. He was indignant, and felt fear. The metaphors had come true at last: God Incarnate really saw with human eyes and stretched out a human hand to save us. And He was accessible like ourselves, to the expressions of feeling which we find so difficult to control. When an injury was done to the honor of His Father in heaven, He flared up; and we read in the New Testament: "Jesus looked upon them with anger." The success of His first missionaries gave Him the same feeling which comes to you and me when good news reaches us, and we read that "At that time, Jesus was filled with gladness." The tragedy of a friend's death was told him. The sad news drew from Him, as it would from us, a 'tribute of natural tears and we read: "Jesus wept." Our Lord did not even hide from us His disappointments: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, still murdering the prophets, and stoning the messengers that are sent to thee, how often have I been ready to gather thy children together, and thou didst refuse it!" How often--He looks back over the sad record of Jew'ish history; the authentic accents of a Divine Person pierce through the veil of His humanity and here is God weeping with human eyes over tl~e pent-up sorrows of a human heart. Now I think we have the real meaning of the Sacred Heart devotion; it translates the Divine Nature into human terms for us. After all, we find it hard, don't we, to get God into our mind-picture? We cannot portray Him--His glory dazzles us; we are confused b~ the thought of the enormous gulf which lies between Him and creatures. We know that His Providence 197 CARDINAL CUSHING Review for Religious extends over all His works; He cares even for the sparrows, and yet. He is so great, and we are so small! Even our sins-- just an unkind word said about a neighbor, and we tell ourselves and we confess that we have offended God; think of the scale of the thing, our little lapse, and His infinite existence, put side by side! And then think of tl~e Sacred Heart, and all at once the whole thing becomes vivid, clear. Jesus Christ in heaven, taking an interest in our tiny needs, as He took an interest in many tiny needs on earth. Jesus Christ hurt by our sins, as He was hurt by so many slights and disappointments up and down the villages of Galilee. The echoes of our prayer no longer seem to die away in infinite distance; they strike a chord in the Sacred Heart, and become vocal to us, real to us. If critics object that we are too sentimental over our devo-tion in honor of the Sacred Heart, that we single out one partic-ular side of our Lord's character, represent Him too insistently in one particular attitude, one of mercy and tenderness and wel-come, let us remind them that it is these qualities in the Divine Nature which we find it most difficult to believe. Here, most of all, we need a diagram in flesh and blood to convince us. How can God, so upright a judge, be merciful? How can He, who is without passion, be tender to us? How can He, who has no need of human companionship, welcome us? It is these qualities, that we rejoice to see mirrored in the Sacred Heart. Our Sacred Heart statues and holy pictures represent our Lord in one particular attitude, as He revealed Himself to Sister Margaret Mary, an attitude of tender abasement, of mournful pleading with mankind. Again critics wonder. Is this your Christ, they ask, this weak, womanish figure, in a posture of sentimental appeal? Is your religion all sugary sweetness, all variations on a minor key? Has it stopped still with the seventeenth century; has it no mes-sage for today? And to that we answer, No, you have it all wrong. The Sacred Heart is the treasury of all those splendid qualities with which a perfect life was lived; it is the repository of 198 July, 1959 RESTORATION IN CHRIST all those noble thoughts which mankind still venerates in the Gospels'. It was the Sacred. Heart that burned with anger when the traders were driven out of the Temple; it was the Sacred Heart that loved the rich young man, yet would not spare him; it was the Sacred Heart that defied Pilate in his own judgment-hall. It is strong and stern and enduring; it hates prevarications and pretences. The perfect flowering of a human life, not on this occasion or that, but all the way, all the time, the utter sacrifice of a human will-- that is what the Sacred Heart means. There is no picture, no statue on earth that can portray its infinite beauty. The perfect flowering of our life at all times and in all ways; that should be the harvest of our devotion, dedication, and con-secration to the Sacred Heart. Religious, more than any other group of the followers of Christ, have the opportunity to reach that ideal. They have the available means and opportunity to answer the plea of the Sacred Heart for the return of human love for love divine. In the silent anonymity of your community life, you offer day by day the sacrifice of your personal independence and your natural yearning for recognition and human affection. If you live consist-ently with the ideals of your religious profession, you can truly say that you have left all things and have become so Christlike as to have produced the perfect flowering of your own life in the life of the Sacred Heart. Your vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience leave nothing for yourself. Through these vows, the essence of the religious life, you become one with God. How could you attain to a more perfect flowering of your life? Truth-fully you are called Sponsae Christi. In this capacity you can kneel each morning before the alkar on which the Sacrifice of Calvary is renewed and identify your love with the love of the Eternal Priest in humble and self-less fulfillment of the ideals of perfection which He Himself estab-lished in His earthly life. It is not without significance, therefore, that the spread of devotion to the Sacred Heart in modern times owes its origin 199 CARDINAL CUSHING Review for Religious to the apparitions of our Blessed Lord not to some renowned scholar or churchman but to a lowly nun. St." Margaret Mary was one of yourselves. Her call to the religious life, her postu-lancy and novitiate, her profession of religious vows, her long years of obedience to her rule and prayerful cooperation with the wishes of her superiors--all these circumstances of her life have their counterparts in the life of each one of you, St. Margaret Mary also found the same difficulty which you experience in following up the inspirations of God's grace which come so mysteriously to those who are closely associated with apostolic works. Neither religious themselves, nor those who cooperate with them in realizing the objectives of their various communities, can ever understand completely the divine orienta-tion of the human impulses out of which the success of any reli-gious community is drawn. As we look back over the centuries at what happened be-tween 1673 and 1675 in a little French village, we can see clearly that the judgments of psychologists and the cautious reserve of theologians and canonists have all played their part in the spread of the devotion to the Sacred Heart of which St. Margaret Mary was destined to be the modern apostle. They could not under-stand sentimentalism of this kind for they did not recall that Christ was man as well as God, human as well as divine. What stands out unmistakably in her life is her humble and charitable forbearance in the face of adverse personal criticism and her unquestioning submission to the authority of the Church. That indeed is one of many phases of the perfect flowering of human life: the total sacrifice of one's will to the will of another. Her spiritual directors understood her and guided her with sympathy and encouragement; she followed their counsel and obeyed to the last detail their suggestions of hopeful expectancy of eventual approval, A soul which is illumined by divine grace, a will that is one with the will of God, is never stubborn or un-disciplined. Margaret Mary's own certainty of the truth of the revelations made to her brought likewise the conviction that God's 200 July, 1959 RESTORATION IN CHRIST plans would be realized in God's own way and in God's own time. She knew that she was but the instrument of the power and mercy \ of Him who had afforded her unquestionable evidence of His love. She knew that the Christ, who had revealed to her the richness of His own inner life, was also the Christ who had founded His Church and who had'sent His Holy Spirit to abide within it until the end of time. In this peaceful and undisturbed awareness of her own relation to Christ our Lord, she was content to suffer the disappointment and frustration that would be in-volved in the reconditioning of men's souls which the spread of devotion to the Sacred Heart would bring about. When we look at Margaret Mary from this point of view, we see in her a great-ness of soul and a discerning penetration of divine wisdom which the humble circumstances in which she lived and died could never have revealed to those who knew her as a sister in religion and as a fellow human being. She is the messenger, the apostle of the devotion to the Sacred Heart because her heart gave all to the Heart of Christ. The beauty of her soul was the perfect flowering of life. And here, I think, is the great lesson which you, my beloved religious, can take to yourselves. In your life as religious you must share in the sorrows and sufferings which were glorified on the Cross. This is the meaning for you of the mystery of the Sacred Heart which was made known to the world by one of your number. How can that be accomplished? First of all, by self-immolation. To seek for oneself alone in religious life any measure of comfort or self-gratification is to substitute the prudence of the world for the prudence of the brides of God. As spouses of Christ, you must be faithful to your mystical espousal and marriage and accept cheerfully the burdens of community life and surrender yourselves without reservation to the demands which your respective congregations may make on you as they carry on their appointed apostolic works. Secondly, in your religious life you must resemble Christ in the mediating functions of His priesthood. The sacred humanity 201 CARDINAL CUSHING Review for Religious of Christ, symbolized in its ministrations of love by the Heart which was pierced with a lance, enable Christ to stand as a mediator between God and men. So too the religious, living in the world even while separated from it by the boundaries of her cloister, brings God into the lives of others as she carries on her varied works. The religious is thus in a very real sense a mediatrix between God and men. Those whom you serve are thereby raised from earth to heaven by the unselfish detachment with which you apply your-selves to works upon which material values may be set. Thus you are able to stand at Christ's side as His devoted helpers. Thus you are drawing men's souls to Christ as did Christ Him-self in His revelation of God's love for man in the visible form of His human nature. Thirdly, your principal objective as religious must always be to diffuse into the souls of others the love of Christ. How dismally we fail, even while we seem to be successful, if we have gained spectacular victories in ambitious undertakings at the cost oi: arousing bitterness and dissension among those with whom we live and work! In the companionship of your sisters in reli-gion, in your relations with your superiors, in the services which you render to your community, in your ministrations of charity and mercy to the faithful, you must always be a messenger of divine love and an inspiring example of the practice of Christian charity. I don't know of any othdr way in which we can respond to the appeal for love from the heart of Christ unless it would be to crystalize that response by fidelity to the spirit and letter of the Morning. Offering of the Apostleship of Prayer. This is more than a prayer formula, it is a way of life by which every act of the day becomes transformed into a prayerful tribute to the Sacred Heart. It is also the way of gpiritual child-hood for it sanctifies the ordinary things of life into extraordinary spiritual power and unites us to the sacrifice of the Mass through-out the world~ The Morning Offering is also the greatest means by which we can recognize the importance of each day in our lives. Each 202 July, 1959 RESTORATION IN CHRIST day is life in miniature. Today is unique; it has never happened before, it can never happen again. For one moment it is all-important, fills the.stage; tomorrow it will have taken its place in the unreal pageant of dead yesterdays. It has a significance, then, all its own; but this significance belongs to it because it is related to a series. We may think of it as the beginning of a series, the first day of a new departure in our lives. Or we may think of it as one day among others, with the same duties, cares, temptations as the others. Or we may think of it' as the last~ of a series; one today will be the last of all our todays, with eternity for its infinite tomorrow, and it may be this. Think of this day, for example, as the beginning of a new departure. How shall we begin? Not by any frantic efforts of our own; we will begin by listening to the voice of God: Hodie si vocem eius audieritis, nolite obdurare corda vestra. We speak to Him through ou.r spiritual exercises, and we unite ourselves with all the members of His Mystical Body throughout the world by today's offering of everything we do to Him. There is another use we may make of the magic word today. Instead of worrying about whether we shall ever commit our cus-tomary sins again, let us simply resolve not to commit them today. Dignare Dornine die isto sine peccato nos custodire; let us see if we can't cheat the devil, like some grasping creditor, by saying "Not just yet; not today." And let us ask simply for the grace which is needed to avoid those sins just in the sixteen hours that lie between bed-time and bed-time. Die isto, let us make today a holiday from our venial sins. This day without sin- we will avoid, His grace helping us, those little daily repeated irreverences by which we offend Him. This day without sin- we will especially avoid sinning against ourselves, by the wrong use of God's creatures. And we will avoid sinning against our neighbors. We know the sisters we have to live with, the little t~aults ot~ manner and behavior .which get on our nerves, all the more surely because they are repeated day by day. This day, with this gladness in our hearts, we will 203 CARDINAL CUSHING greet them with a cheerfulness which is infectious, which lightens their burden as well as our own. A smile at all times- how much difference that can make to life's tragedies! Today, sanctified and enriched by the Morning Offering, becomes like a sacrament from which we can derive not only an inspiration for the future, the future that may be so different if we will use today aright; not only a warning for the present, to make us avoid this day the temptations that every day beset us, but an attitude, also, towards the past, an attitude of abiding penitence and reparation. Let us remember our sins each day, as if we had no more space left for sinning; let us repent for them, as this were our last opportunity of contrition. And He, who re-turned to heaven with the penitent thief for His escort, will shorten our purgatory and hasten to unite us with Himself. Hodie vocem audieritis ~ it can never be too early to begin our conver-sion. Hodie eris mecum in paradiso ~ thank God, it can never be too late. Our renewed consecration today to the Sacred Heart gives evideace of our appreciation of the tremendous potential which you have at your disposal for the restoration of all things in Christ. We consecrate you anew to the Sacred Heart because you belong to Christ, because you are one with Christ, and because your efforts are so powerful and so indispensable for the realization of His divine mission. Let me become the spokesman for each one of you as I repeat the words of consecration which St. Mar-garet Mary formulated as she gave expression to her own consum-ing love ot: Christ her Lord: I consecrate to the Sacred Heart of our Lord Jesus Christ my person and my life, my actions, pains and sufferings, so that I may be unwilling to make use of any part of my being save to honor, love and glorify the Sacred Heart . Do Thou consume in me all that can displease Thee or resist Thy holy will. Let Thy pure love imprint Thee so deeply upon my heart that I shall never more be able to forget Thee or~to be separated from Thee. May I obtain the grace of having my name written in Thee, for in Thee I desire to place all my happi-ness and all my glory, living and dying in very bondage to Thee. Amen. 204 The AAariology of Pope Plus XII John A. Hardon, S.J. IT IS EASY to write on Pope Pius XII and the Blessed Virgin Mary because there is so much to say. We might recall how as a young boy in Rome he would stop every day to visit the shrine of Madonna della Strada at the Church of the Gesu where, as he told his mogher, "I pray and tell Mary everything." Or we might reflect on his life-long devotion to the rosary, his frequent sermons on our Lady, his constant reference to her in his writings or, in summary, his own testimony shortly after election to the papacy, that "our priestly life began with Mary and has always been directed under her motherly eye." In all this profusion of Marian piety, one aspect may be overlooked. Pius XII made a substantial contribution to the science of Mariology, a contribution concerning which, no doubt, volumes will be written in the years to come. We shall examine only the highlights of a large subject, whose implications have an important bearing on the whole body of Christian asceticism. The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary On November i, 1950, Pius XII answered the requests of the Catholic hierarchy with a solemn definition that, "by the authority.of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by Our own authority, We pronounce, declare and define as a divinely revealed dogma: The Immaculate Mother of God, Mary ever Virgin, after her life on earth, was assumed body and soul to the glory of heaven." The spontaneous reaction of the faithful was gratitude for the exalted honor paid to the Mother of God. The Pope's own sentiments were expressed to the bishops gathered in Rome for the occasion, when he told them the joy he felt over the proclamation and the assurance it gave him that Mary would obtain the graces of which mankind stood in such dire need. On the level of piety and devotion, therefore, Mary's Assumption was only the climax in a series of definitiong 205 JOHN A. HARDON Review for Religious to honor the Blessed Virgin, beginning with the divine maternity at Ephesus and terminating in the past century with her Immaculate Conception. But dogmatically the constitution Munificentissimus Deus has a much deeper significance that de-serves to be recognized. Shortly before the actual definition but after its public an-nouncement, the Anglican bishops of England lodged a formal protest against the "new" dogma. "We profoundly regret," they said, "that the Roman Catholic Church has chosen by this action to increase dogmatic differences in Christendom and has thereby gravely injured the growth of understanding between Christians based on a common possession of the fundamental truths of the Gospel." The Anglican complaint was not a wild gesture. It exposed their radical opposition to the Church's authority over Christian doctrine, which I believe many Catholics ~do not fully appreciate. Pope Pius defined Mary's Assumption as a truth divinely revealed. Of the two sources of revelation, theologians com-monly say the Assumption was implicit in tradition, in spite of the practical absence of documentary evidence before 300 A.D. Some years before the definition, a scholarly work was published under Vatican auspices on The Silence of the Early Centuries on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The author frankly admitted that except for apocryphal sources we have no explicit witness in the early patristic age. Yet the Pope finally declared the doctrine was in revelation. How do we know? On the answer to this question rests a new insight into Christian tradi-tion which had been gaining momentum since the eighteenth century. Briefly stated, tradition is coming to be identified more and more with the Church's magisterium or teaching office and less exclusively as the genetic source, along with Scripture, of the truths of salvation. Behind this new emphasis is a development of dogma since the Council of Trent which reveals hidden depths of power in the Mystical Body of Christ. The Church is being seen more clearly as not only the guardian of a faith once and for 206 July, 1959 MARIOLOGY OF PIUS XII all given-to the Apos.tles, but as perpetual expositor of that faith in every age to the end of time. In August of the same year that he defined the Assumption, the Pope laid down the principles~ which guided the Marian defini-tion. The Church's teaching authority, he said in Humani generis, is not confined to reflecting or consolidating the past. It is also, ~nd especially, the vital, presetit-day function of an organism animated by the Spirit of God: "Together with the sources of revelation (Scripture:and tradition) God has given to His Church a living magisterium to elucidate and explain what is contained in the deposit of faith only obscurely :and, as it were, by implication," The degree of obscurity, we may add, is irrelevant. Given this faculty by her 0~:ounder, whose" Spirit of truth abides with her at all times, the Church can infallibly discern what belongs to revela-tion no matter how cryptic the contents may be. Consequently whenl Pius XII defined the Assumption, he did more than propose the doctrine for acceptance by the faith-ful or give them a new motive for devotion to the Blessed Mother. He vindicated as never before the Church's i~ower to authorize a legitimate development in doctrine .and pii~ty that scandalizes those outside the true faith and may even surprise b~elieving Catholics. The Assumption thus becomes part Of a'larger process, along with Catholic Action, the litui:gical movement and even such practical matters as the mitigated Eucharistic fast, in which the current problems of the Church and the present needs of souls are being met by the Holy Spirit: It was no coincidence that on the day following the Assump-tion d~finition the Pope expressed, the hope that this new honor to Mary would intrbduce "a spirit of penance to replace the' prevalent love of pleasure, and a renewal of family lifE, stabilized where divorce was common and made fruitful where birth control was practiced." If there is one feature that characterizes the modern world it is 'the cult of the body. Science and ingenuity exhaust themselves in providing for bodily comforts, avoidance of pain, and the.pampering of every sensual desire. Divorce and 207 JOHN A. HARDON Review for Religious birth control, lurid reading and entertainment are only symptoms of a deeper malady for which revelation provides at least one Certain remedy: faith in the resurrection of the body, for us on the last day as for Mary on the day of her departure from this life. Since the body is made to be immortal, it is infinitely im-portant to provide for its eternal happiness by discipline and sell control--because the alternative is also bodily immortality, but in hell, as the price of earthly pleasure against the will of God. The Immaculate Conception Three years after defining the dogma of the Assumption, Pius XII Called on the Catholic world to join in the observance of a Marian Year from December, 1953, to December, 1954, to commemorate the centenary of Pius IX's definition of the Immaculate Conception. He introduced the Marian Year with the encyclical Fulgens corona, whose doctrinal content went far beyopd the immediate purpose of proclaiming a season of special prayers to the Mother of God. According to the late Pontiff,. the Assumption was a conse-quence of the Immaculate Conception, not merely in the super-ficial sense of something suitable, but in the. strict logic of supernatural merit and providence. "These two singular privi-leges bestowed upon the Mother of God stand out in most splendid light as the beginning and the end of her earthly journey. ,For the greatest possible glorification of her virgin body is the comple-ment, at once appropriate and marvelous, of the absolute inno-cence of her soul which was free from all stain. Just as she took part in the struggle of her only-begotten Son with the serpent of hell, so also she shared in His glorious triumph over sin and its sad consequences." This correlation between the two mysteries has a long and respected theological history, which other statements of Pius XII indicate that he knew very well. Addressing the National Eucha-ristic Congress of Cuba in 1947, he acknowledged the petition which the Cubans 'had sent to the Holy See relative to Mary's 208 July, 1959 MARIOLOGY OF PIUS XlI Assumption. "This mystery must certainly be true, according to the mind of him who has rightly been called the Doctor Eximius, who teaches that this privilege is most eminently congruent with the innocence and purity of the Virgin Mary." The Doctor Eximius was Francis Suarez, the sixteenth-century theologian. whose Disputations on the Blessed Mother are the most exhaustive in classic Mariology. Again in the actual document of definition, the Pope referred to Suarez's conclusion that "the mystery of the Assumption was to be believed with the same firmness of assent as that given to the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin. Thus he already held that such truths could be defined." How are the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption related in Suarez, and by implication in Pius XII? Their rela-tion arises from the subtle but necessary connection between sin and its consequences in the after-life. The souls of the just in heaven, says Suarez, still desire and seek the glorification of their bodies. To the extent to which this is lacking to them, they are deprived of the perfection of beatitude, even though only in accidentals. When the soul of Mary, therefore, was separated t~rom her body, this hunger and desire for "the perfect perfection" were not absent. Being always full of grace, she had a title to perfect glory on leaving this world. And what Mary desired, she must immediately have obtained, in virtue of her exalted position and "by a mother's right." Therefore just as during her stay on earth she had never contracted the least stain ofsin, so after this life she was freed from every corruption and sequel that are the wages of sin. Her body was not to decay, nor was she to wait until the last day, as others who are sinners, to rise with her body from the grave. In the same document, Fulgens corona, the Pope made an-other association, this time a historical one, and not between the first and final mysteries in the life of the Blessed Virgin but be-tween the Immaculate Conception and the supernatural phe-nomena at Lourdes. In his judgment, "the Virgin 1QIary herself wished to confirm by some special sign the definition which the 209 JOH~ A. HARDON Review for Religious Vicar of Christ her divine Son on earth had pronounced amid the applause of the whole Church. Four years had not yet elapsed ¯ ~hen, in the French town at the foot of the Pyrenees, the Virgin Mother showed herself to a simple and innocent girl at the grotto of Messabielle, And to this same girl, earnestly inquiring the name of her with whose vision she was favored, with eyes raised to heaven and sweetly smiling, she replied, 'I am the Immaculate Conception.' " Following the original visions, thousands of peo-ple from every country in the world have made pilgrimages'to Lourdes, where "miraculous favors were granted them, which excited the admiration of all and confirmed the Catholic religion as the only one given approval by God." This judgment is highly significant. In the last analysis, a Catholic wants to prove that no other religion than his own is from God, he must invoke some principle by which any religious system can be tested and its divine authorization verified. Such a principle is the norm of miracles, which even the unlettered primitive can understand. It says simply that when God com-municates a revelation (as claimed in some form by every organ-ized religion), He will confirm the mysteries He reveals and make them rationally acceptable by working miracles in favor of the truths that He wants believed. Or put negatively, He will not work miracles in support of a pretended revelation because, as master of the miraculous, He would be actively cooperating in a lie. In the context of the Lourdes apparitions and the constant stream of preternatural wonders there granted by God, this means that what Lourdes stands for is perennially attested as true. The Immaculate Conception is a strict mystery, not even conceivable apart from revelation. Miracles are visible signs of divine inter-vention that lead the well-disposed to believe (or strengthen their belief) in what cannot be seen, on the argument that the same agency which produces the phenomena also revealed the doc-trine in whose atmosphere the phenomena take place. 210 July, 1959 MARIOLOGY OF P~us XII Mediatrix of Graces . The !ast element in the triad of Marian privileges to which Pius XII made a lasting theological contribution is Mary's role as universal mediatrix of graces. On the fourth anniversary of the Assumption dogma and in closing the Marian Year, the Pope instituted a new feast of the Queenship of Mary, for May 31, and in the encyclical Ad caeli Reginam elaborated on the basic principles that underlay Mary's royalty, namely, her unique posi-tion as liaison between Christ and the humar~ race. An examination of the teaching of the fathers of the Church since the rime'of Origen, Ephrem, and St. Jerome shows a prac-tical unanimity in regarding the mother of Jesus as sharing with Him, albeit subordinately, a truly royal dignity~. Ephrem called her "Empress and Ruler"; Origen, "Mistress and Queen"; the seventh ecumenical council spoke of her as "the Lady ruler ~of all Christians"; and in modern times, Benedict XIV gave her the title "Queen of heaven and earth." The ancient tradition is re-flected in the liturgy of the East which poetically addresses Mary as "carried into heaven on the. chariots of the cherubim, the seraphim wait upon thee and the ranks of the heavenly host bow before thee." Familiar hymns like the Salve Regina and prayers like the Litany of Loretto confirm the sentiments of Christian art since the Council of Ephesus (431 A.D.) which "portrays Mary as Queen and Empress seated upon a royal throne, adorned with the royal insignia, crowned with the royal diadem and surrounded by the host of angels and saints in heaven and ruling not only nature and its powers but also over the machinations of Satan." However, more important than the evidence of its traditional character is the dogmatic basis for Mary's queenship which the late Pontiff traced to her divine maternity and her association with Christ in the redemption .of the world. The Pope synthesized in bold analogy the Catholic doctrine which some theo.logians con-sider definable. The Blessed Virgin has not only received the grade of excellence and perfection which is supreme after that of Christ Himself but has also received some sharing 'of that et~icacy by which her Son and our 211 JOHN A. HARDON Review for Religious Redeemer is rightly and properly said to reign over the minds and wills of men. For if the word of God performs miracles and gives graces through the humanity He has assumed, if He employs the sacra-ments and His saints as instruments for the salvation oi~ souls, why should He not use His mother's office and efforts to bring us the fruits of the Redemption? We may transmit the comparison between Mary's intercessory power and that of other saints. Certainly if they can pray in our behalf and obtain favors we should not otherwise receive, how much more the Queen of Saints and the Mother of the Author of grace. The remarkable thing is to associate the Blessed Virgin's share in our Redemption with the humanity of her divine Son and to compare its efficacy with the function of the sacramental system. Both analogies are penetrating concepts. By relating Mary's role of mediatrix to the human nature of Christ, the Pope wished to emphasize what even Catholics are liable to forget, that while God can perform by His own power all that is effected by created natures, yet in the counsels of His providence He has preferred to help men by the instrumentality of other men- whose efficacy for sanctifying others depends on their proximity to the human nature assumed by the Son of God. Viewed in this light, the potentiality of the Blessed Virgin as an instrument of grace takes on staggering proportions. As the woman whose consent mad~ the Incarnation possible, who carried in her womb and brought into the world the Word made flesh, and whose association with Christ during His life and sympathy in death were the most intimate conceivable- her efficacy at the throne of God must be, without fear of exaggeration, "almost immeasurable in power." If we compare Mary's mddiation with the sacraments of the New Law, we gain a further insight into her place in the economy' of salvation. We know that on the level of sanctification nothing is more internal than heavenly 'grace which begets holiness; and yet the ordinary and chief means of obtaining grace are external, in the form of sacraments administered by men specially chosen for that purpose and by means of external rites. In baptism 212 July, 1959 MARIOLOGY OF PIUS XII there is pouring of water; in confirmation and extreme unction, anointing with oil; in orders, the imposition of hands; in matri-mony, the expressed acceptance by the two spouses; and in pen-ance, the vocal and visible absolution by the priest. All these actions are external and their agents are all human, but condi-tioned on their performance in the spirit of faith, such trans-cendent changes occur in the spiritual world as the removal of a life[ime of sin by a sign of the cross and the conversion of a piece of bread into the Body of Christ. ' The more clearly we see ho.w the Blessed. Virgin shares in this type of sacramental effciency, the less scandalized we shall be to say that "as God is the Father and Lord of the universe, preparing all by His power, so the Blessed Mary, repairing all things by her merits, is the ruler and mother of all." While re-maining subordinate to her Son as a creature to her Creator, she was instituted by Him on the cross as the great sacrament of His mercy and the visible sign of internal grace which He promised to those who, like Plus XII, "approach with confidence to the throne of our Queen and Mother to beg help in difficulty, light in dark-ness, and solace in trouble and sorrow." 213 Practice ot: t:he Noly See ,Joseph F. ~llen, S.,.J. CANON 509, § 1, obliges all superiors to inform their sub-jects of all decrees of the ~Holy See concerning religious and to enforce such decrees. The activity and mind and will of the Holy See are also revealed, and sometimes in a more practical manner, by approved constitutions and com-munications addressed to individual religious institutes. article drawn from these sources was published in the REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS in 1953. This article is based on the same sources concerning lay institutes ~ from January 1, 1954. The order of material followed in the article is the usual order the chapters of constitutions of lay institutes. This is the third part of a series of three. 14. Dismissal. It is canonically interesting that the con-stitutions of an order of women, who recently received permis-sion to resume solemn vows, contain the following article: "A professed of either perpetual simple vows or of solemn vows who is dismissed from the institute is by this very fact dispensed from her vows of religion.''3° 1 5. The general chapter. (a) Convocation and members. A most interesting fact canonically is the appearance of a procuratrix general to handle the affairs of a pontifical congre-gation of women with the Holy See. The article in a set of constitutions recently approved by the Holy See reads as follows: "The procuratrix general resides in Rome and transmits the affairs of the congregation to the Roman Curia according to the intentions and directions of the institute. The procuratrix general has the right to attend the general chapter and to give her suffrage.''31 (b) Invitation of non-capitulars to the general chapter. Several constitutions of recent date empower the IBM., 16-1957-282. Ibid., 16-1957-114-16. 214 PRACTICE OF THE HOLY SEE superior general, either alone or with the advice or consent his or her council, to summon or invite the following non-capitulars to the general chapter: one or more religious ot: the same institute to .assist the secretary of the chapter as steno-graphers, other religious of the same institute to any session, and a priest or lay person to present and discuss a question of interest to the capitulars. It is evident that none of these are permitted to vote and that all such religious of the same institute are obliged to secrecy in the same manner as the capitulars. It seems prudent to add the observation that the capitulars should have sufficient time for discussion of a matter after such a consultant has left, since often they would at least hesitate to express their opinions fully before such a person, particularly if he or she is not a member of the same institute. I have seen such provisions only in recent constitutions; but some of them, for example, that on the stenographers, have been followed in fact by some institutes. Unless expressly forbidden by the particular constitutions, these ~. provisions may be followed by any institute, since they are not contrary to canon law and are entirely reasonable in themselves. In any revision of the constitutions, art institute should consider ar~ article of the following tenor: The superior general (or with the advice or consent of his or her council) may summon other religious to assist in the clerical or similar work of the chapter. He may also summon such religious and even invite an extem for consultation or to present and discuss questions with the chapter. None of these are permitted to vote, and all such religious have the same obligation as the capitulars to secrecy. (c) Delegates. i° Necessity of delegates. The Holy See de-mands a system of delegates for the general and provincial chapters and does not permit in centralized institutes what we may style a universal chapter, for example, that all the religious pf perpetual vows be members of the general or provincial chapter. This necessity was repeated in a recent reply to a quinquennial report. A system of delegates is also necessary 215 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review for Religious now for the general and regional chapters of nuns. The neces-sity of delegates was emphasized in the REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, 10-1951-187-90. The elected delegates from a province to the general chapter are almost universally two, most rarely three or four. The Holy See has approved, eoen recently, variations of this norm, for example, "one or two delegates according as the province has less or more than a hundred members"; "one delegate for each province but two delegates for any province that exceeds three hundred." 2° Added delegates from larger houses. It has been practically universal that a larger house elected only one delegate, no matter l~ow many religious of active voice it contained. Added delegates were very rarely admitted, for example, one delegate for every twelve religious. There has been a greater willingness on the, part of the Holy See in recent years to permit such added delegates. However, one of the defects of the house system is that it puts a large and unwieldy number in the general or provincial chapter as the institute increases in size. This difficulty is evidently intensified by the system of added dele-gates. Furthermore, proportional representation is not de-manded. The business of a general chapter is not the interests or the affairs of a particular house or province but only those of the institute as a whole. The same principle is true of the provincial chapter. 3° New systems. A fundamental variation of the group system recently approved by the Holy See is as follows. A first list is made of all local superiors and a second of all the subjects with passive voice. The latter are arranged in groups according to horizontal precedence, that is, each group has a proportionate number of older and younger re-ligious~ Copies of the two lists are sent to every religious with. active voice. Each of these votes for a determined number of local superiors and a determined number of subjects from each group of the second list. Those with the next highest number of votes are the substitutes. Therefore, every such religious votes for all the local superiors and subjects who will 216 July, 1959 PRACTICE OF THE HOLY SEE be members of the general or provincial chapter. The system may be further varied by sending out the list of superiors first and including in the second list all local SUl~eriors not elected in the first election. The following is an example of another new system, which has been approved for at least two institutes by the Holy See. The superiors of all houses of at least twelve religious are members of the general chapter in virtue of their office. The number of delegates from the houses is apparently established by the superior general with the consent of his council. Let us suppose that twenty is the established number. Each religious Who has active voice votes for twenty delegates from the entire institute. A graduated value is given to this vote: for example, if Brother Francis is the first name voted for, he receives twenty points; Brother Robert, the last name on the same ballot, receives one point. Or the relative value can be computed as one and one-twentieth. The votes are necessarily sent in to the general council, and thus a relative majority decides the elections. Those with the next highest number of votes are the substitutes. One objection to this system is the complicated computation of the votes. Some have objected also to the fact that the local superiors are members of the chapter in virtue of their office and to the power of varying the number of delegates from the houses. Another institute proposed the same system to the Holy See; but the number of delegates, twenty, was fixed by the constitutions, no local superior was a member of the chapter in virtue of his office, the delegates could be either local superiors or subjects, and the same value was given to a vote for a religious no matter in what place his name was found on the individual ballot. The Holy See approved this proposed text with two exceptions, the number of delegates was reduced to fifteen, and the local superiors of houses of at least'twenty subjects were made ex officio members of the general chapter. (d) Preliminary sessions. Some recent constitutions, as also several approved in the past, command the superior general to give the general chapter a 217 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review for Religious copy also of the last quinquennial report ~o the Holy See. (e) Postulation of superior general. The Holy See admitted the postulation of a mother gerieral for a third successivd six-year term but expressly excluded further postulation of the same religious. (f) Election of the general officials. 1° Election or appointment of the secretary general and bursar general. In a fairly recent communication to one institute, the Sacred Congregation stated that these two officials should be ex officio members of the general chapter because of their general knowledge of the institute. The validity of this reason is evident. .~It could be well appliedto some other offices, for example, the general supervisor of schools and studies. If elected, these two officials uniformly have such membership. The Holy See, also in recent years, has sometimes approved the appointment of either or both of these officials by the superior general with the consent of his council, in some cases with and in others without ex officio membership in the "general chapter. I personally doubt that a general chapter is a good judge ~f the specialized abilities demanded by these offices~32 It seems to me that the preferable policy is to appoint both of these officials with ex officio membership in the general chapter. 2° Incompatible offices. In the Former practice of the Holy See, one of the general councilors, except the first, could be elected also as secretary general; but the bursar general could not be a general councilor. Constitutions that contain this provision must evidently be observed. In constitutions more recently approved, the Sacred Congregation permits any of the councilors except the first to be also either secretary, or bursar general. One institute received an indult permitting the first councilor, or assistant general, to be also bursar general, provided that no inefficiency resulted to the first office. (g) Chapter of affairs. 1° Committees. An article of the following type is more efficient than the one usually found in constitu-tions: "At least two .weeks before the opening of the chapter, 32 Ibid., 10-1951-190-91. 218 July, 1959 PRACTICE OF THE HOLY SEE a committee of three or more chapter delegates, appointed by the mother general in consultation with her council, shall examine and prepare for the chapter all the matters submitted by the hohses for which the decision of the chapter is necessary. This committee shall classify all questions submitted and present them to the general chapter for action." 2° Public voting. The general norm of public rather than secret voting in this chapter is also more efficient and is contained in some recent constitu-tions, for example, "The business of the chapter will be settled by the majority of votes, by secret ballot if the majority of the chapter requests it." 3° Duration of ordinances of general chapter. The following norm of a set of constitutions recently approved is more reasonable than the one commonly found in constitutions: "The decisions and enactments of the general chapter remain in effect permanently unless amended or rescinded by subsequent chapters." 4° Duration of ordinances of a ,superior. At least two recent sets of constitutions state: "Every order gi~,en by a superior ceases to. bind on the expira-tion of his term of office." This should have been qualified. As Van Hove well states: "Many ordinances enacted from dominative power continue to exist on the cessation from office of the superior who established them, because they are im-plicitly renewed by his successor, who is presumed to intend that the customary order in a community continue to be observed until he changes it.''33 16. The superior general. The quinquennial report. The only article in this chapter of the constitutions that needs com-ment is that on the quinquennial report to the Holy See. Every religious institute is now obliged to make this report, for example, independent monasteries, independent houses, and diocesan congregations of men and women are also held to the report.34 The following comments were i:ound in the replies of the Sacred Congregation to several reports. Whenever a Van Hove, .De Leglbus Ecclesiasticis, I, n. 359, note 4; cf. Jone, Commen. tarium in Codicem Iuris Canonici, I, 46. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, 15-1956-156~57. 219 JOSEPH F. GALLEIq Review for Religious pontifical document is mentioned, its date and protocol number should be given, for example, March 19, 1955, Prot. N. 6097/54. Each house should have a book of chronicles in which the principal events of the house are recorded and should also have its own files and archives. The acts of the general chapter, that is, the elections made and the ordinances enacted, not the minutes, should be sent to the Sacred Congregation by pontifical institutes. The following question also caused difficulty: "How do superiors see to it that the decrees of the Holy See which concern religious be known and observed by their own subjects?" This obligation is incumbent on all superiors by the prescription of canon 509, ~ 1. The Sacred Congregation was dissatisfied with many replies to this question. It seems to me that the answer was easy with regard to knowledge, i. e., all houses subscribe to the REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, in which such documents are explained, and all houses have the fol-lowing work, in which the text of such documents is given in Eng-lish, Bouscaren, Canon Law Digest, I-IV (The Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee). Circular letters of higher superiors should call the attention of their subjects to such documents and insist their observance. Their enforcement should also be part of the ordi-nary government of all superiors, should be included in the reports of lower to higher superiors, and be investigated and insisted on in the canonical visitations of higher superiors. Since the Sacred Congregation insists even on local archives, it seems to me that a religious institute should always be given the original rescript from the Holy See that concerns it or at least a photographic copy of such a rescript, and not a mere summary in English of the contents of the rescript. The names of the prefects and officials of the Roman congregations who sign rescripts are often most inaccurately stated and trans-lated into English by lay religious. This is true of the name, the title, and the office. These mistakes are frequently quite public, for example, on the documents appended to the con-stitutions. Those who transmit rescripts should translate these 220 July, 1959 PRACTICE OF THE HOLY SEE names into English for .lay religious. An indecipherable signa-ture can usually be. determined by cgnsulting the Annuario Pontificio. It would help if the signature were fully typed out on the original document below the written signature. 17. The general council. (a) Superior alone governs. Many constitutions, old and new, contain an article of the following tenor: "The congregation shall be governed by a superior general and four councilors." This is an error. The superior alone governs an institute, a province, or a house. The councilors are not associates in authority but advisers. Therefore, such an article should be more accurately phrased, as in the following recently approved constitutions: "Although the superior general must ask the opinion of the general council in matters of greater importance and must sometimes secure its consent, nevertheless, she issues all ordinances in her own name because she alone possesses the right to govern the congregation." (b) List of what a superior may do without the advice or consent of his council. Several constitutions, even some recently approved, contain such a list. This seems to me to be entirely superfluous. It is immediately evident that a superior has the right to govern completely unassisted except for the matters reserved by canon law or the constitutions to higher authorities or that from the same sources demand the con-sent or advice of his council. 18. The secretary general. Many constitutions keep repeat-ing, especially of the secretary, secondlyof the bursar, and lastly of the novice master, that he has no right to vote in a general or provincial council unless he is also a councilor. Isn't this evident? Are we vdry likely to affirm that anyone has the rights of an office that he does not possess? 19. The bursar general. Even recent constitutions continue to speak of a safe locked by three different keys in general-ates, provincialates, and local houses. One of those keys is to be kept by the superior, the second by the assistant, the third by the bursar. All three must therefore be present to open the 221 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review for Religious safe. How efficient is such a safe? How possible is it even buy such a safe? Religious institutes continue also to put determined sums in their constitutions, for example, the amount in extra-ordinary expenses for which recourse is necessary to the superior general. The changing of such an amount is a change of the constitutions and will demand the permission of the Holy See for a pontifical institute and that of all the ordinaries in whose dioceses the.institute has houses in the case of' a diocesan con-gregation. It would be sufficient and more practical to say, "according to the norms established by the general chapter." Such amdhnts may then be changed by any subsequent chap-ter. A recent set of constitutions enacts: "In the houses en-trusted with parish schools or other establishments which are responsible to ecclesiastical or lay administrations and where the sisters receive a fixed salary, the funds shall be .kept and admin-istered as indicated in article . ., except that any surplus shall be paid annually into the provincial fund." This matter was explained in the REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, 14-1955-329. The article on alienation no longer contains the 30,000 t~rancs or lire, or $6,000, of canon 534, § 1 but is phrased, "of a value that exceeds the sum established by the Holy See." 20. Local houses and superiors. A recent set of constitu-tions states: "Though the sisters ought to be desirous of embrac-ing all human misery and of drawing the whole world to the service of God, nevertheless, the congregation shall not establish new houses if, in those already existing, there is not a sufficient number of sisters to insure that not only the works of mercy can be carried out adequately but also that religious observance can flourish." The last clause might well have been amended to: that religious observance and a normal human life can flourish. This very practical matter was commented on in the REVIEW FOR RE~LIGIOUS, 17-1958-121-22. Canon 516, § 1 demands that councilors be had in every formal house and favors or recommends councilors also in smaller houses, In several replies to quinquennial reports, the Sacred Congregation insisted on 222 July, 1959 PRACTICE OF THE HOLY SEE the appointment of local councilors and that local council meet-ings be held with the frequency commanded by the constitu-tions. Insistence was also placed on the law that a local superior should not be the local bursar except in a case of necessity (c. 516~ § 3). A recent set of constitutions makes the prac-tical and necessary observation that everything said about local superiors applies also to the local superior of the 'mother house. The presence of a higher superior does not diminish the author-ity nor lessen the duties of this local superior. One order of nuns and two congregations of sisters have indults that dispense them from the law of canon '1306,§ 2, that is, that purificators, palls, and corporals used in the sacrifice of the Mass must be first washed by a cleric in major orders.3~ 21. The constitutions. The only thing noteworthy under this chapter in the present practice of the Holy See is a fre-quent addition to the norm on the obligation of the constitu-tions. It has always been evident that a divine or ecclesiastical law repeated in the constitutions retains the obligation it has in itself, that is, it obliges under sin according to the matter. The same obligation is equally evident of any action that falls under the vows. It has been the universal practice to declare that the other articles of the constitutions did not immediately oblige under sin but under the penalty imposed for their infraction. It was also universally stated that sin was committed in the violation of such articles by a sinful motive or by a violation that caused scandal. The following qualification is now fre-quently appended to the norm for these other articles: "The articles concerning government and the fundamental norms that determine the necessary functions or the duties and offices by which government is exercised, as also the articles that enact and consecrate the nature, spirit, and special purpose of the congr.egation oblige immediately in conscience according to the matter." This qualification is evidently taken verbatim from Ibid., 15-1956-101. 223 JOSEPH F. (~ALLEN Muzzarelli, Acta et Documenta Congressus Generalis de Statibus Perfectionis, I, 540. It does not seem to me to be too clear nor too precise. It "should be added here that a considerable number of both pontifical and diocesan congregations have made a general revision of their constitutions in recent years. 224 A Lit:e Table t:or. Religious Priest:s 1953-1957 Francis C. Madigan, S.J. THE JANUARY 1955 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS carried an article by Sister Josephina, c.s.J., on the average age at death of sisters in two communities of religious women, presumably of her own congregatmn1 . In view of the interest of religious, and particularly of religious superiors, in Sister Josephina's stat", s"tLcs, the writer believes that readers of the REVIEW will be equally interested in a life table setting forth the mortality experience of a large community of religious priests2 whose headquarters are located in New York City and whose principal field of operations embraces New York State ¯ and northeastern New Jersey.3 Some comments on life tables and their use are in order. First of all, they are based not on death records only, but on the proportion of deceased members to living members, for each age gr6up and calendar year studied. The present table gives average figures t:or the calendar years 1953-1957. Secondly, life tables are an accurate barometer of health conditions prevailing in the particular group to which they relate. They permit direct and unbiased comparisons of the mortality of this group with that of other groups through the mortality rates and expectations of life developed in the tables. Superiors of similar groups of priests should find these mortality rates and expectations of life helpful in coming to decisions about the number of men that must be prepared to keep certain lines of work adequately staffed. The table will also prove useful in determining whether health conditions in 1Sister Josephina, C.S.J., "Longevity of Religious Women," Review [or Religious, XIV, I (January, 1955), 29-30. 2Priest was defined for the purpose of the study to mean. both ordained priests, and religious seminarians ("scholastics") studying for the priesthood. 3There were 1247 priests in this community on June 30, 1955, which was the midpoint of the study. The main work engaged in by the members is education. 225 FRANCIS C. MADIGAN Review for Religious their community are satisfactory both in general and in regard to any particular age group. Some time ago through the use of such a table the superiors of a certain religious community found that the number of deaths yearly experienced in their scholasticate was entirely out of line with expectations, and upon investigation they found that certain health measures relating to diet and housing were being overlooked. Correction of the situation resulted in an immediate lowering of the death rates for the affected age groups. The table may also be of assistance to superiors, in another way. Of late a number of communities have been consider-ing or have actually bought group insurance for their members. The mortality rates and expectations of life in the table should prove helpful both to these communities and to insurance companies in determining what is a fair premium. The use of the table is simple. In the leftmost colunm one finds the age in which he is interested. Following this age across .its row, he comes first to the mortality rates. These are given for both five-year and one-year periods, and for the five-year periods, in terms of both observed and graduated rates. The observed rates are placed next to the age beginning the precise period to which they refer, as are the one-year graduated rates. The graduated five-year rates are placed in parentheses two lines below the observed rates and refer to precisely the same period of time as the observed rates. These mortality rates are probabilities of dying during the period 'specified for those priests who were alive on the birthday mark-ing the beginning of the period. In using the table to compare the probabilities of dying at any particular ages, it is better to use the graduated rather than the observed rates. This is because the latter rates con-tain fluctuations from age to age due to chance variation, whereas the former represent, as closely as can be determined by study, the general law of mortality, which seems to underlie the observed fluctuations of a particular set of rates. A priori we would expect mortality to follow a smoothly rising curve 226 July, 1959 A LIFE TABLE with the advance of age, and graduation is based on this expectation, while at the same time it attempts to keep very close to the original rates observed at each age. For example, if the age-specific mortality rates observed during the period 1953-1957 should continue in effect, we would expect an average oi~ 5.5 priests to die (on the basis of the graduated rates) before their fortieth birthday, out ot~ every thousand priests alive on their thirty-fifth birthday. However, in the general public we would expect thirteen out of every thousand to die during the same period.4 During the one-year period from their thirty-fifth to their thirty-sixth birthday, we would expect only one priest to die out of every thousand. The reference, of course, is only to priests of the community studied. How might a superior compare the experience of his own community with that of the priests described? He could do this by relating the number of deaths at any particular age in a calendar year to the number of persons in his community who had been of that precise age on their last birthday. Divid-ing the i~ormer by the latter would give the one-year probability of dying. Similarly, he could find the five-year probabilities of dying by relating members who had died within a specific five-year age bracket in the calendar year to the number of members of his community who were between these ages at the start ot~ the year. Rough approximations could be used if only ~ general picture of the mortality rates of the community is ~lesired, while more careful methods might be employed to nvestigate the records of age-groups which seem to have un- _~sually high mortality. Of course, unusually high mortality rates for a particular ~-ge-group may represent simply fluctuations due to chance. ~,ccordingly, it is well to combine the results of the observation ,f several calendar years, as these average rates will show fewer --xtremes due to mere sampling variation. It would not be 4The comparison is not perfect since the rates of the general public are "or 1954, rather than 1955 which is the mid-year of the period studied for ¯ riests. However, it is close enough to make differences inconsequential. 227 FRANCIS C. 1V[ADIGAN Review for Religious wise, however, to average more than ten years' experience be-cause of the change in medical techniques that takes place over that length of time. These affect the death rates. The column next after the white male mortality rates fifth column) shows the number of priests who survive to each quinquennial birthday out of 100,000 priests alive on, their fifteenth birthday. By mentally shifting the decimal point, can be converted into the number left alive out of 100. (Multi-plying by the proper multiple would give the number left out of 200, 300, 400, and similar numbers.) This column might prove helpt~ul to superiors in endeavoring to forecast size of a certain age group some years from the present. For example, one might get some idea from it of the number priests ordained today who would be expected to be still alive in twenty or thirty years, if we assume that these priests roughly of the same age. The following column (sixth), which gives the number of priests dying in each successive five-interval out of the original group of 100,000, might also prove helpful in this connection. The seventh column will probably not be particularly use-ful to superiors or other interested religious. It is included because of its relation to the following column. This seventh column presents the remaining total number of years of to be lived by the surviving members of the original 100,000 priests up to the time when the last survivor dies. The last column presents probably the most useful set figures in the table. These expectations of life are found dividing the total number of years to be lived (column by the number of persons surviving to start the period (column 5) at any particular age. The first expectation, at age 15, sums up the entire mortality and longevity experience of whole cohort of 100,000 priests, and is directly comparable t.h~ experience of other groups of persons at age 15. Expecta-tions of life at succeeding years sum up the entire experience t~rom that age onward to the death of the last member. 228 July, 1959 A LIF~- TABLE The expectation of life is the average remaining number of years to be lived by priests surviving to some particular specified age. For example, priests studied in this table had at 30 years of age an average remaining lifetime of 38.5 years while white males of the general public had only 36.4 years of life remaining. Care must be observed, however, in drawing conclusions from column eight. Because one has noted that the average lifetime of priests is greater than that of white males of the general population, he should not conclude that the oldest ages reached b)~ individual priests necessarily exceed those of the most long-lived members of the general population. As a matter of fact, the opposite is true because of the greater numbers in the general population and the greater resultant probability of extreme cases. The difference in average length of life is pri.ncipally due to the fact that a larger number of the general population die before reaching old age. For this reason one will notice that the expectations of life at ages above 60 do not differ as much as do the expectations at the younger years. A second caveat refers to the fact that the mortality rates and the expectations of life refer to statistical averages. We cannot be sure of any particular person or persons that their lives will be as long or short as the mathematical averages. For example, the expectation of life of priests aged 30 is 43.5 additional years of life. However, any particular priest might be killed tomorrow in an automobile accident, or on the other hand he might live considerably beyond the average expecta-tion of life. The same is true of any small group of priests, where sampling variations due to health or accident might be very large. In addition, one should bear in mind that as time goes on, health conditions continually improve. At least this has been the experience of the past hundred years. Thus one would expect that in 1958 a priest's expectation of life would be slightly better for any particular age than it was between 1953 and 1957, and that his chances of dying during any one-year or five-year interval would be correspondingly less. 229 FRANCIS C. ~V[ADIGAN Review for Religious Table 1. Life Table of Large Community of Religious Priests with Headquarters in Northeastern United States, for the Period 1953-1957, with Mortality Rates For Five-Year and One-Year Periods and Expectation of Life by Single Years of Age, Compared for Five-Year Age Groups with United States White Males, 1954. Priest Priests Total Survivors Dying Years Expectation MortaLity Beginning During Lived by of Rates Each Each Priesr~ Life Age 5-Year 1-Year 5-Year Five-Year Five-Year at Ages ¯ Priests U~S. Interval Observed~ Graduated U.S. Male Interval, Interval and Above Male 15-16 .00000 .00068a .00610b 100,000 0 5,797,816 57.98 55.0 16-17 .00068 56.98 17-18 (.00339)c .00068 55.98 18-19 .00068 54.98 19-20 .00068 53.98 20-21 .00549 .00068 .00890 I00,000 549 5,297,816 52.98 50.3 21-22 .00069 52.04 22-23 (.00349) .00070 51.09 23-24 .00070 50.15 24-25 .00071 49~20 25-26 .00578 .00073 .00800 99,451 575 4,799,069 48.26 45.7 26-27 .00074 47.31 27-28 (.00379) .00076 46.36 28-29 .00077 45.42 29-30 .00079 44.47 30-31 .00000 .00082 .00900 98,876 0 4,303,365 43.52 41.1 31-32 .00085 42.52 32-33 (.00439) .00088 41.52 33-34 .00091 40.52 34-35 .00094 39.52 35-36 .00628 .00099 .01300 98,876 621 3,808,975 38.52 36.4 36-37 .00106 37.57 37-38 (.00549) .00111 36:61 38-39 .00115 35.66 39-40 .OOll8 34.70 40-41 .00683 .00125 .02080 98,255 671 3,316,009 33.75 31.8 41-42 .00136 32.79 42-43 (.00757) .00149 31.83 43-44 .00166 30.88 44-45 .00186 29.92 45-46 .03874 .00214a .03530b 97,584 3,780 2,825,753 28.96 27.5 46-47 .00248 28.17 47-48 (.01490)e .00290 27.38 48-49 .00342 26.60 49-50 .00404 25.81 50-51 .03177 .00484 .05600 93,804 2,980 2,346,801 25.02 23.4 51-52 .00566 24.17 52-53 (.03333) .00661 23.32 53-54 .00773 22.46 54-55 .00899 21.61 July, 1959 A LIFE TABLE Mortality Age ~-Year l-Year 5-Year Interval O~serveds Graduated U.,S Male 55-56 .02900 .01058 .08380 56-57 .01231 57-58 .06765) .01374 58-59 .01545 59-60 .01727 60-61 61-62 62-63 63-64 64-65 65-66 66-67 67-68 68-69 69-70 70-71 71-72 72-73 73-74 74-75 Priest Priests Total Survivors Dying Years Beginning During Lived by Each Each ~ Priests Five-Year Five-Year at Ages x Interval Interval and Above 90,824 2,634 1,885,471 .09036 .01960 .02205 ¯ 11805) .02450 .02750 .03051 .12700 88,190 7,969 1,436,896 .28666 .03586 .03795 .19084) .04125 .04452 .04795 .13382 .05225 .05650 .273.10) .06150 .06685 .07150 ¯ 18570 80,221 22,996 1,011,626 ¯ 24920 57,225 7,658 668,076 75-76 76-77 77-78 78-79 79-80 80-81 81-82 82-83 83-84 84-85 Expectation of Life Priests U.S. Male 20.76 19.6 19.87 18.97 18.08 17.18 16.29 16.2 15.54 14.82 14.08 13.35 12.61 13.1 12.42 12.23 12.05 11.86 11.67 10.5 10.95 10.24 9.52 8.81 .45904 .07650 .35440 49,567 22,753 401,147 8.09 8.2 .08200 8.04 .35495) .08500 7.98 .08750 7.93 .08870 7.87 .36387 .09051d .48470 26,814 9,757 209,757 7.82 6.3 .O9149 7.46 .38689)e .09311 7.12 .09452 6.76 .09642 6.41 85-86 .39950 .10116 17,057 6,814 103,400 6.06 5.1 86-87 .10653 87-88 (.45904) .11340 88-89 .12299 89-90 .13367 90 and 1.00000e Above 1.0000e 10,243e 10,243e a The life table is based on the observed rates. These rates are for five-year periods. b The mortality rates for U. S. males, 1954, are for five-year periods. In the source they are given only to four places. A zero was added to each to assist the eye in comparisons. e The rates given in parentheses are five-year, graduated rates for priests. They are for the iame five-year period as the observed rate immediately above them. d The one-year graduated rates give the probabilities of dying during the next year, for persons of this exact age. ¯ o This final interval is not one if five years, but continues till the death of the last survivor. Source for the life table values of United States white males, 1954: National Office of Vital Statistics, "Abridged Life Tables. United States, 1954," Vital Sta-tistics- Special Reports, National Summaries, 44, 2 (May 15, 1956), 38. 231 Survey Roman Documents R. F. Smith, S.J. IN THE FOLLOWING survey those documents will be summarized which appeared in Acta Apostolicae Sedis through February and March, 1959. All page references throughout the survey will be to the 1959 ~AS (v. 51). Synod and Council On the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, January 25, 1959, His Holiness John XXIII, together with the cardinals present in Rome, participated in the closing of the Church Unity Octave at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls. After the ceremonies the Vicar of Christ delivered a private but solemn allocution (AAS, pp. 65-69) to the assembled cardinals. After telling them of his awareness of his duties both as Bishop of Rome and as Pastor of the universal Church, the Pontiff remarked that the diocese of Rome needs an increase of energy as well as a coordination of individual and collective efforts, if a more abundant harvest of souls is to be gathered. Moreover, he continued, the entire world has its needs; for though the grace of Christ continues to achieve its victories, still there are many who refuse to believe in Christ, immerse themselves in exclusively eartldy pursuits, and under the inspiration of the Prince of Darkness wage active opposition against what is true and good. To meet these needs, the Pope. said, there must be revived certain ancient forms of doctrinal affirmation and ecclesi-astical discipline which have in the past proved their ability to clarify thought, to increase religfous unity, and to reanimate Christian fervor. "Venerable Brothers and beloved Sons! Trembling a little from emotion but nevertheless with a humble resoluteness of purpose, We announce in your presence the name and proposal of a double celebration: that of a diocesan synod for the City and that of an ecumenical Council for the universal Church." After mentioning briefly that among other results of these two endeavors, there would be effected the hoped for revision of canon law, the Pontiff concluded his allocution by recommending his two proposals to the care of the Blessed Virgin and the saints of heaven. Previously on the same day and during the Solemn Mass that closed the Unity Octave, HIS Holiness had delivered a homily (AAS, pp. 70-74) in which he emphasized that the Church's linking of St. Paul with St. Peter should be a symbol of the unity of the bishops, 232 I~OMAN DOCUMENTS successors of the apostles, and of the faithful with the successor of St. Peter. It is from this unity, he concluded, that there will flow to the world the liberty and peace it desires. Closing of the Lourdes Centenary On February 15, 1959 (AAS, pp. 135-39), the Holy Father delivered an allocution in the Basilica of St. Mary Major to mark the end of the Lourdes centenary for the city of Rome. After reminding the Romans that the adoration of Christ is always the center of every form of devotion to Mary, HIS Holiness once more recalled to his listeners the permanent message of Lourdes: confident prayer of petition, exercise of penance, and solid piety manifested in the form of pilgrimages. These pilgrimages, he continued, whether to Lourdes or to the thousands of other shrines of our Lady, are not to be regarded as pleasure trips nor as the satisfying of some vague religious feeling; rather they should recall the eternal truths of life and- purify the soul so as to better fit it to appreciate the eucharistic banquet. In our prayer of petition, he went on, we need not fear to ask for temporal gifts; but our requests should not begin or end with these, for the goals of our life and the means thereto far exceed such things. Finally, he pointed out, because of the threefold concupiscence to be found in man, human beings need disci-pline and penance; accordingly there can be no Christian without the exercise of penance. The Holy Father concluded the entire allocution by lamenting the moral disorders that are multiplying at the present time and urged the faithful to petition heaven that good sense may return, that the faith may revive, and that perseverance never grow slack. Three days later on February 18, 1959 (AAS, pp. 144-48), the Pontiff sent a radio message to Lourdes and to the entire world for the conclusion of the centenary year, considering in it the message to be found in the life of St. Bernadette. Bernadette, he said, once more proves the statement of St. Paul (1 Cor 1:27-28) that. God chooses the weak things of this world to ~onfound the strong. Our generation, tie continued, has made admirable scientific progress, and humanity has been seized with a sense of pride at the possibilities now opening to the power of man. But, he added, St. Bernadette recalls to us our need for humility and prayer and reminds us that from Lourdes there comes a call to penance and to charity, a call to detach ourselves from riches and to teach us to share with those poorer than ourselves. Later during the same day (AAS, pp. 140-43) the Pope delivered an allocution to a group of Frenchmen in the Church of St. Louis, King of France. He recalled the long and noble history of Catholicism in France, noting that that history had culminated in the appearances of 233 R. F. SMITH Review for Religious Mary at Lourdes. Having remarked that in the plans of Divine Provi-dence each nation has its own special mission, he went on to describe the mission of France in the phrase: The country of France is the country of Mary. He concluded by reminding his listeners that the last previous Pope who bore the name of John was a Frenchman. Further Documents and Speeches Under the date of February 6, 1959 (AAS, pp. 129-35), John XXIII sent an epistle to the archbishops, bishops, and other local ordinaries of Italy in commemoration of the twentieth anniversary of the death of Pius XI and thirtieth anniversary of the Lateran Pact. In the epistle John XXIII recalled that in the last months of his life Plus XI had planned a plenary meeting of all the bishops of Italy and had in fact begun the composition of the talk he intended to give at the meeting. Sickness and death prevented the completion of the speech, but the unfinished manuscript furnishes us with sufficient knowledge of the last thoughts.of Pius XI. The first subject Pius XI had chosen to consider was that of the care that bishops should have for their seminaries. He reminded them of the need to watch over their seminaries vigilantly even in little matters; he particularly stressed the necessity of sustaining the rectors of seminaries in their severity in admitting candidates and in later promotions to orders. The next p.oint in the projected speech was a warning to the bishops that they should not be surprised if their words were often twisted and misinterpreted. (It should be remembered that Pius XI was writing when Fascism was at its height in Italy.) At this point in the manuscript, John XXIII noted, the writing becomes shaky and confused. But there was still enough strength in the dying pontiff to write a paragraph on the tenth anniversary of'the Lateran Pact. The paragraph is a moving and eloquent one, the dying Pope addressing the relics of the Princes of the Apostles, calling on them to exult because God has returned to Italy and Italy to God, imploring them to prophesy the perseverance of Italy in the faith, and ending with a desperate plea for peace for the entire world. These, remarked John XXIII in conclusion, were the last recorded thoughts of a great Pope. On January 18, 1959 (AAS, pp. 74-79), John XXIII delivered an allocution at the Gregorian University to the assembled professors and students, emphasizing how the very name of the institution recalls the glorious memory of Pope Gregory XIII, who during his pontificate from 1572 to 1585 effected the full restoration of Christian discipline in the Church. 234 July, 1959 ROMAN DOCUMENTS On January 30, 1959 (AAS, pp. 80-81), the Pope addressed members of the Christian Union of Business Executives and Managers. I-Ie regretfully reminded his audience that th~ ~rror still persists that industrial production inevitably involves the conflict of divergent interests. Actually, he said, executives, managers, and workers are not irreconcilable antagonists; rather they are cooperators in a common work which requires mutual comprehension and a sincere effort to overcome the temptation to seek only one's own profit. Under the date of January 17, 1959 (AAS, pp. 149-51), the Vicar of Christ sent a written message to the school children of the United States. His message, the Holy Father wrote, was one of love: God's love for all mankind and man's duty to love God in return and his neighbor for His sake. He urged the children to show their love for children less fortunate than themselves by praying for them and by giving them all possible material aid. Miscellaneous Matters In the issues of AAS under consideration there¯ are several docu-ments which concern Catholics of the Byzantine rite. By the apostolic constitution Singularern huius, dated May 10, 1958 (AAS, pp. 97-98), an exarchate was erected in Australia for Ruthenians of the Byzantine rite; Sydney was designated as the see of the exarchate. A later decree of the Sacred Congregation of the Oriental Church, dated December 12, 1958 (AAS, pp. 107-108), extended the jurisdiction of the exarchate to Ruthenians living in New Zealand and Oceania. A second decree of the same congregation and under the same date (AAS, p. 108) changed the see of the exarchate from Sydney to Melbourne. Byzantine Rite Catholics of Ukrainian origin living in the United States were the object of the apostolic constitution Apostolicam hanc, issued July 10, 1958 (AAS, pp. 156-57). The constitution raised the exarchate of ~Philadelphia to metropolitan status, while the exarchate of Stamford (Connecticut) was made an eparchate. The two together now form a new ecclesiastical province. AAS, pp. 112-13 and pp. 163-64, gives the original texts of two prayers composed by John XXIII for the Church of silence and in honor of the Eucharistic Christ. An English translation of the prayers is given elsewhere in this issue. The last document to be considered is a decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites issued on August 11, 1958 (AAS, pp. 160-62). The decree approves the introduction of the cause of the Servant of God Clara Fey (1815-1894), foundress of the Sisters of the Poor Child Jesus. 235 Views, News, Previews FROM JULY 31 to August 7, 1960, there will be held the thirty-seventh World Eucharistic Congress, in Munich, Germany. The first four days of the Congress (Sunday, July 31, to Wednesday, August 3) will consist chiefly in conventions of Catholic organizations and g.roups, while the last four days (Thursday, August: 4, to Sunday, August 7) will emphasize liturgical and devotional services centered around the Mass and the Blessed Sac~:ament. Catholic associations who intend to hold meetings during 1960 are requested to hold the meetings in Munich during the days of the Eucharistic Congress. Inquiries about the Eucharistic Congress should be directed to the following address: Generalsekretariat des Eucharistischen Weltkongresses, Maxburgo strasse, 2, Munich, Germany. A community of sisters in New Hampshire has asked that the following communication be printed in the pages of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. "Perhaps some of the religious superiors of sisters in the eastern states would appreciate knowing of an ideal rest and nursing home for sisters desiring complete rest and an opportunity of regaining lost health. As far as we know, it is unique, in that regular medical attendance forms one of the necessary advantages of this quiet and well organized rest home . This home is well furnished and comfort-able, but not luxurious -- so that sisters would quite naturally feel right at home. Rates and information will be furnished on request from Reverend Mother Superior, St. Margaret's Convent, Rest-a-While Building, Gabriels, New York." The twentieth annual North American Liturgical Week will be held under the patronage of Most Reverend Leo A. Pursley, Bishop of Fort Wayne, at Notre Dame University, from Sunday afternoon, August 24, to Wednesday evening, August 27. The theme of the Week will be "Active Lay Participation in the Liturgy according to the Instruction of September 3, 1958." A guest of distinction, who has announced his attendance at the Week, will be James Cardinal Lercaro, Archbishop of Bologna. Room accommodations during the Week will be provided at nominal charge. F.or information regarding such accom-modations write to: Father William Leonard, S.J., Boston College, Boston 67, Massachusetts. It is a pleasure to announce a new magazine which will be of interest to religious. The title of the magazine is Lasallian Digest, a quarterly which began publication in Fall, 1958. The quarterly not only provides informative articles concerning the history, spirituality, 236 VIEWS~ NEWS, PREVIEWS and educational philosophy of the Brothers of the Christian Schools; but it also includes general articles that will be of value to all religious" engaged in educational work. The address of the magazine is: Lasallian Digest, Mont La Salle, Napa, California. The second World Sodality Congress will be held from August 20 to August 23, 1959, at Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey. All sodalists, directors, and moderators, whether members of federations that are affiliated to the World Federation of Sodalities or not, are invited to send representatives to the Congress. Youth sodalities are requested to send only members who are at least sixteen years of age. The theme of the Congress will be "The Vocation of Sodalists of Our Lady in the Crisis of the World Today." Further information concerning the Congress can be obtained by Writing: World Congress of Sodalities of Our Lady, 101 Plane Street, Newark 2, New Jersey. A special leaflet missal containing the Mass of St. Joseph the Workman and designed especially for use at Labor Day Masses is being published by the Catholic Council on Working Life (21 West Superior Street, Chicago 10, Illinois). The missal will be set in large, easy-to-read type with special drawings of men and women at work in a variety of occupations and professions. The leaflet will be ready for shipment on August 1, 1959. Single copies of the leaflet will cost fifteen cents; reduced prices on quantity orders may be obtained by writing the Council at the address given above. The Little Brothers of Jesus hope to begin a new quarterly to be called ~lesus Caritas; the title was a favorite phrase and emblem of P~re de Foucauld whose spirituality the Brothers continue and prolong. A French magazine of the same title has been in existence for some time and in the fall of 1958 a trial issue of an independent but similar English magazine under the same title was issued. The theme of the first issue was "The Gift of Friendship." The new magazine promises to enrich English spiritual reading, since it will mediate the spirituality of the famed Pbre de Foucauld. Persons interested in the magazine should contact: Brother Roger, 24 Autumn Grove, Leeds 6, England. Marquette University, 1131 West Wisconsin Avenue, Milwaukee 3, Wisconsin, announces an Everett Curriculum Workshop which will grant three semester hours of graduate credit in education. The Work-shop, under the direction of Sister Elizabeth Ann, I.H.M., of Immaculate Heart College, Los Angeles, will explore the application of the Everett Report on Sister Formation to the needs of communities of sisters. 237 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Review for Religious It has been designed specifically for directresses of study and for the administration and faculty of juniorates and scholasticates (college level) of sisterhoods. The Workshop has been scheduled for the mornings and afternoons of August 6 to August' 26, 1959. It is open only to sisters; the fee is $36. Inquiries concerning the Workshop should be directed to Dean John O. Riedl of the Graduate School of the University. ( ues!: ons and Answers [The following answers are given by Father Joseph F. Gallen, S.J., professor of canon law at Woodstock College, Woodstock, Maryland.] --20-- The constitutions of our pontifical congregation, approved recently, state three times that a religious who is legitimately dismissed is by that fact freed of all her religious vows. This statement is found after the articles on the dismissal of a professed of temporary vows, those on the dismissal of a professed of perpetual vows, and finally after the article on the automatic dismissal of canon 646. I thought that repetition was to be avoided in constitutions. Wouldn't it be much simpler and less confusing to state once that a sister professed of perpetual or temporary vows who has been legitimately dis-missed is by that very fact freed of all her religious vows? The Code of Canon Law itself, in virtue of canon 648, frees a professed of temporary vows, as soon as the dismissal is effective, from all the vows of his religions profession. The code itself (c. 669, § 1) does not free a religious of perpetual vows from the vows of religious pro-fession by the very fact of his dismissal. Such a liberation may be effected by a provision of the particular constitutions, and constitutions approved in more recent years usually contain this provision. (REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, September, 1957, 275, 282, 288) The evident reason therefore for the threefold statement is that the Sacred Congregation is opposed to the admixture of canonical with non-canonical matter in the one sentence. However, excessive repetition is to be avoided in the constitutions, and the present repetition is especially unfortunate because it occurs within the same chapter of the constitutions. In one official document, the Statutes for Extern Sisters of Monasteries of Nuns, n. 121, the Sacred Congregation of Religious itself stated this effect in the one article: "A sister legitimately dismissed according to the norm of the preceding articles is by that very fact freed of all her religious vows, whether temporary or perpetual." The Sacred Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith follows exactly the same principle in its typical constitutions for diocesan missionary congregations, n. 128. 238 July, 1959 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 21 Our pontifical constitutions state: "The written declaration of the profession, whether temporary or perpetual, signed by the professed sister, by the mother general or her delegate, in whose presence the profession was made, and by two other sisters as witnesses, must be preserved in the archives of the congregation." (Cf. c. 576, § 2.) What is the meaning of the phrase "in whose presence the profession was made"? If it means the one who received the profession, why doesn't it simply state this? The wording of your article in this respect is that of the canon. It does mean the one who received the profession, and it would have been much better if the canon had simply stated this. This meaning is clear from the nature of the act of profession, since canon law itself demands the presence only of the one professing and the one receiving the profession. Furthermore, the rest of the canon, evidently referring to the same person, speaks explicitly of the superior who receives the profession. The unwillingness to repeat a word, phrase, or clause in the same context is a frequent cause of ambiguity in canon law. We do not change the wording of the canons, even when one finds an evidently better and more accurate wording. The Sacred Congregation of Religious itself changed the wording in the Statutes for Extern Sisters of Monas-teries of Nuns, n. 48, to "who received the profession or renovation." --221 You advocate fewer trifling permissions. So do I. What about monthly permissions? We first assemble for this purpose. Each sister then kneels individually before the superior and says, "Please, may I ask my permissions?" Isn't it sufficient to ask permissions? Why must I ask to ask them? She then asks the permissions. "Please, may I rise, dress, wash, say my prayers, perform my community exercises, go to different parts of the house, do my charge, prepare my work, use books, borrow and lend, give away and keep small articles, and bathe when necessary? Please, may I have these permissions?" Don't I already have at least implicit permission for things I am directed or commanded to do, e. g., to rise, perform community exercises, do my charge, and to read at least the books neces-sary for my work? How can I go to the chapel without washing and dressing? If I have permission to wash, doesn't that include all of me? Why do I need pe~-mission to bathe? This ritual consumes from ten to forty minutes. Is it necessary or profit-able, especially when we cannot keep up with our duties? We are told that it is an occasion for increasing merit, but it seems 239 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Review for Religious to me to be a very dumb one. Aren't there sensible ways arriving at perfection? This thing of becoming a fool for the sake of Christ can he taken too literally. Impatience has sharpened the style of the questioner and, I hope, has exaggerated the content of her question; but this is not a sufficient reason for de.nying her a hearing. A monthly renewal of such things as dispensations from any of the duties of common life is reasonable. It would also be reasonable to have a less frequent renewal. I have never been able to see the profit of the formalistic monthly permissions, of which the present case is a sufficiently good example. As the questioner says, she already has at least implicit permission for many of the things she is requesting in these monthly permissions. Such monthly per-missions are, in my judgment, an unnecessary, unprofitable, and formalistic detail. A woman's ability to handle details is a valuable talent, but in the religions life she often perverts it and grinds the spiritual life into a smothering dust of details. I believe it is a sound spiritual maxim that artificiality in spiritual matters is an infallible sign of error. Why should we need artificiality to follow perfectly the most reasonable and most highly integrated person who has. ever existed, Jesus Christ? It is not possible nor does obedience demand that we have the expressed will of a superior for every action. If the motive of our action is the vow of obedience (and it is presumed to be such), any action in conformity with the Rule, the constitutions, cnstoms, usages, and the tacit or presumed will of the superior has the merit of the vow. "In many cases, especially of sisters, one finds a manner of governing, a way of conceiving discipline and obedience that reduces the life and religious observance to an arid and oppressive formalism, a negation and death of the religious life itself and of zeal." Rev. J. Alberione, S.S.P., Acta et Docurnenta Congressus Generalis de Statibus Perfectio~nis, I, 270. 23 When is a vote uncertain and consequently invalid (c. 169, § 1,2°)? A vote is certain when the person voted for can be known without any fear of error from the vote itself. A vote for Brother Francis is invalid if there are two or more religious of that name. It cannot be argued that the elector intended to vote for the elder Brother Francis, who will very likely, be elected, rather than for the younger Brother Francis, for whom it is very improbable that anyone would vote. The vote itself must be certain. The family name or other identification must be included when .there is more than one religions of the same name. It is the almost universal custom always to append the family to the religions name. The vote is also uncertain when the writing cannot be deciphered or the sense understood. 240 July, 1959 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Our monastery of nuns recently resumed solemn vows. Was I, the superioress, obliged to inform the pastor of the parish of baptism of each of these nuns that she had made profession of solemn vows? Yes. Canon 576, § 2, prescribes: " . . . . and moreover, in the case of solemn profession, the superior who received the profession shall inform the pastor of the place of baptism of the solemn profession, in con-fortuity with the norm of canon 470, § 2~" The latter canon reads: "In the register of baptisms there shall'be noted also the record of the baptized person's confirmation, marriage (unless it was a marriage of conscience, as stated in canon 1107), reception of subdiaconate, or ~olemn profession; and these facts are always to be included in baptismal certificates." Canon 576, § 2, should be and usually is included in the constitutions of nuns. The evident reason for the obligation is that solemn religious profession is a diriment impediment to marriage. Therefore, the notification of the solemn profession of any religious is to be sent to the pastor of the parish of baptism. According to the canon, this duty falls on the superior who received the solemn pro-fession; but he or she may do it through another. In fact, the notification is the duty of the superioress of the monastery, even if she did not receive the profession; and this is the usual wording of the constitutions. The notification should contain the full secular and religious name, the place and date of the solemn profession, the full names of the father and mother of the religious, and at least the approximate date of the baptism. Complete and accurate data for the notification can be obtained from the baptismal certificate, if this is in the files of the house where solemn profession was made. --25-- Our general motherhouse is in France. Our constitutions underwent a general revision. Is an ~mprlm~t~tr re~iuired in France for the printing of the constitutions in French? Is another imprimatur necessary for the English translation of these constitutions from the French? The answer to both questions is yes. Prudence demands that any translation of the constitutions, also and especially of the original approved text, be submitted to the examination of a priest conversant with the canonical terms on religious. If this is not done, awkwardness, inaccuracy, and errors of translation are very likely. Canon law com-mands previous censorship by a local ordinary for determined works but only if they are published (c. 1384). Publication means that the work is made available to the general public. Therefore, works that are destined solely for the members of a religious institute are not published; 241 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Review for Religious and there is no obhgation of submitting them to the previous censorship of a local ordinary. However, it is the common practice of lay institutes to submit the constitutions to this censorship of the local ordinary. According to this practice, there should be an imprimatur for the constitutions in French and another for the English translation, because canon 1392, § 1, requires another censorshilJ for a translation. The granting of an imprimatur appertains to the proper local ordinary of the author, the ordinary of the place of publication, or the ordinary of the place of printing (c. 1385, § 2). A compiler or translator is included under the term of author. Strictly speaking, the author or legislator of constitutions of lay institutes is the Holy See or the local ordinaries; the official compiler is the general chapter. Constitutions are translated and distributed (published) under the authority and direction of a higher superior. Therefore, the imprimatur for these constitutions may be requested from the ordinary of the place of the general chapter, of the residence of the higher superior, or of the place of printing. In fact it is practically always given by the ordinary of the residence of the higher superior. m26-- Brother X, professed of solemn vows, was a lay brother in our order. He became an apostate from religion. Both his local and immediate higher superior were earnestly striving to persuade him to return to the order. We learned later that he had met a woman, a Catholic and previously unmarried, two weeks after he left his religious house. A week later he got a priest to marry himself and this woman. He concealed the fact of his solemn vows. The constitutions of our order explicitly state that a professed of solemn vows who is legiti-mately dismissed is by that very fact freed of his solemn vows. Was the marriage of Brother X and this woman valid? If Brother X had been a religious cleric in sacred orders (sub-diaconate, diaconate, priesthood) or if a legitimate dismissal, in virtue of the law of the constitutions, did not free him from his solemn vows, his marriage would have been certainly and evidently invalid by reason of the diriment impediment of sacred orders (c. 1072), or solemn religions profession (c. 1073), or both. Therefore, the case of a solemnly professed described above is possible also with regard to a nun or a religious man destined for the priesthood but not yet in sacred orders. The automatic dismissal of canon 646 is a legitimate dismissal, since this canon explicitly states it to be such and it is effected according to law and by law. This dismissal therefore produces the effects of a legitimate dismissal. The code itself (c. 669, § 1) does not free a dismissed religious of perpetual vows, whether solemn or simple, from the vows 242 July, 1959 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS of religious profession by the very fact of the dismissal; but such a liberation, as in the present case, may be effected by the constitutions. We presuppose that the only possible source of invalidity in this case is the solemn religious profession. If, prior to the Catholic celebration of marriage, this religious had publicly apostatized from the Catholic faith, or had run away with a woman, or had attempted marriage outside the Church, he would have been immediately and automatically dismissed in virtue of canon 646. His own constitutions would have freed him in the same instant from all his solemn vows. Since the diriment impediment to marriage is attached to his solemn vow of chastity, which would have ceased to exist, his former solemn profession would in no way have interfered with the validity of a later Catholic celebration of marriage nor would the impediment in question have had to be dispensed. It would simply have ceased to exist. No such previous crime occurred in the present case. Brother X did not even, know the woman until two weeks after he had left the religious house. Canon 646 automatically dismisses any religious who attempts or contracts marriage. It is therefore certain that Brother X was automatically dismissed by canon 646 and freed of his solemn vows, and consequently of the diriment impediment, by the constitutions at the moment that he and the woman gave the marriage consent. There-fore, the precise question is: does a simultaneous freedom from a diriment impediment suffice or is a freedom previous in time necessary for the validity of marriage? I believe that a simultaneous freedom suffices and that the marriage was valid. Canon law does not solve this individual case nor does it explicitly state any general principle on the matter. The case should therefore be decided from analogy (c. 20). There are at least two analo-gous cases in the code, and it can also be maintained that these cases implicitly affirm the general principle of the sufficiency of si~nultaneous freedom. Canon 1126 states that the bond of a former marriage con-tracted in infidelity is dissolved by the Pauline Privilege only when the conv.erted party actually contracts a new and valid marriage. Therefore, in the Pauline Privilege the simultaneous freedom from the diriment impediment of a valid and still existing marriage suffices for the valid contracting of marriage. By the prescription of ecclesiastical law, a marriage is invalid if one of the parties is free and believes the other party to be free when in fact the latter is a slave in the strict sense of this term (c. 1083, § 2, 2°). The common interpretation of this canon is that the marriage is valid if the slave obtains freedom by marriage. Therefore, we again have a case in which simultaneous freedom from an invalidating cause suffices for the validity of marriage. It cannot be objected that this solution offends against the principle that no one should profit by his crime. This principle cannot be main- 243 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Review for Religious tained against an expressed declaration of law. The code itself (c. 648) frees from his vows a religious of temporary vows who commits any of the crimes listed in canon 646, and canon 669, § 1, and positively and explicitly permits the particular constitutions to grant the same freedom to a professed of perpetual vows, whether solemn or simple. --27-- I read the constitutions of a lay congregation that has recently been made pontifical. Their definition of an ordinary and extraordinary general chapter differs from our own, which I enclose. Which of these definitions is correct? In older constitutions, an ordinary general chapter is one convoked regularly at the intervals determined in the constitutions for general elections. This interval is usually every six years, because in the modern practice of the Sacred Congregation of Religious th~ term of office of the superior general is six years. An extraordinary chapter in the same constitutions is one convoked outside of such regular intervals. The first reason for such a chapter is the vacancy of the office of superior general by reason of death, resignation, or deposition. The second is a serious matter affecting the entire institute. The latter is therefore only a chapter of affairs and only for determined matters, such as approval of a revision of the constitutions. This latter chapter in pontifical lay congregations demands a serious reason, the deliberative vote of the general council, and the permission of the Holy See. (Bastien, Directoire Canonique, n. 240, 2; Battandier, Guide Canonique, nn. 341, 346; Schaefer, De Religiosis, n. 452.) In very recent years, the Sacred Cong~'egation has changed this definition in the constitutions of lay congregations that are being made pontifical but not in revisions of constitutions of congregations that were already pontifical. The change consists in the fact that any chapter for the election of a superior general is termed ordinary, any other is extraordinary. The following article typifies this change. "A general chapter is called ordinary whenever it convenes for the election of a superior general, whether a~ the expiration of the ordinary term or when the office becomes vacant for any reason at another time. Any other chapter is said to be extraordinary and may not be convoked without special authorization of the Holy See, upon request by the superior general with the consent of his council." Both definitions are therefore correct, that is, all institutes retain the definition given in their own constitutions. 28- We have a common or public devotional renewal of vows twice a year. The renewal is made before the reception of Holy 244 July, 1959 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Communion. Do we by this renewal gain the indulgence men-tioned in the R~ccolta, n. 756? The Raccolta reads: "The religious of any order or congregation who privately renew their religious vows with at least a contrite heart, after celebrating Holy Mass or receiving Holy Communion, may gain an indulgence of three years." It can be argued that the essential condition is a devotional renewal, not necessarily a private renewal, or that an indulgence granted to a private renewal afortiori applies also to a public renewal. Therefore, the indulgence is gained by a public or private'devotional renewal of religious vows. However, the text clearly demands that the renewal be made after the reception of Holy Com-munion. Therefore, a public or priva, te renewal before Communion does not suffice. On the days of such public devotional renewals, the indul-gence may be gained by again renewing the vows privately after Com-munion. No determined formula is required; and brief formulae, such as "I renew the vows made at my profession," "I renew my vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience," would suffice. The condition that the renewal be made after Holy Communion seems strange, because in two documents, issued before the Code of Canon Law, the Sacred Congregation of Rites had prescribed that professions and public renewals were to be made before Holy Com-munion by religious of congregations who took or renewed their vows during Mass (S. R. C., 3836, 3912). This rite has been retained after the code as a prescription of their own law by at least most of the same religious institutes, and the natural tendency of a religious is to renew his vows privately at the same time during Mass that professions and public devotional renewals are made in his institute. 29 Our constitutions demand an absolute majority for the ejection of the superior general on any of the first three ballots. If such a majority has not been obtained, on the fourth and last ballot only the two religious who had the highest number of votes on the third ballot may be voted for. Of these two, the one who receives the greater number of votes on this fourth ballot is elected. In our last chapter, there was no doubt about the one elected. The constitutions also are clear on the matter; and the president of the chapter gave a brief, simple, and clear exposition of the article. However, on the fourth ballot a vote was cast for a religious who was not one of the two highest on the third ballot. We simply did not know what to do about this vote. This one vote was invalid, because it was in' favor of one who lacked passive voice absolutely, that is, one who simply could not be 245 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Review [or Religious elected. The constitutions clearly restrict eligibility on the fourth ballot to the two who had the highest number of votes on the third ballot. There was also no question whatever of postulation. The constitutions of our congregation demand merely thirty years of age and ten years of profession for a regional superior. Is this correct? Is it sufficient? Any part of an institute that fulfills the canonical requisites for a province is in fact and in law a province, no matter by what name it may be designated in the particular constitutions. The essential canoni-cal requisite for a province is that. of being a distinct moral person, distinct as such from the institute and the houses. A provincial superior is necessarily a canonical higher superior. We presuppose that your regions are not in fact canonical provinces, as is at least practically always the case. The authority of a regional superior may be delegated by a superior general or provincial. If so, he is not a higher superior. The regional superior may possess ordinary authority, that is, authority given by the law of the constitutions. If so, he is a higher superior (c. 488, 8°). In the former case, your constitutions are correct. Canon law does not legislate on the matter~ and the thirty years of age and ten years of profession are prescribed entirely by your own constitutions. If, however, the regional superior is a higher superior, canon 504 must be observed, that is, for the validity of his appointment or election he must be Of legitimate birth, have been professed for at least ten years in the institute computed from his first prQfession (August 15, 1955 -- August 16, 1965), and have completed his thirtieth year (January 1, 1930 -- January 2, 1960). 31 Our pontifical congregation is very large. For many serious reasons, we hesitate to make an immediate division into provinces. We believe it would be more prudent to begin instituting several regions. Do we need the permission of the Holy See to do this? No. Obviously your regions will not be pro~vinces. Therefore, the canonical norms (c. 494) on the erection of provinces do not apply. The establishment, delimitation, change, and suppression of regions may be made by the general chapter or the superior general. Since the matter is so important, the latter ~hould at least consult and preferably have the consent of his council. The latter is practically always de-. manded for these acts when the constitutions make provision for regions. Cf. Larraona, Commentarium Pro Religiosis, 5 (1924), 263-64; Schaefer, De Religiosis, n. 325; Toso, Commentaria Minora, II, 246 July, 1959 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS De Religiosis, 17; Vromant, De Personis, n. 375; Vermeersch-Creusen, Epitome Iuris Canonici, I, n. 603; Coronata, Institutiones Iuris Canonici, I, n. 519. Our constitutions state only that a professed religious who commits any of the crimes listed in canon 646 is by that very fact legitimately dismissed. It seems to me that it would be only sensible for the constitutions to tell us what these crimes are. I think also that canon 646 should be given fully in the consti-tutions. It has not been the general practice to do so in lay institutes, as it has been in clerical institutes. However, some constitutions of the former type of institute do contain the complete canon. Canon 646 was given fully and explained in the REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, 16 (1957)~ 283-89. The canon reads: § 1. The following religious are considered as automatically and legitimately dismissed: 1° Public apostates from the Catholic faith; 2° A religious man who ran away with a woman or a religious woman who ran away with a man; 3° Those who attempt or contract marriage, even the so-called civil marriage. § 2. In these cases, it is sufficient that the higher superior with his chapter or council according to the norm of the constitutions make a declaration of fact; but he must take care to preserve the collected proofs of the fact in the files of the house. 247 Reviews [Material for this department should be sent to Book Review Editor, aEVIEW FO~t RELIGIOUS, West Baden College, West Baden Springs, Indiana.} PORTRAIT OF A PARISH PRIEST. By Lancelot C. Sheppard. Westminster: Newman, 1958. Pp. 183. $3.50. One hundred years ago, on August 4, 1859, died St. John Vianney, Curl of Ars. A living inspiration to laymen and religious as well as to the secular clergy, he had become almost a legendary figure in his own lifetime. Today, his name calls to our mind a student so slow that only the shortage of priests and the insistence of an influential friend made it possible for him to be ordained. We think of a preacher who spent hours of agony in composing commonplace sermons, and then would forget them once he got into the pulpit only to speak with such zeal and intensity as to move his hearers to tears. Contrasting images of Ars come before us -- the out-of-the-way village of 1818, where there was a dilapidated old church, sixty houses, four taverns, and "no great love of God"; and the place of pilgrimage of 1859, with a restored church, no tavern, but one school for girls and one for boys, and crowds of the devout and the curious. Portrait of a Parish Priest treats of a man in whose life the extraordinary seems to be the ordinary thing. Living for years on two or three potatoes a day, with but two hours sleep a night, the CurLkept up a strenuous apostolic life. He could size up the most delicate cases of conscience in a moment and even knew the problems of many penitents before they entered the con-fessional. Many a distressed sinner was singled out from the crowd by the saint's voice and called in to penance ahead of a long line. Scoffers eventually prayed. Diseases were often cured. Add to this the almost nightly rappings, voices, and even the burning of the bedclothes, which the Curl was convinced was the work of the devil, the Grappin, and we have a picture of a truly remarkable man. None of these facts ar~ new, and all have been well treated in previous biographies. The unique feature of Portrait of a Parish Priest is its interpre-tation of the facts. For besides giving us a portrait of a great saint, the author paints a picture of a man. And the life of John Vianney was not a series of interludes between one extraordinary event after another. A man capable of deep discouragement and subject to great psychological tensions, he had been tempted to give up his studies for the priesthood, to desert Napoleon's army, and to flee from the responsibility of his parish. He was convinced that he was not fit for his job and feared greatly for his own salvation. It was his heroic perseverance in the face of these obstacles that was truly remarkable. In the author's opinion, the psychological tension under which the Curl worked was responsible for the "diabolical" disturbances in the saint's life. Whether or not the reader agrees with this explanation, he will find it thought-provoking and will welcome the insistence upon the fact that it was the Cur~'s heroic virtue and not the extraordinary events (whatever their expla-nation) that made him a saint. 248 BOOK REVIEWS St. John Vianney was a man filled with the horror of sin, because he was a saint filled with a love of the living God. But he was also a man who poured out condemnations of pleasures Which can be legitimate in themselves, a man who would refuse absolution to those who would not promise to give up dancing. Fie could, it is true, appreciate the humor of a situation; but on the whole he tended to see the dark side of things. Yet this should not be surprising in a man who grew up in a France in which the Church, was being persecuted and in which clouds of Jansenistic thought still darkened the moral atmos-phere. One new fact which the author brings to light