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Issue 49.2 of the Review for Religious, March/April 1990. ; Religious Life Spirituality The Clericalization of Monasticism =Thomas Merton and the Enneagram Directing the Third Week Volume 49 Number 2 March/April 1990 R~\'u~w~:o~ R~:~.l(mms (ISSN 0034-639X) is published hi-monthly at St. Louis Universily by the Mis-souri Province Educational Institute of Ihe Society of Jesus: Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Blvd. Rrn. 42g: St. Lxmis. MO 6310g-3393. Second-class postage paid at St. b,~uis MO. Single copies $3.50. Subscriptions: United States $15.00 for one year: $28.00 Ibr two years. Other countries: US $20.00 for one year: if airmail. US $35.00 p~r year. For subscription orders or change of address. wrile: Rt~','ll~w I:oR RI~i.IGOUs: P.O. Box 6070; Duluth. MN 55806. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to R~:\'~:w rot R~:u~;mus; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. ©1990 REview For REI,IGIOUS. 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 Advisory Board David J. Hassel, S.J. Sean Sammon, F.M.S. Mary Margaret Johanning, S.S.N.D. Wendy Wright, Ph.D. Suzanne Zuercher, O.S.B. March/April 1990 Volume 49 Number 2 Manuscripts, books f~,r review and correspondence with the editor should he sent to R~:\'~:w vo~ R~:k~;~ous; 3601 I,indell Blvd.; St. la~uis, MO 63108-3393. Cnrrespondence abnut 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 ardered from R~:\'~:w FO;{ R~:LmtOUS; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. I,~mis. MO 63108-3393. "~Out of print" issues are available frnm University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. A major portion of each issue is also available on cassette recordings as a service fiw the visually impaired. Write to the Xavier Society for the Blind; 154 East 23rd Street; New York, NY 10010. PRISMS . The desire for new life, new ideas, new expressions, new insights permeates the everyday existence of us all. Modern day advertising and the consumer economy of first world countries continuously search out the ways to sell products, not in terms of real needs, but in terms of in-duced needs for something new. Consumerism builds upon the human desire for the new, while at the same time offsetting the equally strong human tendency to remain comfortably entrenched in the familiar. The Church seasons of Lent and Easter confront us all with our de-sires for the new and with our equally strong tendency to remain firmly entrenched where we are. The dialogue between Nicodemus and Jesus in the third chapter of St. John's Gospel captures well the continuing ex-change between the Christian and God, clearly focused during these Church seasons. Approaching God out of a certain darkness in our lives, we seek new life and new growth, a new understanding of our faith, or a new sense of relationship with God and with neighbor. But when God starts indicating a dying to some familiar life patterns, when God starts pointing the way to "being born anew," we are tempted to laugh it .off, to claim we are "too old" to need that kind of change. Why not a little "renewal," perhaps a little "restoration," or maybe even an attempt to "recapture" past devotion or past grace (charism)? Any of these words seem to allow ias to keep some measure of control, to retain some-thing of the old and familiar, and yet to pray and give God a place. Rebirth--to be born anew--remains the challenge of Lent and Eas-ter. Rebirth means the dying and rising--the pattern of the paschal mys-tery- which we Christians celebrate in the daily Eucharist. More clearly in these Lenten and Easter seasons we come face-to-face with the most traditional faith concept--that it is the Spirit who brings to birth and who gives life, in our continuing personal growth in our life-in-Christ, in the life of our religious congregations, and in the life of our Church both lo-cal and larger. Our personal response to being born anew is taken up in the articles "Directing the Third Week" by Joseph P. Cassidy, S.J. and "The Theme of Joy in the Spiritual Exercises" by Joan Mueller, O.S.F. We are given new insight into our call and our response to new life in the articles "Will the Real Prodigal Son Please Stand Up?" by Christine Ere-iser, O.S.B. and "Redemption and Romantic Melancholy: Thomas Mer-ton and the Enneagram" by Suzanne Zuercher, O.S.B. "The Re-demption Kernel" by Dennis J. Billy, C.SS.R., presents a new theologi-cal approach in understanding dying and rising, with special application 161 169 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 to religious life. Robert T. Sears, S.J., in his article "Resurrection Spiri-tuality and Healing the Earth," expands our vision about Jesus' resur-rection affecting the ecology of our whole world andso giving us the re-sponsibility of a new life-healing power. Finally those articles specifically dealing with renewal and transfor-mation in the congregations of women and men religious indicate the ar-eas of present struggle, the history of a sometimes laborious develop-ment, and the proposed costly future of new life. The various authors-- Stephen Tutas, S.M., Charles Reutemann, F.S.C., Anne O'Brien, gsic, and Lora Ann Quinofiez, C.D.Po and Mary Daniel Turner, S.N.D., de N.--invite us into seeing and knowing a life beyond renewal and trans-formation, a birth which only the Spirit can bring about for the future of religious life. May the joy with which the risen Jesus consoles us now become more richly our experience of new life. David L. Fleming, S.J. Resurrection Spirituality and Healing the Earth Robert T. Sears, S.J. Father Robert Sears, S.J., teaches in the Institute of Pastoral Studies at Loyola Uni-versity in Chicago. This article had its origin in a presentation made to the North American Conference for Christianity and Ecology. His address is 5554 S. Wood-lawn Avenue; Chicago, Illinois 60637. Those involved in ecology and those involved in a healing ministry are for the most part on two different tracks. The one is focused on a scien-tific study of evolution and the interdependence of creation, the other on individual hurts with little attention to environment. My own healing min-istry, on the other hand, has led me little by little to concern for the en-vironment. I began with attention on the individual, then was led to see family relationships into past generations as grounding present destruc-tive patterns. And only recently have I become aware that the environ-ment itself is affected by these destructive patterns and needs healing. Several experiences have brought me to this conclusion. In the first place, there is evidence that places are affected by what occurs on them. Barbara Shlemon, noted for her healing ministry, has observed the ongoing destructive influence violence can have on certain places. She felt called to build a healing center in Clearwater, Florida but over a year's time could not find a place. With two others she prayed for guidance and one member thought of Native Americans. They looked into the history of that region and found that it was the location of a war with the Seminole Indians where it is estimated that some 10,000 to 15,000 Seminole Indians died as we took their land. They had a service of reconciliation, asking forgiveness of the Indians for what our ances-tors did then. The very next day an ideal piece of land opened up for 163 "164 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 them! It was as though God would not give the land till reparation was made for that violence. I will speak later of an instance in my experi-ence from Chicago. The civil war Camp Douglas lay between Thirty-first and Thirty-third streets and Cottage Grove. Some 6000 Confeder-ate soldiers died there in inhuman conditions, and when we went there to pray for healing, we found that prime property still overgrown and in ruins. Secondly, we have some experimental evidence that plants at least remember. Cleve Backster, an expert on the psychogalvanic skin re-sponse that is basic to the lie detector, decided one day to attach the elec-trodes to a tropical plant in his office. ~ He wondered if the plant would respond to cutting it. It did, but not as much as he expected. He then thought he would burn its leaves, and even at the thought the graph showed a violent response. The plant seemed to be able to anticipate his intended violence. He then set up a situation where plants could "wit-ness" a destructive action. Six people were selected and given numbers. All but one were instructed on their paper to go into the room, look at the plants, and leave. One was instructed to tear up and stamp on one of two plants in the room and then leave. Electrodes were attached to the remaining "witness" plant, and each person again went into the room. Only the plant "knew" who was responsible! There was no re-sponse for the five innocent persons, but when the culprit went into the room the plant responded vigorously, as if in fear. It seems to have re-membered. 2 Finally, Dr. Kenneth McAII, an English psychiatrist noted for his heal-ing ministry with family systems, was traveling by banana boat over the Bermuda Triangle (a place formed by an imaginary line between Miami, Puerto Rico, and Bermuda where for hundreds of years ships and aircraft had gone down without a trace) when the boat was caught in a terrible storm.3 In escaping south, one of the ship's boilers broke leaving them adrift. In his quiet leisure, he heard a droning outside. It wasn't the crew. Researching, he found that this was the place unfit slaves were thrown overboard so their owners could collect insurance money. As Genesis 4 said of Cain's killing Abel "Your brother's blood cries out to me from the soil," these souls were crying out from the sea. On returning to En-gland, Dr. McAI! got Anglican bishops in various places to celebrate Eucharist for those who lost their lives in an untimely way in that place, and later the Bermuda Anglican bishop did the same. For five years be-tween that celebration (in 1977) and his book (1982), there had been no reported accident in that region. Resurrection Spirituality We are dealing with incidents that are hard to repeat scientifically, but such evidence supports a view of the world as living and responsive to what occurs on it. Much like humans who are God's most developed creatures, the earth seems to be marked by past experience. Can it be healed? What implications might result for the earth if humans under-stood how to assist in this healing? It is my conviction that a deeper un-derstanding of the resurrection of Jesus would help us bring healing not only to humans but also to the earth. I will begin by relating creation-centered spirituality to a focus on resurrection. Resurrection-Centered Spirituality A recent focus on the importance of celebrating creation and joining its creative impulse is the work of Matthew Fox: Creation-centered spiri-tuality (see his Original Blessing: a Primer in Creation SpiritualiO, (Bear & Co. Inc., 1983). Fox sees traditional spirituality (which he terms Fall/ Redemption spirituality as instanced in Augustine, Thomas h Kempis up to Tanqueray) as dualistic, focused on the danger of sensuality and earthiness and on the need for ascetical restraint. He argues for another tradition which he finds in the Yahwist, wisdom writers, lrenaeus, Eck-hart up to Teilhard de Chardin, which is basically positive toward crea-tion. In his view Fall/Redemption spirituality sees little value in science, focuses on original sin and its effects, encourages detachment from the world and moral self-control and awaits the end of the world rather than its transformation. Creation spirituality, on the other hand, welcomes the discoveries of science as revealing the creator, focuses on the blessing of creation and our God-given commission to care for it, moves beyond moralistic negation of human action to a sense of communion with na-ture, and believes in the ultimate goodness and creativity of the cosmos. He wants to move beyond a focus on guilt to a focus on spiritual growth. He presents four stages from the work of Eckhart: befriending creation, befriending darkness, befriending creativity or our inner divinity, and be-friending new creation and universal compassion. I found myself in tune with those goals, but not with Fox's negation of the Fall/Redemption tra-dition. It gradually dawned on me that those very goals are restored to us through the resurrection of Jesus. Let me explain. It was Teilhard who turned our attention first to many of these themes. When he was in the novitiate, he told his director about his de-sire for both spirituality and science, and his wise novice director encour-aged him to pursue both, believing that God would somehow bring them into unity. His focus on evolutign did make theologians suspicious that he was neglecting original sin. In response he wrote an appendix to The 166 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 Phenomenon of Man explaining that evil was discoverable at every level of evolution, even though he chose not to speak of it for the sake of clar-ity, There is the evil of failure and disorder in adjusting and emerging, the evil of decomposition of the present to make room for the new, the evil of solitude and anxiety (especially for humans) in striving for con-sciousness in a dark universe, and the evil of growth itself--the constant struggle to make progress against the inertia and resistance of the pre-sent state. Whether further there is an excess of evil, stemming from an historic tragedy, he declines in that study to say. What he does persua-sively illustrate is that humans emerge as a higher consciousness within an evolving universe filled with seeds of new creation. We must choose, and in choosing we bring creation with us for better or worse. By our choices we develop a human "layer" of evolution, a noosphere, that af-fects everything. We create culture and "history," and we, in turn, are influenced by that history. We need only look at our technological world which drives our days with given hours and our attention with narrowly determined tasks to see how we are formed and informed by our crea-tions. Yes we are faced with new possibilities and creative challenges, but new creation is conditioned by the patterns we have grown accus-tomed to: our compulsion to consume and to live by an ever increasing standard of consumption. What will empower us to change? It is this awareness of historical conditioning that makes me take more seriously than Fox seems to the doctrine of original sin. Granted the doctrine as developed by Augustine needs reconsideration, still its roots are the biblical insight that our evil choices have a history. It is not enough to change our present attitudes because the present is conditioned by the choices made in our past. Our ancestors need healing and the earth affected by our ancestors needs healing. Joy in creation cannot accom-plish the earth's healing alone. We need redemption, yet a redemption that does not separate us from the earth but empowers us to purify the earth and bring it into wholeness. Redemption must be more than per-sonal. It must extend to the whole of creation. The resurrection of Jesus changed his sinful, unreliable disciples into a powerful community of com-passion. Can we expand our view of the resurrection to include its power to restore the earth? Let us see. Stages of Salvation History Both Freud and Jung worked on the assumption that the growth of the individual in a speeded up way goes through the stages of evolution-- from emergence out of water to the unfolding of human physical and psy-chological life. This evolutionary view need not be seen as contrary to Resurrection Spirituality/167 creation, since God's creativity is always required. It simply describes how God creates. What I have found is that human spiritual growth also recapitulates the stages of salvation history, and it is only in light of sal-vation history that the resurrection as its culmination can be fully under-stood. I have found five such stages culminating in the death/resurrec-tion of Jesus as the goal of the process: initial faith (Yahwist), familial faith (Elohist/Deuteronomist), individuating faith (Exilic prophets and Job), communitarian faith (foreseen in Isaiah 53, first lived in Jesus) and mission faith (revealed in Pentecost).4 Let us begin with individuating faith. Ezekiel 18 cites the saying: "You have heard it said that the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge." It then goes on to say: "That will no longer be said in Israel, for the children are mine as well as the fathers." They had been living by a so-called "conditional covenant" that af-firmed: "if you keep my law, then you will be my people." That cove-nant, Yahweh affirms, they have broken (see also Jr 31:32), and it is ab-rogated. Yet in this breakdown there is a breakthrough of a promised "new covenant" when Yahweh says: "I will put my Spirit within you and make you live by my statutes" (Ez 36:27). lndividuating faith, then, is a breakdown of human effort and a turning of each individual to God's initiative. I experienced this personally through a period of depression while studying theology in Germany. I began studying Freud to get some understanding, but was still depressed. Then one author led me to Isaiah 43:18 (written during the Exile): "remember not the events of the past ¯ . . See I am doing something new." In other words, healing would come from God's present creativity, not from my efforts to re.pair the past. From that central breakthrough (Israel's and my own), I saw that mere keeping the law (familial faith) was no longer enough. In that stage "The sins of the fathers/mothers are handed down to four generations (and more in my experience), the blessings to a thousand" (see Dt 5:9f, Ex 20:5-6 and so forth). In other words the patterns of history are handed down for better or worse till there is a collapse of human efforts and an inbreaking of God's new creation. Even before that concentration on hu-man cooperation through law, there is (in the Yahwist, Gn 2-3, 12:1-5 and others who wrote in the time of David) a focus on trusting Yahweh in order to find life. That universal trust, however, gave rise to intermar-riage and distortion of faith in Yahweh (as it can do whenever we lose the specificity of our faith) and so encountered the prophetic challenge of the Elohist and Deuteronomist. We see the result of even this human "161~ / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 effort in their Exile. Once we turn to Yahweh's spirit ourselves, we need to find the spirit in others. This we do by the forgiveness of enemies which I believe we find first only in the ministry of Jesus, though it was foreseen and for-gotten in Isaiah 53--the suffering servant. This stage of unconditional forgiveness allows us to remain faithful even to unfaithful partners (as Jesus did with Israel) and so to die that others might live. It forms the basis for the compassionate community that Matthew Fox envisioned. And finally, the actual gift of life in union with God releases a new communal reality through the Pentecostal power of the Spirit. Through the Spirit Jesus' death/resurrection builds a living, self-giving commu-nity that is open to all and to all creation. I contend that it is through this transformation of humanity that ultimately the earth itself will be trans-formed. The ground and goal of this development is God who raised Christ from the dead. The norm of who God is is not creation alone, but the life/death and resurrection of Jesus. "Who sees me sees the Father" (Jn 14:9). God's suffering love surrendered his own Son for us, and through Jesus' response of self-surrender the Spirit of self-giving love is sent and revealed. God is revealed as a community of self-giving love in this world-forming event. This pattern of stages is fully revealed in Jesus, but is lived out cy-clically. Individually or communally we can have a breakthrough to a new stage but then regress to a previous stage. This, I believe, is what happened in the Church. With the failure to convert Israel, the message of Christ went to the gentiles who were not prepared with the solidarity of a thousand year history. The gifts of the Spirit led to factions as we see in the Corinthian community and in the Didache. The central gift of the Spirit of forgiving love that builds the self-giving community was su-perseded by the need for institution and discipline (my "familial stage"). Structure and control replaced healing as focus of attention. As in Jesus' time, I believe we are again emerging from the familial stage of development to recognize again our need for forgiveness and healing. Healing the Human Family In order to understand the healing brought by the resurrection, we need to look at sin in history. The Yahwist, who first wrote of the sin of our original ancestors, did so by first looking at the sin of his day (the time of David). It was a time of domination and exploitation, of loss of faith in Yahweh because of the multiple marriages of kings like Solo-mon, of alienation of families torn by strife. If Yahweh was all good, Resurrection Spirituality 169 how could this happen? The Yahwist concluded (see Gn 2-3) that ~t was due to a freely chosen loss of faith in Yahweh. Humans were the culmi-nation of Yahweh's creation, formed from the earth, given the power to name (and so direct) creation and the commission to subdue the earth and bring it to order. All creation served humans, as humans served God. But they chose their own way and not only did they hide from Yahweh, but they also blamed and were alienated from one another. God gave as pun-ishment that Adam would dominate his wife and the woman would cling to her man, and the earth would be hard to till and not graciously yield crops. The Yahwist was symbolically telling the story of sin. Humans were given care for the earth, but when they turned from God, the source of creativity, they could only use power, dominance, and force. Further, this beginning continued in history. Cain doubted his accept-ability, envied and then killed Abel. Domination and enmity, social and sexual sin were handed down generation to generation to the Yahwist's own day. His solution was a return to trust in Yahweh as Abraham did (Gn 12: 1-5). But as we have seen, Israel proved incapable of such trust. God's Spirit was promised "to make them keep God's Law," but cen-turies passed. A similar envy and hatred of one gifted by God led to Je-sus' death. The heritage of sin exploded around him. The earth quaked and shook the foundations, as though being exorcized from an ancient wound. What began its healing was not a simple trust in God's good-ness. It was Jesus' willingness to forgive and trust God while suffering the effects of human sin. Such generational patterns, we find, change only when they are understood, compassionately borne, and forgiven. This is how we can view Jesus' resurrection. As human he inherited his nation's sinful temptations (see his baptism "to fulfill all justice" (Mt 3: 14-5) and his temptations which were like those of Israel). Yet he re-sponded with a surrendered trust in God. Under God he showed he had "authority" over storm and sea, and over the fig tree. Yet he freely bore the hatred of the Jewish leaders and Romans. His death culminated a life of trust in God, and through his resurrection he "sent" the Spirit to con-tinue this new life with his disciples. What Adam was called to and lost by distrust, Christ restored not on the basis of the old creation, but by the "new creation" through his resurrection. The world is restored to God's favor not by a return to the past (creation), but by a reconciling call from the future--the resurrection. It is important to understand the resurrection as such a restoration in this world. The Resurrection Firstly, the resurrection is an event in this world. It is not uncom- 170 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 mon to imagine the resurrection as Jesus' reward.apart from this world. He has made it and motivates us to try harder. Scripture presents a very different view. Peter's sermon in Acts points to the gift of the Holy Spirit as the sign that Jesus has been made "Lord and Messiah" (Ac 2:36). The resurrection meant that Jesus was made Lord over the whole earth. As Paul put it: "God . . . put all enemies under his feet" so that he in turn can subject all to God "that God may be all in all" (I Co 15:28). This is expressed in the earliest Creed: "Jesus Christ is Lord" (Ph 2:11). Far from separating Jesus from the world, the resurrection unites him to the world in a new sovereign way to bring everything to its intended goal of the kingdom of God. Secondly, the resurrection is a now event. A second misconception is that the resurrection is a past event rewarding Jesus. In the resurrec-tion Jesus returns to God and opens creation to union with God. Since God's Time is an eternal now, the resurrection is also an eternal now. That means it touches all time and all space. It affects the heart of every creature with a deepened and more absolute hope. It is not a particular event that we canlocate in a particular space and time. It is an event that transcends our concept of space and time, and is universally available if we but call upon the Lord. Thirdly, it is not merely spiritual but also bodily. All the apparitions point to bodily aspects: eating fish, touching his side or clinging to him, seeing him though some doubted. The resurrection is, as Teilhard might say, a new phylum in our world, the basis for building all believers into a new Body, a new family that is based not on blood ties or cultural ties, but on faith in Jesus as Lord and on the power of God's Spirit. Since it is a bodily event, it also penetrates the depths of bodiliness and so of the earth. As Colossians says, "It has pleased God to make absolute full-ness reside in him, and by means of him to reconcile everything in his person, both on earth and in the heavens, making peace through the blood of his cross. "( !: 19-20). Fourthly, therefore, in Jesus' resurrection the whole of creation has a new beginning, a new creation. This is the ultimate ground of spiritual healing. Spiritual healing is not simply a repairing of wounds, like re-parenting because of wounds from one's parents. It is actually creating anew. As Isaiah 43 taughtme: "Do not look at what is behind, behold I make all things new." I realized that healing came from looking at God's ever present creativity, not at one's problems. God's love heals our basic distrust. God's love gives us power to forgive rather than re-bel against our heritage in the familial faith stage. I have come to see Resurrection Spirituality that Jesus' resurrection restores our link to the creativity of God. He is the 'new Adam" (1 Co 15:22), the ground of our new family in God. He is also the one who fulfills God's command to Adam--increase and multiply, subdue the earth and bring it into order. As Lord, Jesus has this power to create anew in right order. It was Teilhard who called our attention to three basic principles of ongoing creation or evolution: differentiation, increasing interiority, and deepened community. Every new stage of evolution--molecules to life to sensation to thought--shows increased complexity or differentiation, increased self-activity or freedom, and all this in a total unity. If resur-rection is the final point of creation, a new creation from God, does it show these principles to the highest degree? It does. The Spirit from God gives each a "different" gift "for the building of the body." Differen-tiation and community are both increased as we see in the free sharing with the community that occurred in response to the Spirit in Acts. And the Spirit frees us to our deepest truth. The resurrection is a life at work in our deepest depths calling us through intimacy with Jesus, the Spirit, and our loving Creator. Finally, it is through sharing in the resurrected life of Jesus that we share Jesus' Lordship and power to heal. The miracles of Jesus (show-ing his power over materiality) are expressions of the same power that raised Jesus from the dead. We are to do "even greater works" (Jn 14:12). Jesus' power over the storm at sea (Mt 14:22-33) and over the fig tree (Mt 21:18-22) are not presented as unique to him. Jesus com-plains about their "little faith" and says if they had faith as a mustard seed they could say to the mountain "go into the sea," and it would obey. "If we die with Christ," Paul says in 2 Timothy 2:11-12, "we shall also live with him; if we hold out to the end we shall also reign with him." Andagain in Romans 5:i7: "If death began its reign through one man because of his offense, much more shall those who receive the overflowing grace and gift of justice [grace from Jesus' resurrection] reign through the one man, Jesus Christ." The disciples are to share Je-sus' rule which extends not only to believers but to the whole world (the whole universe). We share this rule not by our own power but as chan-nels of the Spirit--the resurrected power of Jesus, 'for without me you can do nothing" (Jn 15:5). Thus, in the scriptural view, the gifts that were meant for humans from the beginning of creation--union with God, rule over the earth that would respond fruitfully, partnership between men and women and the power to bless their offspring--were lost through Adam and Eve's sin 179 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 but restored through the death/resurrection of Jesus. We are to live now in the power of the resurrection or new creation, not just by union with world creativity. Resurrection differs from creation in that it is centered in a personal relation to Jesus (whether explicitly confessed or implic-itly lived through love) and has at least the following characteristics: a commitment beyond feeling (as revealed in Jesus' death in fidelity to God), creative community beyond failure (as seen in his disciples' re-newed community), wholeness beyond perceived disintegration (as seen in their power to heal), and the ability to face death through trust in God's indestructible life. All these are qualities of Jesus' resurrection Spirit as seen in Scripture. But the central difference, in my view, is that creation focuses on the beginning, unaffected by historical choices (an "original blessing"), whereas resurrection restores a new beginning by forgiving and healing actual historical choices and their effects. The stages that Matthew Fox finds in spiritual growth (befriending creation, befriending darkness, accepting inner divinity, cocreativity) almost par-allel the historical stages I discovered (trust and familial being creation, individuating faith opening to darkness, communitarian releasing crea-tivity in relationships, and mission caring for all and the earth). Only he omits the historical grounding. What Jesus' resurrection does is make his-torically real those goals. Jesus took our death-bringing choices on him-self, and in God empowered a new beginning for those who believe and receive forgiveness. All creation "waits" for that freedom of the chil-dren of God, Paul says in Romans 8:20. It is consigned to futility (or emp-tiness) for the sake of that hope. This resurr._ection power is already at work in us (Col 3:1 ). How can it help us become instruments of healing the earth? Healing the Earth If we are meant to live by the power of the resurrection to reconcile, order, and heal, we need to know the principles of such a life. Firstly, we need to be oriented to Jesus' victory. The resurrection brings creation into union with God. Jesus became human and since all humans are united with all creation, his death/resurrection brings crea-tion into union with God's own life. This cannot be lost. The universe is fundamentally saved though we cannot be sure how this transforma-tion will actually work itself out. Healing prayer is grounded in this truth, and seeks Jesus' guidance for how to cooperate with the saving of the earth. Secondly, our power to envision and imagine needs to be trans-formed by this vision of God's kingdom. What we believe affects what Resurrection Spirituality / 173 comes to be. Belief is not a surface act of mind alone, but also includes feeling, will, and imagination. Jesus' initial proclamation was "Repent and believe the good news." Repent meant "change your mind, believe the good news." Healing prayer is often unsuccessful because we do not expect and envision the hoped for change. For example, we might pray for a friend to be healed of an illness, yet go on complaining about how he or she suffers. We are attending to the sickness, not envisioning her getting well and thanking God for it. The conversion we most basically need is to trust God's love totally, We are channels of God's creative light, but if our minds are filled with worries and fears, what we are ac-tually believing is that the worst will happen. It is a spiritual law: what we believe is what we cause. We need God to change our faith, to help us believe that God wants and can bring good to the earth, and that we are given the power to pray for this. An example may help. How many times have we not prayed for good weather with little effect? Perhaps we did not have sufficient faith for such a large project. We may have to start smaller--say with our gar-den- in order to be convinced about the power of such prayer. Or per-haps we don't really believe we have such power with the weather. "That's God's domain," we may have been told and believed. Jesus' disciples were shocked when Jesus commanded the storm to be still, but he c6rrected them for their little faith (Mk 4:40). A number of cases show that we do have marvelous power under God. In a talk on healing the earth (given at the annual conference of the Association of Christian Therapists, San Diego, 1982) Barbara Shlemon told of a prayer for just that purpose. She and several others were giving a healing retreat for sev-eral hundred Native Americans in Montana when a tornado was spotted heading directly toward their camp. Not wanting anyone hurt they thought of disbanding, but decided first to pray for guidance. The way they were graced was to ask the Bishop to say a prayer for God to turn aside the tornado and let only a slight rain come to water the ground. Al-though he was not used to this kind of prayer, the Bishop complied, and then went on with the healing Mass. That is exactly what happened. Only a slight rain fell. The incident may not have received notice if a journal-ist had not been present, with the result that the next morning's head-lines read "Tornado divides and misses a healing service and then comes together again." Needless to say, the Bishop was quite impressed (he had said after the Mass "One does need common sense"). Many other examples could be given.5 Thirdly, what heals is God's love. The more we are filled with God's 174 / Review for Religious. March-April 1990 love and forgiveness, the better channels we will be for all sorts of heal-ing, including that of the earth. If we harbor resentment or judgments against others, we block the power of God's healing. Many instances could be given, but the one that comes to mind was given by Fr. Jim Burke, O.P. in a retreat. He was in a retreat where people shared con-version experiences and one sister spoke of getting to like Detroit after harboring a dislike for many years. Fr. Jim felt her words like a knife. Whenever he thought of bad examples of cities, Detroit came first to mind. In the repentance service he asked forgiveness for his condemn-ing attitude toward Detroit and asked for God's view. The result was that in the next few years he had fifty invitations for missions or retreats in Detroit whereas before he had almost none. Forgiving love opened the way for God's love to work. As we pray for the earth, we need to ask for God's forgiveness of those who exploit the earth, and for ourselves who in many ways have hurt the earth unawares. It is not resentment and bitterness that heals, nor discouragement, but forgiving love and faith. Fourthly, we have found that blocks may often be from the past both in individual healing and in healing the earth. As I mentioned earlier, places seem to remember what has happened on them and similar evil seems to continue. A group of us were led to have a Mass said for the civil war dead from Camp Douglas in Chicago, and to pray for the camp grounds. We found through history that some 6,000 Confederate soldiers died there in inhuman conditions, and the place of the actual camp (be-tween Thirty-first and Thirty-third and Cottage Grove in Chicago, a very suitable piece of land for building) was still a waste land after more than 100 years! We felt many of the dead did find release. We wondered what affect it might have on the land, and now three years later we passed by and saw a new housing complex being built there. I mentioned Dr. McAll's prayer for the Bermuda Triangle, and the five year freedom from incidents. He has many similar examples. We have been led to pray for such events as the Alamo (and the enmity between Spanish and Whites affected by that battle), the different sides in the Northern Ire-land dispute, several areas in Chicago with Mafia and Satanic connec-tions, divisions in Livingston, Kentucky, and similar areas. It may well be that the root of a present misuse or exploitation stretches back to an original hurt (like the killing of the Seminole Indians), or to injustice per-petrated by the Church (like the witch trials of the sixteenth and seven-teenth centuries). In sum, we have found that the same principles that apply to healing of persons apply also to healing the earth. Psalm 115:116 says: "Heaven Resurrection SpiritualiO, / 175 is the heaven of the Lord, but the earth he has given to the children of men." Nature is also given into our care as well as other persons. The earth is given to us to learn to love. As children teach us our sin by how they are affected by it, so God seems to let the earth be devastated so we will see our own inner devastation that causes it. But Jesus has come to restore to us power through his resurrection and Lordship to pray for its healing. Whether we will choose to restore the earth or exploit it has been given to us to decide. Implications for Us What are some implications for our own care for the earth'? Firstly, true prayer is helped by being informed.6 Agnes Sanford found out about the San Andreas fault in order to pray for it, how the earth must swell to create new land, how a division of the.earth falls along that fault. She prayed not to stop movement (that would have caused problems else-where), but that the tremors would be many and slight so that no destruc-tion would occur. If we want God to heal the earth, it helps to know what to pray for. Should we pray for the leaders of nations to realize the im-portance of their land? For the leaders of firms and their relation to the health of the environment? Ask God for guidance. Secondly, we need to grow in awareness of the power of healing prayer. Each of us will be led differently to experience God's love and forgiveness, and begin to pray for small things. Rest in God's love, en-vision that love and light radiating out into your selected place (a flower, garden, bird, and so forth). Envision with love and gratitude the healed condition you anticipate (a healthy flower, garden, and so forth), and fi-nally thank God. If nothing happens, you can check a number of things: your faith (are you convinced God wants this? that God wants to respond to your prayer?), your attunement to God's plan for this area, its appro-priateness with regard to other things (for example, not to pray for a good day for a picnic when the earth needs rain). God is infinite creative love and Jesus has been given "all power" to bring the earth to order. We are Jesus' instruments, so prayer will be effective if we have learned to become channels. Thirdly, you may expand your concern to some place like a city or church. Agnes Sanford was led by one lady to pray for cities. You may pick out city hall (quite a challenge in Chicago, but we have been try-ing). Visualize God's love bringing peace to that place, reconciling dif-ferences. We can waste our energy complaining because what we attend to is what we cause. We need to develop a constructive attitude of trust in God's Spirit and pray with a vision of peace being given. "176 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 There may be some particular issue that you are led to pray for. One of our group worked at Edison, and found his particular office rife with competition and discord. He did not even want to go to work. As we prayed we were led to pra}, for Thomas Edison himself who had no re-ligious faith and was disillusioned and angered by conflicts and compe-tition around the use of electricity. We prayed for him to be healed and opened to trust in God, to forgive and be forgiven and for the corpora-tion he began to be freed from that attitude. There has been relief in my friend's office, but long term change can require ongoing prayer. Or we may be concerned about the loss of small farms and the ex-ploitative policies of insurance companies that have received the land. We may not know how to.pray for such complicated issues and can best leave them in God's hands, always ready to do what we are led to do. We can pray God's light into these lands, and God's protection. I was asked by some members of the Association of Christian Therapists to go out to their land and bless it, and pray for any traumatic events (Native American or otherwise) that occurred on it. I was more than happy to do that knowing the many instances where such prayer has helped, though in most cases we don't see the results for some time. Conclusion As Psalm 115 says: "Heaven belongs to the Lord alone, but he gave the earth to humans." We have misused it, appropriated it for ourselves, as the parable of the vineyard says, and even killed God's Son, but we have not been left without resources for healing. Through the power of the Holy Spirit in Jesus' resurrection we can cooperate in God's ongo-ing creative work. We pray daily: 'Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." In heaven God rules. On earth we pray that God may also bring life, peace, order and justice, but it cannot be done except through many who make themselves channels of God's love. Agnes Sanford likes to use the example of the light bulb. God is the power source, Jesus the transformer, but there will be no light unless we light bulbs are wired to Jesus and ultimately to our triune God. Further, one light can light a room, but if we want to light a house or a city ,we need many bulbs. God has entrusted the earth to us and given us the en-ergy. We still have to understand how creation works and how it is healed, and we need to become ever more fully united with God's crea-tive power. Resurrection Spirituality / "177 NOTES ~ See Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird, The Secret Life of Plants (N.Y.: Avon Books, 1973), chapter I. -' Ibid, pp. 24-25. Backster admitted the plant could have picked up guilt feelings in the culprit, but since it was for science he likely had none. 3 See his Healing the Famil\' Tree (London: Sheldon Press, 1984), pp. 59-61. 4 See my "Trinitarian Love as Ground of the Church," Theological Studies, vol. 37, no. 4, Dec. 1976, pp. 649-679 where I develop this argument, and "Healing and Family Spiritual/Emotional Systems," Journal of Christian Healing, vol. 5, no. I (1983), pp. 10-23, where I apply the five stages to healing family systems. 5 See Agnes Sanford, Creation Waits (Plainfield, N.J.: Logos International, 1978) for several of her examples. 6 See W. R. Parker and E. St. Johns Dare, Prayer Can Change Your Life (Prentice- Hall Inc., 1957) where they give results from three self-chosen control groups-- prayer only, therapy only, and prayer and therapy--and found that the prayer and therapy group improved by far the most. and prayer alone the least! They concluded that psychology (understanding) was needed to guide the prayer. Bang! Bang! "Yeah!" The miniature cowboy (or was it a cop? Scandalous play, whichever) said to his tiny victim, who wouldn't stay still, "'When you're really dead, you're dead for life." And I thought of a seed in the ground And a stone rolled away in a garden and "Out of the mouths of babes." Clarita Felhoelter 3105 Lexington Road Louisville, KY 40206 The Third National LCWR-CMSM Assembly Stephen Tutas, S.M. Father Stephen Tutas, S.M., finished his term as President of the Conference of Ma-jor Superiors of Men Religious at the time of the August 1989 national assembly about which he writes. Previously he had served as the Superior General of the So-ciety of Mary (Marianists) in Rome. His address is Marianist Formation Center; 22622 Marianist Way; Cupertino, California 95014, The Leadership Conference of Women Religious and the Conference of Major Superiors of Men Religious held a joint national assembly in Lou-isville, Kentucky, August 19-23, 1989. Over one thousand participated in this historic discussion of the future of religious life. What was spe-cial about this meeting was that it was a gathering of leaders of the esti-mated 130,000 women religious and 30,000 men religious at the service of the Church in the USA and beyond. What was also significant was that the discussion of the religious life of the future was placed in the context of our Church and society. It was not an in-house discussion, but a reflection on the future of the world and the Church and the response of religious to these anticipated changes. We viewed the challenging movie "Global Brain" and listened to stimulating presentations and reactions. Besides the women and men re-ligious, Mrs. Donna Hanson spoke from the perspective of a lay person while Archbishops Thomas Kelly and Pio Laghi represented the official local and universal Church. The greatest strength of the assembly, how-ever, was the quality of sharing that took place at the 119 round tables as the participants expressed their thoughts about where they are going-- and where they want to go--as women and men religious at the service of the Church in the USA. 178 The Third National LCWR-CMSM Assembly / 17'9 Charles Reutemann, F.S.C., described the process well: ". not so much of identifying something new but of grasping firmly the signifi-cant strands that have emerged and are emerging over the past twenty-five years . " Reports of the table discussions were gathered and col-lated, leading up to consensus on ten "transformative elements for re-ligious life in the future." And because the most important part of any meeting is what comes afterwards, the last session of the assembly was devoted to a table-sharing of planned follow-up. As Robert Schreiter, C.PP.S., pointed out ". if we are to be faithful to our tasks in lead-ership, and engage in more than a maintenance ministry, then look into the future we must." The assembly was an inspiring experience of looking back with grati-tude and of looking forward with hope, anticipating changes in the world around us. For me, it was another occasion to thank God for the grace of living at this time in history. As the assembly came to a close and I completed my term of service as President of CMSM, I looked ahead to a new phase in my life. I continue a very active ministry with women and men religious of many communities besides my own Marianist com-munity, and I also pray and reflect with many diocesan clergy and laity in the context of spiritual direction and retreats. Accordingly, my first act after the meeting was, as always, to pray and reflect about what I had seen and heard. Then I decided to offer this summary to others. When the tri-conference commission on religious life and ministry met for the first time this past February, two tasks were determined: the clarification of the identity of religious life and the promotion of collabo-rative ministry. Both objectives were emphasized at the LCWR-CMSM National Assembly. In fact, they seemed to be fused into one in the un-derstanding that religious in the future will be recognized precisely by their commitment to collaborative ministry in the local church. In this regard I found the observation made by Charles Reutemann especially significant: "Of special interest today is the phenomenon of lay partici-pation in founding charism., what seems to be demanded today is that bonding between lay and religious be one of a common spirituality, a ba-sic Christian spirituality of mission modified by the unique focusing of a congregation's special founding charism . . . a shared vision focused on a common ministry." To be ecclesial means to b~ collaborative, to have a sense of belong-ing to a larger community, to recognize that each person brings a unique gift to the group as a whole. Religious life, with the emphasis on spe-cific charisms, is built on the realization that each person is gifted and Review for Religious, March-April 1990 that a dynamic community is one that calls forth the gifts of every mem-ber. What religious try to do in their own communities--recognize and affirm giftedness--is applicable to the larger Christian community. Donna Hanson used the image of a relay "where people work together helping each other toward the community's common goal." Relays "re-quire planning, patience, and practice. Relays demand teamwork . . . could we also discover new ways of supporting our team members in their vocations to marriage, the single state, religious life and ordina-tion?" What will be the specific contribution of religious life to the Church of tomorrow? The LCWR-CMSM assembly gave the strongest endorse-ment to three features: women and men religious will be prophetic, con-templative, with a preferential option for the poor. These are not exclu-sive properties of religious. All the baptized are called to belong to a Church that is prophetic, contemplative, with a preferential option for the poor. Donna Hanson called for a new agenda: "We on the relay team must expand our Church agenda from a preoccupation with A, B, C-- abortion, birth control, and celibacy--to a more comprehensive com-mitment to D, E and F-- debt, environment, and family." This church-in-the-world emphasis is very promising for religious life and for the Church as a whole as we move into the twentieth cen-tury. It was good to hear Archbishop Laghi speak about a Church in the USA that is vibrant and still growing, and to hear him echoing the words of Pope John Paul II about religious life at the heart of the mystery of the Church. He reaffirmed the desire of religious to be on the cutting edge and to be prophetic and also challenged religious to find new mea-sures to meet the needs of ttiese new times. While some focus on the de-cline of numbers and the aging of religious, Archbishop Laghi chose to remind the religious that much more remains to be done. The climate of the meeting was remarkably positive, but not unreal-istic. Recognizing that attitudinal change is always difficult, the partici-pants saw the need for intensified ongoing formation as we move into the twentieth century. They also saw that the most significant changes would take place in communities and in the Church through incultura-tion. Change does take place most dramatically through the incorpora-tion of new members. There is need to reach out more effectively to blacks, native Americans, Hispanics, Asiatics, and also to others who are at present marginalized from church and society. But Robert Schrei-ter also issued a warning: "American Catholics' demand for a partici-patory model of leadership in parishes, coupled with the growth of lay The Third National LCWR-CMSM Assembly ministries, will result in a great deal of energy expended on intramural strife over issues of power and authority . There is great tension involved in striving to build a Church that calls forth the gifts of every member. Shared responsibility is a marvelous ideal, but not easily realized. But as I reflect on this, I am encouraged by looking at where we have come from and where we are going today. Our hope for the future is always based on our experience of God at work among us in the past. The tri-conference retirement project is a great ex-ample of ecclesial collaboration. The tri-conference commission on re-ligious life and ministry is a promising new structure in the Church. The ongoing collaboration between LCWR and CMSM regionally and nation-ally is an important witness. Looking forward to the year 2010 means that we are dealing with four five-year plans. Only a great belief in the value of religious life and the power of the Spirit at work among us enables religious to accept the mission to be messengers of hope in the Church today. The assembly statement was a commitment: "We will nourish these transformative elements for religious life in the future." They were ten in number, arranged in the order of priorities. The first three are these: 1. Prophetic Witness Being converted by the example of Jesus and the values of the gos-pel, religious in the year 2010 will serve a prophetic role in church and in society. Living this prophetic witness will include critiquing societal and ecclesial values and structures, calling for systemic change and be-ing converted by the marginalized with whom we serve. 2. Contemplative Attitude Toward Life Religious in the year 2010 will have a contemplative attitude toward all creation. They will be attentive to and motivated by the presence of the sacred in their own inner journeys, in the lives of others, and through-out creation. Recognizing contemplation as a way of life for the whole Church, they will see themselves and their communities as centers of spiri-tuality and the experience of God. 3. Poor and Marginalized Persons as the Focus for Ministry Religious in 2010 will be investing their resources in direct service with and advocacy for structural change on behalf of the poor and margi-nalized. They will minister where others will not go. Their own listen-ing to and learning from the poor and marginalized will shape all aspects of their lives. The other transformative elements, without commentary, are: 4. Spirituality of Wholeness and Global Interconnectedness Review for Religious, March-April 1990 5. Charism and Mission as Sources of Identity 6. Change of the Locus of Power 7. Living with Less 8. Broad-based, Inclusive Communities 9. Understanding Ourselves as Church 10. Developing Interdependence Among People of Diverse Cultures. While all ten are important, the first three received the strongest sup-port from the assembly. Preliminary to being a prophetic witness is the openness to conver-sion. It is interesting that religious are calling themselves to a continu-ous change of attitude. This change will come about as religious reflect on the example of Jesus and the values of the gospel. I found the words of Graciela Volpe, R.S.C.J., very helpful: "By their charismatic and prophetic vocati6n, religious men and women are called to capture and interpret the signs of the times, the demands of God in each historical moment. This requires letting oneself be led by the Spirit, opening to the Spirit of God, an entrance on the road of discernment, a humble and sin-cere search for the call of God in each situation in the complexity of events. ' ' It is also interesting to note the closing words of the first transfor-mative element. People are converted not only by meditating on the gos-pel, but also by associating with the marginalized with whom they serve. In the third transformative element, we are reminded that listening to and learning from the poor and the marginalized will shape all aspects of our lives. Many of us are just beginning to learn what this means. But as any-one learns and shares, others in the community also learn. Perhaps this is the most striking feature of this transformative ele-ment and in fact of all the priorities, namely, that being prophetic is not something peculiar to religious life. The entire Church is called to be pro-phetic. Religious recognize that they are called to contribute their aware-ness of what it means to be prophetic. Their mission is to lead by exam-ple. This is what it means to be on the cutting edge. Religious are called to be outspoken in word and in lifestyle. This call to be prophetic prompts two basic questions: How do we critique societal--and ecclesial--values and structures? How do we call for and facilitate systemic change? Charles Reutemann commented: "As we look at religious life, in its lifestyle and varied ministries, and the spirituality which motivates it, can we say that we need more than ever to be prophetic, to continue to offer a radical criticism of the social and political injustices in our society, in housing, schooling, racism, and so The Third National LCWR-CMSM Assembly / "11~3 forth, and to bring a contemporary vision of the beatitudes and gospel message that will energize a confused and disheartened people?" Being prophetic goes hand in hand with being contemplative. It is important to note that the contemplative attitude we want to develop as religious communities and as Church is toward all creation. We see the need to step back from contemporary activism even while being intensely apostolic. We need to be attentive to the presence of the sacred first of all in our own journeys, and then in the lives of others. As we see God at work in our own lives, we are able to see God at work in the lives of others. Our awareness of how God is at work among us is the key to both ministry and community. Contemplation is a way of life for the entire Church. But religious, individually and corporately, are called to be centers of spirituality in the Church and to be expert in being able to share the experience of God. Once again we see that religious life in the future is to be characterized not so much by what religious do, as by how religious live. In being prophetic and contemplative, religious are inspired to reach out to the poor and to the marginalized. This will become more and more the focus of ministry. Graciela Volpe reminded us of the assertion of Le-onardo Boff: "A Copernican Revolution has been produced in the Church, whose.significance goes beyond the Latin American ecclesial context, and concerns the universal Church. This option signifies the most important pastoral-theological transformation which has occurred since the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. With it a new socio-historical place is defined, from which the Church wishes to be present in society and construct herself, namely, in the midst of the poor, the new subjects of history." But Graciela also reminded us that ". the option for the poor is being viewed with suspicion, obstacles are be-ing put in its way and sometimes it is condemned. The Christian base communities begin not to be trusted. A surge of neo-conservatism is be-ing felt within our Church." While the Christian community must be concerned about everyone, religious serve to remind the Church not to forget the poor and the margi-nalized. I found it especially challenging to note that religious in the fu-ture will minister where others will not go! Direct service with the poor and advocacy of structural change on behalf of the poor are already be-coming more and more characteristic of contemporary religious life. Again, Graciela Volpe shared her experience in commenting that "this mission of Jesus was eminently concrete. Jesus lived it in a conflic-tual context, fighting against sin and for the human person, especially 11~4 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 the poor. To follow Jesus today implies for us the consciousness that we also are supposed to live his mission in concrete historical situations, cer-tainly conflictual ones, 'in an ongoing struggle against sin which mani-fests itself in concrete political, economic, and social structures." While Robert Schreiter challenged us with the observation that "communities now have much rhetoric about the poor, but generally pursue a middle-class lifestyle" Charles Reutemann rightly pointed out that "it would be impossible to have lived religious life for the past twenty years with-out being aware of the intense focusing on the concerns of the poor, the option for the poor." The Church of tomorrow cannot be exclusive or closed. It must be recognized as compassionate and welcoming. The role of religious life is to help build a Church that calls forth the gifts of every member, a Church which recognizes the potential and actual giftedness of every mem-ber, a Church which continually restates the universal call to holiness and mission, a Church which gathers together God's sons and daughters as co-disciples. INCARNATION While sage and sorcerer Sought salvation in words, And high priests strove in blood To reverse man's age-old curse, While from scruples' towers Flagellant and Pharisee Laid siege to Paradise, You remade us from a woman, Formed of her flesh, instead of dust, No longer mere breath and image, But Your very Self at her "Fiat." Kathleen T. Choi 1706 Walanuenue Ave. Hilo, Hawaii 96720 Religious Life Spirituality in the Year 2010 Charles Reutemann, F.S.C. Brother Charles Reutemann, F.S.C., is a de La Salle Brother of the New York prov-ince. He currently serves as a staff member of the Center for Spirituality and Justice in Bronx, New York, as adjunct professor in spirituality and spiritual direction at the Maryknoll School of Theology, and spiritual director at St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers, New York. For sixteen years he had been director of the Sangre de Cristo Renewal Center in Sante Fe, New Mexico. His address is St. Joseph's Seminary: Dunwoodie; Yonkers, New York 10704. When first approached to share some reflections on religious life at this year's LCWR/CMSM assembly, the year 2010 was proposed as a con-text for describing what religious life might look like in the foreseeable future. It was an attractive image, 2010, arbitrary but just far enough ahead to make one wonder. The program theme has since been descrip-tively changed to "tradition and transformation in religious life," but I have the feeling that the substance is the same: what will things look like twenty years down the road, as we move through present traditions and experiences? In targeting 2010 we recognize that the changes shall not happen over-night, nor in 2009, but that the future is already germinating and hap-pening now. Would it be correct then to say that since we now seem to be in a settling out, settling down, though still transitional period of re-ligious life, it would be helpful to identify and further describe the main trends and movements ihat are presently pro~,oking and energizing us so that we might embrace them in greater depth and with more enthusiasm? Is it a question then not so much of identifying something new but of graspingfirmly the significant strands that have emerged and are emerg- 185 Review for Religious, March-April 1990 ing over the past twenty-five years, and see if we can continue to weave them integratively into a religious life experience that will support and enhance the evolving Church in its quest for the kingdom? "Spirituality" would seem to be an "in" word today: articles, books, seminars, institutes--all are using the word repeatedly and in a variety of ways. Somehow I have the feeling that underneath its repeated use there are two strong movements: the quest for interiority and the con-tinuing quest for identity. In addition, I find it difficult to locate any one definition of spirituality that applies to all of its uses. Thus, for our pur-poses and partially because of my own bent, I should like to settle for a definition that focuses on the experiential, that is, what it feels like from within, as well as something that is applicable to all situations, re-gardless of different belief systems and religious responses. Hence, I would describe spirituality as a kind of mind-set, or a heart/mind-set, or if you are familiar with the skill of focusing, a body-sense/heart/mind-set that focuses a person's energies as he or she receives, reflects on, judges, and acts out life's responses in light of the transcendent. Spiri-tuality is thus a kind of integrative orientation which penetrates and chan-nels energies, as a person seeks for meaning and lives out life's choices. Except for the totally fragmented person, most of us function out of some spirituality in a good part of our conscious moments, though we may not be actively aware of that. Again, what is said of the individual may be said of the collectivity: groups function out of a spirituality, a heart/mind-set orientation as collectively they seek for meaning and live out life's choices with some awareness of the transcendent. A helpful metaphor for an experienced spirituality would be that of a large cable of many copper strands through which an electrical current flows. For the Christian, and afortiori, for the religious, this electrical current can be identified as the Holy Spirit, or the grace of Jesus, or the grace of God--whichever term one feels most comfortable with. In any case, the electrical current is a power source beyond the self; yet it be-longs to the self in freedom to accede to, impede, or modify the flow of this current. In such a metaphor for spirituality, the electrical current is absolutely indispensable; yet it is the copper cable and its strands that need to occupy our attention as we seek to describe religious life spiritu-ality in the year 2010, for all of us have some responsibility for that. I see the cable as having as many as eight identifiable strands sometimes overlapping through which the current of God's grace is presently form-ing the expression of religious life. I would name them as: founding charism strand, holistic strand, the experience of God strand, dealing Religious Life Spirituality with impasse strand, prophetic strand, conversion strand, feminine prin-ciple strand, and ministry strand. A brief description of each follows. The Founding Charism Strand By now, many initiatives have been taken by each religious group-ing to reappropriate its founding charism. Serious scientific research has uncovered the language, thought-patterns, and experiences of the foun-der and his or her early companions. Based upon this, there has been an attempt to re-say the rule, the constitutions, methods of governance, and mission statement. Through questionnaire, convocation, document, and chapter meeting, practical steps have been taken to involve the total mem-bership in valuing the charism, in recognizing it in its present lived ex-perience, and in re-appropriating it more enthusiastically as an histori-cal ideal for the present and the future. Underneath, of course, there is the strong conviction that it is God's Holy Spirit who has created the charism and who now invites us to a new appropriation. Yet there remains a challenge: we need to continue to demytholo-gize the founding charism by putting it into contemporary thought-form, imagery, and applicability, even as we must recognize that the charism itself has not completed its growth, for it is a living reality that can be ever transmuted while still retaining its original identity. Reli-gious are not meant to be stamped-out copies of an historically-conditioned founder, but possessors of his or her charism that is rooted in an initial gift which flowers in new ways and new relevances. For us, of special interest today is the phenomenon of lay participation in our founding charism. Lay collaboration is being redefined into more than a shared participation in the good works of religious, or a prayerful bond-ing of common aspirations. What is being demanded today is that the bond between lay and religious be rooted in a common spirituality, a ba-sic Christian spirituality of mission modified by that unique focusing of a congregation's special founding charism. Today and into the future we shall speak of creating Lasallian, Franciscan, Marian families; but this will have to be rooted in a mutually shared spirituality of mission with its unique focus flowing from the founder's gift. In lay-religious collabo-ration today there are no firsts and seconds, but a shared vision focused on a common ministry. And so, this founding charism strand needs fur-ther attention as the numbers of religious lessen and lay-religious col-laborators increase. The Holistie Strand Last February, I was part of a group of three hundred who attended "1111~ / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 a seminar on American Spirituality at the Mercy Center in Burlingame, California. While there, I noticed an announcement on the bulletin board that said there was a resident sister who was available to give a massage, for a fee. I have never had a massage, and regretted that I could not work it into my seminar schedule. But it did seem appropriate: spirituality with massage. Is this what holistic spirituality is all about?--"holistic"-- again, a much-used word, but one that attempts to say that body and spirit need equal attention, that the cultivation of the whole person comes about through an exciting multiplicity of experiences that leads to nature/ person integrity. Personally, I like to say that "holistic" is not just an integrated harmony of body and spirit, but that it includes a felt experi-ence of God, that the experience of self (body-spirit) in a developmental growthful way is also a God-experience, something that happens simul-taneously. Karl Rahner seems to suggest this when he speaks of the uni-versality of religious experiences in ordinary happenings. Should this not incline us to want to grow more holistically?. For then, God would not be thought of as some kind of "adversary," standing over and above the self, calling the individual to some better self, but as a Presence within, calling a self that is desirable (as Sebastian Moore would say) to further growth and development. Becoming one with the self (body/ spirit) is becoming one with God. Spirituality and massage do go to-gether. A fully-embraced holistic strand within spirituality opens the door to a healthy receiving and adapting of psychology in its theories and popu-larized processes. Self-knowledge and self-acceptance are essential to healthy spirituality, and modern psychology offers extraordinary help in becoming the holistic self. A rapid glance at the prospectus of extended renewal programs offered to religious today show such things as: jour-naling, dream analysis, enneagram, focusing, Myers Briggs interpreta-tion, and so forth--all tools for self-knowledge and integration. Added to this are the relational helps: skills for collaboration and community-building, communication skills, and the arts of relating. Then there are the healing arts which use music, massage, color, fiber, and clay. Is all of this not a strand of a spirituality of the present into the future, a mod-erated, integrated cultivation of body-spirit? Tennyson's lines from Ulys-ses might well signal the motivation: I am a part of all that i have met. Yet all experience is an arch where-thro" Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades Forever and forever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, Religious Life SpiritualiO, / 189 To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! As tho" to breathe were life. The Experience of God Strand (a balance to the holistic strand!) By title, this strand of religious life spirituality may seem to be the most obvious. There can be several differing theologies of what reli-gious life is all about, but there's no arguing with its name: "re-ligious"-- bound back to God. God is the central agenda, God is the enough, and, as the Constitution on the Church insists, the religious is centered on God and "the more." We have heard it many times: serv-ice and doing are essential for religious; but it is the "being," the wit-nessing to the central agenda that God is and that God cares in the immediacy of an exciting and troublesome world--that is what religious are all about. And yet, to achieve that kind of presencing, religious can-not just be, they have to be nourished by a lively, ongoing experience bf God. Here, the key word is "experience": do we really believe that God is extraordinarily near in the ordinary, in the daily, in the moment? If so, where are the happenings, the daily experiences in life where we can say: here! God is affirming, inviting, scolding, caring? If Elizabeth Barrett Browning can say to her beloved "how do I love thee? let me count the ways," should that not also be the language of the religious who is a lover? Let me count the ways, O Lord, that you come to me today and I to you. Our Judaeo-Christian God is a passionate, personal God, who invites to a relationship, but who also exacts a relationship and a passionate response. Obviously, prayer, prayerful awareness, is cen-tral to a "counting of the ways," a deliberate acknowledging of the re-lationship. Prayer is not an end in itself, nor is it a conjuring act, though that belongs, of course. Prayer at its core is "a counting of the ways," a saying "yes" in a fumbling, inadequate way to the intermittently ex-perienced God. In our times, there have been all kinds of development of the prayer response: contemplative centers, prayer workshops, experiments with methodologies, books. Yet, with all of this, it remains important that we be not distracted from the central fact: God is ever near, wiping away the tear, suffering with us, helping us to taste and see in the immediacy of our lives. Cultivating an awareness of God's presence is our chief re-sponse. That, too, is the central girl that spiritual directors can be for oth-ers: a hungry awareness of this passionate God. Very much part of the "experience of God" strand, though it could be given separate treatment, is our focus on the human Jesus. I have al-ways felt that one of the most significant statements in that remarkable 190 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 book, Shaping the Coming Age of Religious L(fe, by Cada, Fitz, and oth-ers, is this: "One of the major prerequisites for the movement of a re-ligious community from a time of search and darkness to that of creat-ing a transformed community is the personal transformation among a significant number of people in the community . The most striking feature of this metanoia is a new (in the sense of deep, broader, and so forth) relationship to the person of Jesus and the gospel message of the kingdom." Experiencing Jesus in his humanity has a special attraction for our era which values the human and seeks to minister to its broken-ness. Today, Christology has fed into this contemporary longing with many remarkable studies: and belief in a resurrected human Jesus, who has gone before us and who is now let loose in our world as a healing, ministering presence, is for many a source of great hope. I would think that an ideal spirituality of 2010 would include a lively love affair with the person of Jesus in which through the concrete instances of his his-torical life we would penetrate his mind and heart and thus stretch back into the heart, mind, and feelings of our very God. God may be inex-haustible mystery, but divinity does not have to be mysterious--there is Jesus. The Dealing with Impasse Strand We do not have to have lived long to be convinced that life is filled with impasse situations: rejections, oppression, exploitation, and suffer-ing bear a multitude of names and disguises. Spiritual directors hear from their directees an endless litany of these darkness experiences, and the pain and confusion which they cause. Also, if our social critics and art-ists are any gauge, what happens to the individual is happening on the worldwide stage of society where drugs, local wars, forced deportation, the funneling of natural resources for weapons of destruction, the stran-gulation of initiative by business conglomerates, are creating societal im-passe in the social, political, and economic spheres. Just as "figuring a way out" is no longer an option for the individual in impasse, rational planning by societies seems less and less feasible. Social institutions are becoming paralyzed by never-ending impasse situations. What kind of spirituality is best able to deal with impasse? Once again, we probably know the answers, but it may be helpful to spell them out and thus fashion another strand of a wholesome religious life spiri-tuality. Earlier this summer, while Pope John Paul was visiting Norway, a country which has one of the highest p~r capita incomes in the world, one 28-year old student was interviewed as saying: "We have every-thing, yet something is missing in our lives, something spiritual. So Religious Life Spirituality many things happen that you cannot explain. We often talk about this at our university." Impasse. The Holy Father himself made this com-ment: "Science and technology, like the economic life they generate, cannot of themselves explain, much less eliminate, evil, suffering, and death." Impasse. The reality is that material self-sufficiency and politi-cal planning, so terribly necessary for all, cannot of themselves resolve deep personal and societal impasse--something which even liberation theologians are coming more and more to realize. Here in America, we have experimented extensively with the self-help techniques of psychology as being able to bring a person or a group through impasse. Gail Sheehy writes of the victorious personality, the survivor who by self-trust, flexibility, and the assistance of a mentor is able to overcome the cataclysmic effects of being a boat-person, a sur-vivor of the holocaust, a castaway from a disintegrated family. Yet even here, psychology does not seem to be enough--another level has to be touched to resolve impasse. Witness the Cambodian refugee, whom Miss Sheehy cites as a victorious personality, who says: "I started thinking, 'maybe God has a plan for me.' If I didn't think that way I would have given up so many times." Are self-help insights and techniques enough to confront impasse? What then? Allowing for the need of economic and political plan-ning, as well as the need for psychological self-awareness, would it not be true to say that the day-to-day impasse situations of our lives can only be met by Christian reflection: "Maybe God has a plan for me"? Here we touch upon experienced faith in a contemplative mode. This is not so much a belief system as it is a simple awareness that "God chooses what is foolish in the world to shame the wise and what is weak in the world to shame the strong" (! Co 1:27). God has a plan for me. Such an awareness rests in the paradox of nothingness and its seeming im-passe. In such awareness of darkness before the Lord, individuals and groups, moved by faith, can quietly exclaim: "I am crucified with Christ--but I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me" (Ga 2:20). Maybe God has a plan for me, as I rest in the crucified Christ. A spirituality of the present into the future needs very much to make creative space for contemplative moments where impasse is accepted and reflected on-- gone through contemplatively. Only then can there be a flowering of hope that will nourish a utopian praxis in the very face of such impasse. The Prophetic Strand Although history tells us that there have always been prophets, we seem to be needing them more today than in our remembered past. Is it 199 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 because of the extraordinary changes and the accelerated rate of change that we find we need someone to tell us what this means and where it is all going? Is it also because, as never before, the media is able to re-veal to us the tragedies and unending travail of so many of the world's inhabitants? Planet earth,, though spectacularly beautiful from a distant moon walk, is pock-marked and diseased when looked at closely--the media has shown us this. We can no longer afford to "bring on the clowns" to help us forget; rather, we find we need prophets, truth-tellers, to remind us that many on planet earth can never be fully human, fully alive; we need truth-tellers, prophets, to help us mourn injustice, and to show us by lifestyle and ministry how to offer the poor some uto-pian hope and an alternative vision. We religious: are we meant to be prophets in our own culture? We are accustomed to describe ourselves as being on the cutting edge, as be-ing in the world but not of it, belonging but not entrapped, always strug-gling for justice and the better way. Certainly, scriptural prophets were on the cutting edge of their cultures, belonging to the scene but refusing to be corrupted by it. Certainly, too, our founders and foundresses and early associates were on the cutting edge, prophets in their culture. Is it part of our vocation then to be prophetic in a special way, and will it become even more evident and necessary as we reappropriate in depth our founding charism? Will it be a clear mark of the refounded religious group that, in both lifestyle and ministries, there will be significant mourn-ing and denouncing of injustice in the marginalized as well as the offer-ing of clear alternatives for social betterment? It is remarkable how Walter Brueggemann's book on The Prophetic Imagination has captured the thinking of many who today are writing about religious life! I join them as I add these thoughts. Brueggemann points out that anyone who uses power, particularly in bureaucratic re-ligion and religious life, tends to develop "a royal consciousness," that is, a fixated omniscient view that power-holders are automatically the cus-todians of God's power, and hence know best how to control structures and limit dissent. A royal consciousness mentality loves law and order, and exalts the status quo. A royal consciousness mentality is forced to stifle creativity, encourage passivity, and consequently fosters fear and mistrust. But, Brueggemann says, the oppression goes just so far; his-tory reveals that when the very stones are crying out, God breaks through and overthrows the control by raising up prophets. Andthe prophets play two roles: they radically criticize existing inequities, not so much as a social crusade or in strident indignation but in grief and lament, a thren- Religious Life Spirituality ody of woe. And secondly, the prophets provide alternative visions that penetrate the numbness of despair and give energy for opening up new paths. Does Brueggemann's insight speak to religious life today? By life-style and ministries are we being called to a more visible prophetic spiri-tuality that will enable us to offer radical criticism in housing, school-ing, job opportunities, religious expression, medical care, and a host of other social and political structures, and continue to bring a contempo-rary vision of the beatitudes and gospel message that can truly energize a confused and disheartened people? The ways and means of prophetic expression will vary: we may be serving as individual catalysts rather than as groups, we may be creating communities rather than living in com-munity, and so on; but prophecy must certainly be part of religious life spirituality in 2010. The Conversion Strand In 2 Corinthians Paul writes: "All of us gazing on the Lord's glory with unveiled faces, are being transformed from glory to glory into his very image by the Lord who is Spirit." For the Christian, the process of transformation or conversion entails a lifelong focusing on the face of Christ and an active surrender to the Lord who is Spirit. Conversion is one of those strands of spirituality that everyone recognizes as essen-tial. Mohandas Gandhi rues that he is still unconverted: "It is an unbro-ken torture to me," he says, "that I am still so far from him, who, as I fully know, governs every breath of my life, and whose offspring I am." Thomas Merton, on what was to be the last day of his Asian jour-ney exclaims: "What is essential . . . is not embedded in buildings, is not embedded in clothing, is not necessarily embedded even in a rule. It is somewhere along the line of something deeper than a rule. It is con-cerned with this business of total inner transformation." Conversion. The parameters of Merton's 1968 perceptions of religious life may have changed, but the business of total inner transformation remains a formi-dable goal for all religious. Property can be bought and sold, garb can undergo many modifications, rules can be simplified and redirected; but that firm decision with its appropriate means whereby we place ourselves on the path of Jesus remains the never-ending challenge. Conversion of individuals, of small communities, and of the total grouping remains a basic project in religious life. Two observations about conversion and spirituality. First, there is de-veloping a new kind of leader in the Church. Inasmuch as social con-cern about armaments, the economics of structural poverty, refugees, ecol- 194 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 ogy, the homeless, and so forth, have high priority in the consciences of Church and society, people are looking to leaders who can deal ef-fectively with such concerns. And, more often than not, the Church lead-ers who are rising up to work with them are indiscriminately sister, priest, brother, lay person, bishop; but what is common to them all is that each has undergone a personal conversion, a conversion provoked by some kind of renewal experience--a program, charismatic prayer, an AA experience, some social justice involvement that helpfully trauma-tized-- and through this experience or series of events each has found an-swers to very real and very personal questions about their lives and their ministry to others. "What they have in common," Kevin O'Rourke says in a Commonweal article, "is not ideological; it is experiential, an ex-perience of conversion and commitment. And, they are becoming the lead-ers in the American Church; they are spearheading the move to involve the Church in (struggling) with nuclear disarmament, capitalism, and third world issues." Is the religious of the future being invited to a lead-ership in a variety of ministries, a leadership that demands a spirituality of radical conversion? My second observation about conversion is that it seems it must be an across-the-board experience. Bernard Lonergan, James Fowler, a host of writers in recent issues of The Way magazine, all insist that conver-sion goes well beyond our moral responses. Conversion must affect the integration of our emotions and feelings, the rectitude of our thinking, the purifying of our images of God, the maturity and depth of our reli-gious enthusiasms--and all of this accompanied by that inner critical sense, discernment if you will, by which we pay attention to the subtle movements of our desires, attitudes, indecisions. A spirituality of the fu-ture geared towards total inner transformation must be accompanied by Buddhist awareness, or what Hemingway crudely called "a built-in crap detector." Only then will pure passionate energy be released and sim-plicity achieved. The Feminine Principle Strand Of the eight strands, the one about which I feel the least secure is what I am calling "the feminine principle strand." My insecurity comes not from a.lack of conviction about the importance of this strand--far from that. Rather, it is rooted in my own limited.knowledge and my be-lief that only a woman can adequately speak to the subject. Neverthe-less, something must be said. It would be impossible to have lived religious life for the past twenty years without being aware of the intense focusing on the concerns of the Religious Life Spirituality poor, the option for the poor. Likewise it would be impossible to have lived religious life in the same span of time without being aware of a simi-lar intense awareness of the feminine in Church and society, especially as that touches upon the demands of justice for women. These two con-cerns have marched along together, principally because the claims of jus-tice are common to each, but also, I think, because women, and relig-ious women in particular, have been in the forefront of succoring the poor through individual and group initiative. The claims of justice un-derlie every enterprise of religious life ministry. But it is the feminine and justice--an understanding of, respect for, and espousal of--that I feel must color our spiritual vision in the future. Once again, allow me to reduce my observations to two specific ar-eas. Most of us now accept the anima-animus duality of Jungian analy-sis and recognize that both operate within us. Likewise, most of us are probably still struggling to work out the implications of this distinction as we strive for wholeness. For example, speaking for myself, I sub-scribe to the theory that each man needs to go from his socialized mas-culine self, to his feminine self, and then to his deep masculine self, if he is to complete the journey of personal integrity. The same would ob-tain for woman: from the socialized feminine self, to the masculine self, to the deep feminine self, and thus to integrity. But, in a world that is patriarchal in language, symbol, and structure, much has to be overcome; the feminine needs to be underscored, both for the man and the woman. The gifts and qualities of the feminine are the ones that need to be ap-preciated and actively endorsed. We know those feminine qualities well: the ability to tap into and relate experience, the ability to be in touch with feelings and to articulate them in detail, the gift of making friendships that mature, the gift of a special bonding with the earth, for holding it sacred and walking on it gently. All these are specifically feminine quali-ties and gifts, and I would see our cultivating them as a consciously-chosen goal in a spirituality of the future. My second observation would have to come under the heading of "woman and justice"--a vast topic, but one that pertains to every di-mension of society and church. Simply put, the goal may best be ex-pressed in the words of Carolyn Osiek in her book Beyond Anger where she writes: "What we need is a transformation of patriarchy into a dis-cipleship of equals." A discipleship of equals; yes, that's it, and it would involve an ongoing conversion of attitude and action that must affect lan-guage, symbol, structure, and relationship. As part of a spirituality, this would mean an alert conscientization, a willful desire for justice in a spe- Review for Religious, March-April 1990 cific realm. A spirituality of the future must include a feminine princi-ple strand that addresses at least these two specific areas. The Ministry Strand "Go out to all the world and tell the good news." That is the com-mand. At the beginning ofevery religious congregation there was always some human need that cried out for relief, some opportunity for bring-ing the gospel message and Jesus to the marginalized. Founding groups and we their followers continue to believe that we are called by the Holy Spirit to be involved in the cause of Jesus through love of neighbor and a concern for justice. Of all the strands of religious life spirituality this has to be the most central and dominative: ministry rooted in faith and love that seeks justice. For me, the best contemporary expression of this goal was spoken by Pope John Paul II to a gathering of religious superiors: "The central conviction for meaningful renewal of a religious group lies in a deep-seated sense of mission for each individual and within the group. More than contemporary abstract social and psychological models, your for-mation programs for new members and for old, your community struc-tures of government and lifestyle will be well-ordered and sharpened when they are infused by a contemporary understanding and feeling for the group's historically-derived mission . Mission fires the idealism of the young and old alike. Mission calls us to pay the price, to bear the burden, to suffer pain, loneliness, and loss. Mission remains at the heart of the active apostolic vocation." If this be so, as we look into the future, we may want to define and evaluate our spirituality of mission according to three factors which have special meaning for today. First, the works of ministry. To what extent are the present works of our congregations the legitimate offspring of the founding charism? As a guide to this evaluation, it may be more impor-tant to gauge the religious zeal with which the ministries are being pur-sued, rather than their specific nature. Paul's words in 2 Timothy seem appropriate: "I remind you to stir into flame the gift of God bestowed when my hands were laid on you. The Spirit that God has given us is no cowardly spirit but rather one that makes us strong, loving, and wise" (2 Tm 1:6-7). Genuine ministry will always have a driven quality about it. Secondly, although all works of justice attract Christian ministry, our present technological society calls us to give special attention to struc-tural justice. Our socio-political-economic institutions and systems fre-quently oppress in a nameless, faceless way. We will not be able to con- Religious Life Spirituality / "197 front this unless our vision sees three and not just two dimensions to hu-man existence: the individual, the inter-personal and the public or so-cietal. How often, for example, in working for change through minis-try, have we focused on structures: personal, community, business, neigh-borhood, and asked: are these structures oppressive or life-giving? am I contributing to their power? A spirituality for ministry today must in-corporate a much clearer and more sensitive awareness of structures and their power if justice is to be achieved. Thirdly, our world has gotten smaller and more cohesive. United na-tions, one world, global village, planet earth are the terms we use, and our ministry responsibility needs to reflect that. Consequently, I would see that the ministry strand of religious life spirituality would have a global and ecological orientation that would make us concerned citizens that can pass beyond geographical boundary and language as we bring Christian outreach to all people and to the earth itself. Will "missionar-ies" be a special category in religious congregations of the future, or will all of us be part of that? A Final Word Where can we go with this? If I myself were reading this presenta-tion and found myself agreeing with some of it, and wanted to take some action, I think I would first sift the word "spirituality": is it a signifi-cant operative reality, and if so, what is its power and function within religious life? Depending on the answer to that, there is the matter of defi-nition: what is religious life spirituality and is there a generic understand-ing that cuts across congregational differences? Next, there is the image of the cable and its strands: are there identi-fiable patterns, movements, elements that we are being called to live out as religious today and into the future? If so, is it helpful to tick them off in some form of completeness/incompleteness, and can we then match these with our own congregational documentation (rules, mission state-ment, and so forth) and major endeavors (ministries, lifestyle, and other creative involvement), so that we might see where we are on the living chart of contemporary religious life? In other words, are we ready for some kind of self-evaluation as we move towards 2010? Following that, I should think a number of possibilities would de-velop: As a first (1) possibility, after a careful critique of our congrega-tional group, there might be cause to have a major celebration, a convo-cation or something similar, where the message would be: "We are on the right track; let us continue, though we might want to give some spe-cial consideration to such and such a strand. A second (2) possibility "191~ / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 might be the recognition that, although our congregational group has an intellectual or "documentary" grasp of these major strands, we, the rank and file, do not own them sufficiently in our lived experience, and we need to devise further strategies to address that. A third (3) pos-sibility, though I doubt it exists, is that our congregational group has not yet adequately come to an intellectual awareness of the import of these strands in religious life today. And so, we come back to our starting point: what will religious life spirituality look like in the year 2010, and what can we do about it now? Canticle To I Am The splendor of Your love is dazzling winter sunlight upon drifts of snow frozen by the frosts. At other times, it has the deep roar of immense waves crashing against red granite rocks which have patiently withstood the continuous onslaught of the sea. Also, it has the tranquillity of a street puddle made by the rain. Such a place can catch countless reflections of skyscrapers, the intense blue of a child's inquisitive.eyes. Your love is the song of a red cardinal telling the world that spring has come. Brother Richard Heatley, F.S.C. De La Salle Centre 45 Oaklands Avenue Toronto, Ontario M4V 2E4, Canada From CMSW to LCWR: A Story of Birth and Transformation Lora Ann Quihonez, C.D.P. and Mary Daniel Turner, S.N.D. de N. Sister Lora Ann Quifionez, C.D.P., is a former executive director of the Leader-ship Conference of Women Religious. She served as a member of the general coun-cil of the Sisters of Divine Providence of San Antonio, Texas. Sister Mary Daniel Turner, S.N,D. de N., is also a former executive director of the LCWR. She served as president of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. They are currently co-authoring a book on the renewal of religious life in the United States. They may be addressed at 1319 Floral Street, N.W.: Washington, D.C. 20012. This article is based primarily on sources in the archives of the Dominican Sis-ters, Adrian, Michigan; of the Sisters of Loretto, Nerinx, Kentucky: and of the Lead-ership Conference of Women Religious. The authors have constructed chronologi-cal sequences and the details of events from correspondence, minutes, proceedings of assemblies, internal reports, and a few in-house publications of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (Conference of Major Superiors of Women). The dates of the papers consulted fall within the years cited in the article. That the last twenty-five years have witnessed marked changes in Ameri-can Catholicism and that women religious have been prominent actors in the change process are evident. From children and daughters of the Church to women and partners in the mission of the Church, from ob-servers of to active participants in church-world affairs, and from insti-tutional church workers to initiators of and collaborators in multiple serv-ices, women religious of the United States, setting out from a stable and precisely-defined state of consecration, have journeyed to a less secure, and more expanded life of mission. There are many lenses through which we could examine this journey. The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR)--founded as the Conference of Major Superiors of Women (CMSW)--however, offers a unique lens through which to view 199 200 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 the coming-of-age of American women religious. ~ Composed of the chief officers of congregations of women religious, the conference is a juridically-recognized body in the Church, having of-ficial status with the Vatican and the American hierarchy. The major su-periors, as the designated leaders of their congregations, give priority to their communities, and issues of meaning and ultimate direction engage their energies. Joining with their peers in the conference, they are in a privileged position to probe and analyze issues. Moreover, since their roles encourage the promotion of change consonant with the mission of the Church and their respective charisms, they possess a certain degree of moral authority to consider common responses to the claims of church and world on their resources. Two events--the founding of the conference in 1956 and its verita-ble refounding in 1971--illuminate the transformation which occurred among the leaders of congregations of women religious within a span of twelve years, a metamorphosis not unlike the one among the sisters of the United States. These events reveal women of their times who carried out their responsibilities from very differing worldviews. This difference, graphically captured in their contrasting perceptions of religious life, is clearly evident in the records of the founding and the refounding of the conference. For the founders of the conference, consecration to God, the pursuit of personal holiness, and separation from the world were the essential elements of religious life. They understood their vocation as a call to a "state of perfection," whose legitimacy came from ecclesiastical author-ity. Religious were "religious" first and foremost; apostolic works were secondary, mere "nets" for saving souls. Corporate institutional ser-vices, however, ensured their collective and public identity. Stability, cer-titude, and order marked this way of life; regular observance distin-guished the "good sister." The place and the role of religious in church and world were secure and privileged. The statutes drafted at the time of the founding of CMSW simply reflected this theological perspective and mirrored the corporate self-understanding of the major superiors in the 1950s. Many of the major superiors of the late ! 960s and early i 970s, how-ever, imaged religious life not so much as a state within a "perfect so-ciety" but as a reality rooted in the Gospel, organized around and for the mission of the Church and shaped in history through the Spirit-inspired insights of persons living it. The work on the conference bylaws at the time of reorganization made apparent that leaders of women's con- From CMSW to LCWR / 201 gregations were refashioning their religious identity and reordering their place in the Church. Appreciating the universal call to holiness of all bap-tized persons espoused by Vatican II, these women searched for a cor-porate self-definition that would simultaneously speak to the commonly-shared vocation of all Christians and describe religious life as a distinct, but not more perfect, response to the Gospel. For a significant number of these leaders, personal holiness and the transformation of society were inextricably related. They no longer judged the world as alien territory; it was a locus of the holy. No longer secondary, works were constitutive of an apostolic life. They were not to be determined by a priori definitions of appropriate "religious" ac-tivities nor confined solely to corporate institutional commitments. World realities attested to needs and services were to be responsive to them. The mission of the Church, not regular observance, was the or-ganic principle of an apostolic religious life. In contrasting the members' work on the CMSW statutes and on the LCWR bylaws, we see that these differences determined the purpose and character of the conference. Conference of Major Superiors of Women (CMSW) 1. Genesis The story of the founding is an account of a church movement with its beginnings in post-World War II Europe and its inspiration in the call of Pius XII for "aggiornamento" in and collaboration among religious institutes. The movement, deriving its direction from Vatican officials, gaining momentum through the international congresses and national meetings of religious held in the fifties, ultimately became institutional-ized because of the persuasive moral power of Vatican officials and the allegiance of American women religious to church authorities. 2. Organizing the Conference. In 1952 Valerio Cardinal Valeri, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for Religious (SCR), appointed a committee of seven women to help plan the first national congress of religious of the United States. In April, 1958, he asked this same body to organize, in consultation with the ma-jor superiors of men, a national conference of religious in the United States. Writing to Mother Gerald Barry, O.P., superior general of the Dominicans (Adrian, Michigan), chair of the organizing committee, Val-eri states that the purpose of national conferences "is precisely to en-able those who understand most intimately the particular needs and con-ditions of their own country or area to provide for those needs by means 902 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 best adapted to their situation" (Oct. 9, 1958). These women, however, saw no need for a conference because organizations like the National Catholic Welfare Conference, the National Catholic Education Associa-tion, and the Catholic Hospital Association were ably serving com-munities in matters related to apostolic works. Besides, the need for "ag-giornamento" was not a felt-experience in the United States, where works were thriving, vocations abounded, and religious life seemed sta-ble. Nevertheless, if the Holy Father wanted such an organization, these women could be counted on to help realize his dream. They knew that the major superiors of the United States, "obedient children" and daugh-ters of the Church, would obey the wishes of the Sovereign Pontiff. Within six months (April--November, 1956) the Committee had drafted statutes, secured SCR approval for their work, orchestrated a na-tional assembly of major superiors, and set in motion a process for es-tablishing a conference. In doing their task, they relied heavily on the statutes of the newly-formed Canadian Religious Conference, which included both women and men; they also took quite seriously the directive of Valeri to structure national conferences according to local needs. Thus, although the SCR assumed that there would be a single conference for women and men, the Sisters' Committee took the view that the needs and problems of relig-ious women and religious priests were quite different. They saw a sepa-rate conference for women as a practical necessity: women must orga-nize and act on their own behalf. (No references were made to religious brothers in these early discussions!) Convinced as they were that other national organizations compe-tently advised women religious in matters pertaining to health, educa-tion, welfare, and "foreign missions," the organizing committee at-tached less importance to establishing a national office than did their male counterparts, also drafting statutes for a national conference. And so the women decided that a national executive committee would serve as a kind of "national sec?etariat" for the CMSW. Authority within the conference would be entrusted to the executive committee, and its mem-bers alone would elect national officers. The executive members would make decisions, direct programs, and transmit the mind of the Church to major superiors. While the conference membership would gather na-tionally every five years, the organizing committee did not envision mo-bilizing their power for corporate action. The national executive com-mittee would determine what, if any, activities were appropriate for a re-ligious conference. From CMSW to LCWR / 903 The organizing committee did, however, attach great significance to regional organization and activity. Local and regional diversity, so much valued in the United States, demanded this emphasis. The regions, there-fore, would constitute the strength of the conference and serve as forums for education and gathering places for major superiors to study together issues and topics relating to religious life. Work on the statutes made evident the relative certainty of the found-ing women about the nature and purpose of the Church and religious life. They accepted the official definitions and the practices of ecclesiastical authority as well as the canonical prescriptions about religious life. This certainty guided their deliberations and left its mark on the statutes, which clearly identified CMSW as an ecclesiastical moral person, depend-ent on church officials for its being. Submission to church authorities within the limits of canon law was to be the hallmark of the new organi-zation. Determining the criterion for membership was also no problem: only major superiors as defined by church law qualified. Similarly, the pur-pose of the conference was precisely specified: the spiritual welfare of religious and matters that were properly spiritual would engage the re-sources and energies of the conference. In summary, the statutes of CMSW structured a conference accord-ing to a hierarchic-elitist worldview, shaped in harmony with the domi-nant classical theology of religious life as a state of perfection and a life of consecration. Conference programs, activities, and relationships would take their direction from this worldview and theology. 3. The Founding Assured that the SCR endorsed their preparatory work, the organiz-ing committee planned a national meeting for November 24, 1956. Fol-lowing Vatican directives, they invited only major superiors of pontifi-cal congregations. Although the more than 235 in attendance unani-mously approved the proposed statutes, some raised the possibility of experimenting with a national conference for one year before making a final decision. The participants easily and quickly disposed of the ques-tion: what the Holy Father wanted, United States women religious wanted. Experimentation was unnecessary. And thus, the CMSW was founded. As originally envisioned, it was to be simply and only a conference: a forum for the spiritual benefit of major superiors as well as for the revitalization of religious life and an organ for communicating and promoting the mind of the Church. The months between November, 1956, and July, 1957, were devoted 204 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 to organizing the six regions, in particular, to electing regional officers who would serve as the eighteen-member national executive committee of the conference. A report given by Mother Alcuin McCarthy, O.S.F.--first National Chairman (sic)--at the Second International Congress of the States of Per-fection (December, 1957) reviews the founding activities of the confer-ence. Her account, simply and directly told, makes clear that, within the context of the Roman initiative, the organizing women took full charge of the process of founding and did so according to their understanding of the needs of religious life in the United States. It likewise records a story marked by the absence of conflict. Whatever the reservations of the founding women about the need for a national conference and about cer-tain organizational features, their steady reliance on church authorities and, in turn, the confidence of Roman officials in them worked together to bring about a stable, well-defined organization. The SCR officially recognized the conference in 1959 and approved the statutes in 1962. As a pontifically approved organization of major su-periors, the CMSW was well on its way to becoming a nationally and internationally recognized presence in the Church. Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) In contrast to the record of the founding of CMSW, the account of its reorganization is a story of women religious profoundly affected by Vatican II, influenced by the movement of Catholics into mainstream America, unsettled by the politics and cultural revolution of the sixties, challenged by the liberation theology of Latin America, and somewhat conflicted about their own identity and purpose. The decision to reor-ganize emerged from within the conference, engaging the members in an intensive review of the statutes and generating a transformation of con-sciousness about the purpose and organizational components of the con-ference. In fact, the implementation of that decision brought about the refounding of the CMSW. The Work of Reorganization The journey toward the refounding of CMSW was initiated and di-rected from within the conference. Responding to a request from Mary Luke Tobin, S.L. (then CMSW National Chairman) to ascertain the readi-ness of American congregations of women religious to implement Vati-can II, the National Executive Committee (NEC) appointed, in 1965, a research committee to direct this task. The committee launched the Sis-ters' Survey, a questionnaire of some 645 items, answered by 139,000 From CMSW to LCWR / 205 women religious in the United States. Since responses to the Survey made it clear that the sisters were eager to participate in decision-making, the research committee recommended to the 1967 assembly of the CMSW a study of conference structures. The NEC engaged the mem-bership in a study of the statutes that developed into a full-blown educa-tional program, calling for the active involvement of all the members. In many ways the process paralleled the special general chapters then un-derway in individual communities. In revising the statutes, CMSW members probed radical questions about the nature and purpose of religious life and necessarily about the nature and purpose of the conference. Conversations made evident that some leaders of women's congregations understood and experienced ap-ostolic religious life as something other than a "state of perfection" and a life of "separation from the world." The reports from regional meet-ings show that the appropriate relationship of religious to the world was a dominant issue in the discussion. The clear-cut distinction of classical theology between the sacred and the secular and between the "strictly spiritual" and apostolic works no longer held sway. It could not be as-sumed that traditional formulae about religious life, its purpose and mean-ing, claimed general allegiance among conference members. To some members it seemed that a spirit of secularism was finding its way into the conference. The records of this study also show the major superiors grappling with questions of ecclesiastical jurisdiction and debating the issue of mem-bership eligibility. What was the appropriate relationship between a pon-tifically approved organization (the conference) and church authorities? What was the legitimate and necessary autonomy of the conference within the church system? They questioned, too, criteria for membership. A proposal to include associates evoked fear among some members: they believed that to admit major superiors who did not fit canonical defini-tions and leaders of groups who did not have canonical approval would surely undermine the identity of the conference. Minutes of regional discussions also point up that a few members ex-pressed seriousconcern about the relationship between the national and the regional levels. Disturbed by what they perceived as the "sociologi-cal" character of the Sisters' Survey and its propagandizing intent, some members believed the influence of the NEC, who commissioned the study, needed curbing. Even the egalitarian principles shaping the orga-nizational character of the conference did not wholly dispel mistrust of the power of the NEC. 906 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 The proposed revisions of the bylaws drastically altered the purpose and role of the national meeting as well as the constituency and function of the governing body. Now conference members were to gather annu-ally and as a national assembly determine directions, establish goals, and specify priorities. A national board constituted by the chairs of the newly structured fifteen regions, five officers, and the executive director would govern according to the directions determined by annual assemblies and be accountable to the membership for its decisions and actions. The proposed bylaws provided for an expanded national office. This restructuring also caused anxiety among some members. As directors and coordinators of programs, research, development, communications, and fiscal procedures, the staff would, some thought, be in a position to ex-ercise too much power in the conference. Assurances from conference officers about the ecclesial character of the conference, the proposed restructuring of the regions, the move to universal suffrage for the election of the national officers, the function of the national assembly as a decision-making body, the board's account-ability to the membership, and the supervision of the staff by the board did not totally eliminate tensions within the conference. These tensions remained throughout the process of revision and after its completion. The revised statutes--now called "bylaws' '--adopted by the mem-bership in 1971 represented the dominant position, if not the unanimous view, of the membership. The bylaws clearly identified the conference as an ecclesial body, sophisticated as an organization. The members were unequivocally "women" in the Church, equal among themselves and partners with church officials in carrying out its mission. While they were clear that the bylaws of the conference existed to serve the leaders of congregations precisely as leaders, the purpose and objectives of the conference were broadly conceived, allowing for great diffusion of en-ergies and wide-ranging agendas. Not only were the Church and the world legitimate forums for concern and action, the conference was chal-lenged to be a transforming agent in both spheres. Strikingly, the lan-guage of the bylaws manifests a dynamic, evolutionary worldview, and the objectives mandate the development of a theology of religious life consonant with that worldview. Re founding Without prior consultation with or endorsement from the SCR, the national board presented the proposed bylaws for a final vote during the 1971 assembly. This was not, however, the first opportunity for a total conference discussion of the revised statutes: A special assembly had From CMSW to LCWR / 207 been held in February, 1970, to provide full membership debate on the purpose, role, and objectives of the conference. They had endorsed the restructuring of the conference from six to fifteen regions and adopted universal suffrage for the election of national officers. At the 1971 As-sembly the members approved the revised statutes and a new title, Lead-ership Conference of Women Religious. The newly-adopted bylaws and title signaled a transformed under-standing and appreciation of the raison d'etre of the conference: not only was it to be a forum for enabling leadership, it was also to become a cor-porate force for systemic change in Church and society. LCWR was born and with it an organization committed to constructive, creative use of power and influence in Church and world. No longer simply a forum for sharing, it now became an agent for change. The assembly, the national board, and executive committee as well as the secretariat and national committees consolidated the corporate power of the conference to coor-dinate regional and national levels and promote collaboration with Church and civic organizations. Following the 1971 Assembly the board directed the staff to initiate whatever actions were necessary to have the new name legally recog-nized. The former name CMSW, they agreed, communicated a negative image to the public: its militaristic and hierarchic connotations needed dispelling. This action and the adoption of the bylaws by the assembly without prior approval of SCR caused consternation not only among some conference members but also in some members of SCR. Presented with the newly adopted bylaws in November, the SCR raised questions about the lack of explicit jurisdictional lines between the conference and Church authorities and the meaning of the new title. Amendments to the bylaws worked out by the national board stilled, for a time, the concerns of SCR about jurisdictional issues. Provisions were incorporated to acknowledge the "authority of the Holy See and of the bishops," the relationship of the conference to SCR, and its re-sponsibility to the Apostolic Delegate in "its more important activities." As a result, the SCR granted definitive approval of the bylaws in 1972. Agreement about the title, however, did not come until 1974. For some SCR authorities the appropriation of the term "leadership" by the United States major superiors appeared arrogant. Besides, they charged, the language evoked the negative images associated with terms like "Fuh-rer" and "II Duce." After much dialogue between conference officers and members of the SCR and the addition of a statement in the bylaws clarifying the meaning of "leadership," SCR officials finally endorsed 201] "1 Review for Religious, March-April 1990 the title. The CMSW, according to one observer, had taken "a sharp new turn." The work of producing bylaws gave evidence of a growing ap-preciation of United States culture by the major superiors. And though probably unconscious of their kinship with feminists, the CMSW mem-bers of the late 1960s demonstrated commitment to becoming a self-determining conference, not isolated from Church officials but interact-ing with them. Concluding Reflections I. Transitions: Times, Events, Movements Between the call of Pius XII in the 1950s for "aggiornamento" and the challenge of John XXIII for renewal, the United States had experi-enced rapid and radical change. The flight from the cities to suburbia, the volatile confrontations of the civil rights movement, the assassina-tions of John F. and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the ex-cruciating agonies and divisions over United States involvement in Vi-etnam, the farm-workers' struggle for justice, the anti-Communist para-noia, the Bay of Pigs debacle, and the development of a vocal feminist minority threw the country into a national paroxysm. Self-doubt, dissent, and protest became a way of life. Moreover, the nation was not untouched by liberation movements in Third World countries. The presence of Peace Corps volunteers and of United States religious in Latin American countries awakened social re-sponsibility and global sensitivities, and, at the same time, called into question the role of the United States in international inequities. The United States was a world power. Was it a force for international jus-tice? The response of Catholics in the United States to Humanae Vitae was a powerful symbol and experience of intense ferment in the Church, evok-ing as it did a storm of protest. Public dissent was no longer confined to civic matters. The American Church, consciously becoming a "local church," was loosening its ties to Rome as Catholics moved into main-stream America, became better educated, and delighted in the experience of a Catholic president. Catholics were at home in America. They had assimilated well ~pecifically American values: the sharing of power, the right to dissent, participation in decisions that affect one's life, dialogue, respect for differences, and due process. The political upheavals, in ad-dition, evoked a new awareness of and commitment to these values. For many Catholics, however, these values were not simply or only From CMSW to LCWR / 209 cultural: they were consonant with the Gospel. They could, and should, find their way into Church life and structures. As renewal efforts within religious congregations demonstrate, women religious were not immune to these developments. They were profoundly affected by them. Movements directly related to religious life also influenced religious women. The expansion of education and theological competence brought about by Sister Formation (SF) activities in the 1950s and early 1960s insured that "new" ideas concerning both Church and society circulated in communities. Newer members, in particular, as well as congregational leaders and formation directors sensed that some structures and practices within religious institutes were not workable nor productive of healthy people and groups. Neither were they compatible with a developing sense of apostolic religious life. In many ways, the SF movement had prepared religious to respond boldly to the societal and ecclesial chal-lenges of the 1960s. In particular, the Vatican II mandate for renewal, its acknowledg-ment of the vital connection between Church and world, and its charac-terization of the Church as People of God and as Pilgrim People found receptive minds among a significant number of women religious. These ideas, validating the developing consciousness of many religious concern-ing the meaning of apostolic religious life, opened the way for its re-imagination. The depth of the response of United States religious to Vatican II was probably enlarged by the presence of Mary Luke Tobin, S.L., as an of-ficial observer at the Council. Her work on the commission which de-veloped The Church in the Modern World uniquely prepared her to be-come an ambassador of the Council. Traveling extensively throughout the country, she challenged women religious to take an active role in the world: they were to be bold advocates for justice and peace. As the presi-dent of CMSW (1964-67), she was in a privileged position to dissemi-nate the "good news" of Vatican II among major superiors. Her influ-ence was especially felt in the program planning of the national as-semblies from 1965-1967, assemblies that proved powerful corporate and formative ex

Issue 55.4 of the Review for Religious, July/August 1996. ; Revi for Retig ous i, a fo .m for shared res ea on on the lived experience of all who find that the church's rich heritages of spirituality support their personal and apostolic Christian lives. The articles in the journal are meant to be informative, practical, or inspirational, written from a tbeological or spiritual or sometimes canonical point of view. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at Saint Louis UniversiD, by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: FOPPEMA@SL UVCA.SLU.EDU Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP 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. ©1996 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. for religiou$ 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 JULY/AUGUST1996 *VOLUME55 *' NUMBER4 contents 342 symposium - part 3 Religious Life: Directions for a Future Albert Dilanni SM reviews three stages of religious-life renewal and sets forth those areas for future efforts. 365 expanding vision Internationality: Consciousness Raising and Conversion Janet Malone CND highlights six stages of consciousness raising in the process of a religious group's becoming purposefully international. 373 Toward Multiculturalizing a Religious Community Finian McGinn OFM presents the challenge of multicultural diversity in religious-life communities and some directions towards resolution. Review for Religious 388 396 new life It's Summer! A Letter to Young Religious Robert P. Maloney CM encourages those who are young to enjoy and use well the gifts of this summertime of life. Emerging Forms of U.S. Religious Life Marlene Weisenbeck FSPA identifies the motivations and the relationships between charism, mission, and ministry in the formation of new communities and styles of consecrated life. 414 425 340 431 436 witnessing I Guess and Fear Donald Macdonald SMM suggests some clarity points in the midst of current confusions in religious life. Force of Habit William Jud Weiksnar OFM reflects upon the sign and symbol value of the simple brown tunic of a Franciscan. departments Prisms Canonical Counsel: General Chapters: Current Legislation Book Reviews .~uly-August 1996 prisms FVhenT/~7 is "enough" enough? It is the common question: Did you get enough to eat? enough to drink? Is the room warm (cool) enough for you? Enough is a hard concept to define in our practical living. If people's perception of their own worth as persons is tied up in their work, when have they worked long enough or hard enough? Some people find it difficult to turn over responsibility to others or "to retire." Enough seems not to have a place in their vocabulary. Others at a younger age let work consume their days and evenings and weekends. They, too, seem oblivious to the possibil-ity of freely chosen limits. We have heard the phrase "get a life" and we know that it can be a criticism to the quick for such people. Besides questions of food and drink and work and rest, enough plays a similarly difficult role in determining security. When are there more lights outside and more locks and alarm systems than we need for reasonable secu-rity? When do we have enough money for travel and its surprises and emergencies? When is there enough money put aside for care of the elderly--others or ourselves? The danger with a money-focus is, as Jesus describes in a story, that our barns are never quite big enough to hold our piled-up wealth. When we consider healthcare in the industrialized countries, we find again the difficulty of knowing when enough medical care has been called upon and when we are moving into extraordinary and sometimes minimally enhancing medical procedures. The subtlety of enough allows us morally to steer our way between the always immoral assistdd suicide and the decision to refuse any extraordinary means to prolong life. Review for Religious For each of us, in our uniqueness, to know how to live enough and move enough and have being enough remains a rich grace-gift to be prayed for. We call the gift which helps us to say "enough" Christian discernment. To be a person who discerns demands that we be people attuned to the working of God's Spirit in our lives. Discernment is not a process of decision making that we stir up on a moment's whim. When we think of people (per-haps including ourselves) as being attuned to God, we mean that they have a serious and ongoing relationship with God in prayer and in reflecting on the Scriptures and God's workings in the world. Such people find themselves growing in a sensitivity, as all lovers do, to the ways of seeing, the desires, and the ways of acting of the one loved. That kind of sensitivity is the power source of our Christian discernment. Because sensitivity is involved, it is not something we learn by rulebooks although Jesus reminds us that "I have come, not to abolish [the law and the prophets], but to fulfill them" (Mt 5:17). As we can appreciate, the process of discerning is not a sometime thing that we can blithely manage at short notice unless we are sensitized lovers of God. The dailyness of prayer and Eucharist are privileged ways for us becoming lovers growing in sensitivity. Today we seem to live with the question of Enough? in many areas of our lives, and our personal decision about enough does not come easy. We need to enter deeply into our Catholic faith and experience Jesus' promise of "another Paraclete." Yet there is one instance of enough which remains a paradox. Can we ever grow enough in God's love that our sensitivity for discernment can say "enough"? David L. Fleming SJ NOTE: On our inside front cover we provide our E-mail address. For some of our domestic and international subscribers, it may give convenient and helpful access to our editorial office. ALBERT DI IANNI Religious Life: Directions for a Future symposium part 3 Today we often hear a question seldom asked before Vatican Council II: "How is it going with your congre-gation?" And We know immediately that the questioner is interested in vocations. Nearly always the answer is: "Quite good in the third world, but bad in the first world." After thirty years of renewal efforts, the average age of most congregations founded before the 20th century is in the 60s for male l~eligious.and in the 70s for female reli-gious. Patricia Wittberg speaks of "catastrophic decline," "collapse," and "probable demise," and Markham, of "mas-sive denial." In the 1960s religious women in the United States numbered over 200,000. They have suffered a 55 percent decline and now number about 90,000. Given their average age we can expect further decline. Male reli-gious have suffered a decline of over 30 percent. We can hedge about these cold facts, but they are a cause for deep concern. A moderate decline in vocations would be man-ageable, but such a steep decline demands that we ask searching questions about the process of renewal. There are disparities within the vocation situation. In the first world, some communities are attracting significant numbers of candidates. They are the newer communities like Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity and the Albert Dilanni SM last wrote for us in September-October 1993. He is now superior of the Marist novitiate, Our Lady of Mercy, at 15 Notre Dame Avenue; Cambridge, Massachusetts 02140. Review for Retigio'us Legionaries of Christ. In Mexico the Legionaries are referred to as the. new Jesuits and are subjected to criticisms similar to those launched against Jesuits in an earlier age. (A new group with a similar name, Cruzados de Cristo, has sprung up in Mexico and is enjoying similar vocational success.) The Fellowship of New Religious Communities had sixty-three new Catholic congrega-tions on its 1993 mailing list. There are at least two dozen oth-ers) Most of these groups are traditional in theology, but creative in developing community structures and prayer forms and in their integration of the laity. Even in the third world, vocational growth is not homoge-neous. The .main areas of growth are sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia, especially India and Indonesia. Brazil, on the other hand, is either stable or on the decline. The crucial factor seems to be that the churches of Africa and Asia, often surrounded by strong Muslim groups, tend to be more "conservative" of classical Catholic practices and spirituality, while the Brazilian church more than all others has adopted liberationist tendencies. Three Stages of Renewal I believe that we are in the second' phase of a three-step pro-cess in the renewal of religious life since Vatican II. The first step was the explosion immediately after Vatican II, an explosion pro-voked not only by the council but by the secular cultural revolu-tion. It was a time for rejecting all categories and trying to live in the in between. It was a time'of high experimentation in theology and lifestyles, of reexamination of all institutions including the family, traditional morality, and etiquette. In religious life we moved away from whatever seemed rigid, artificial, and stiflingly traditional, in favor of what seemed more dynamic, new, and life-giving. No longer defensive regarding the democratic ideals of the West, we sought to integrate them into our congregational existence. We dismantled structures that were in place for cen-turies, emphasized interpersonal dialogue and individual needs, decentralized authority, created leadership teams, redefined poverty, chastity, and obedience, abandoned institutional aposto-lates in favor of small-group work with the poor or the marginal, and reinterpreted community in terms of sharing quality time together. It was the best of times and the worst of times. It was a time of great creativity especially in the founding of new types J'ul),-./lugust 19~6 Dilanni ¯ ReligiousLife The second stage of the renewal, is the time of the winnowing fan, the stage of sober reassessment. of apostolate--Joan Chittister often stresses this and women's role in it--but also a time of great confusion, of loss of identity, of abandonment of loyalties, of many departures and few arrivals, of decline in morale and fear of the future. The second stage of the renewal, in which we presently find ourselves, is the time of the winnowing fan, the stage of sober reassessment. Recent books and articles from all "over the ideo-logical spectrum are calling for self-criticism and evaluation of the directions taken .by the renewal: Avery Dulles, Elizabeth McDonough, Joan Chittister, Patricia Wittberg, Martin Tripole, Mary Jo Leddy, Judith Merkle, David Nygren and Miriam Ukeritis, and on and on. Almos~ all urge a move beyond the individualism apparent in the so-called "liberal" model. They speak of the need of "common vision" and a "corporate sense" and "criteria by which the validity of their lives can be measured." The authors do not agree on the solution. Some call for a deeper retrieval of the community's charism (if it has a charism); others, for a real communal commit-ment to helping the poor and the oppressed; and still others, like MaryJo Leddy and Joan Chittister, for a move beyond liberalism to something even more radical or revolutionary. The third stage in this renewal process will be, I believe, a time of greater peace, when the good features of the new have been institutionalized and its excesses discarded and Catholics once again view religious life as a way to follow Christ in a more literal way. In this symposium, however, we are still at the stage of sober reassessment, discussing whether we need to shift into a new gear and or just stay on cruise-control. I approach this challenge not in despair but in hope, a hope that arises out of reading the his-tory of religious life. Before the French Revolution (1789) there were 300,000 male religious "in Europe. Forty years after the Revolution this number had decreased by more than two-thirds to 70,000. But in the 1830s a great revival began. Some 600 new Roman Catholic religious congregations were founded in the 19th century, more than at any other period, and the actual number of religious attained historic new heights. The Jesuits, who had been suppressed from 1773 to 1814, flourished as never before. A similar reflowering is not impossible in our time. Review for Religious o The contemporary crisis of religious life has been very deep. It is related to the .attempt to restate the Christian faith for an age called postmodernity. We have been adapting with great strain to a new kind of need for God, not a God of the gaps who fills in for the weaknesses of science, but a God at the center of life, a God who provides depth of meaning and answers our ultimate concern. Directions for a Future: Background Considerations ., George Aschenbrenner SJ felt that in my 1994 book I had set down criteria that might guide a reevaluation of the renewal and an effective move to the future.2 So for the present symposium he assigned me this topic: What are the criteria for judging whether a .proposed change of direction or structure in religious life will be a profitable change? What are the signs of a good change? I have interpreted his question as asking: In what directions should we move, and why? But, before we can entertain the question of directions, some background considerations are necessary. First, we must realize that the theological backdrop to religious life has shifted dra-matically. Up to thirty years ago, all religious, irrespective of their style of life, shared a theological consensus that dated back to the early church. Whether they were hermits, monks and nuns, medieval mendicants, apostolic Jesuit-type religious, or religious of the newer 19th-century type, all religious viewed themselves as primarily engaged in saving souls, their own and those of others. Christianity in general and religious life in particular were given a mystical and eschatological interpretation and were concerned with union with God and "the four last things." Intellectual activ-ity and teaching and care of the sick were important, but were subordinate to a concern for eternal salvation, the "one thing necessary." Since Vatican II, however, chinks have appeared in this higher unity, this sacred canopy, and basic questions have been asked about the meaning of Christianity and the place of religious within it. While the media and some religious focus on controversial issues of church polity like clerical celibacy and women's ordination, the deeper questions are: How should we conceive of our relationship to God? Does salvation begin on earth? What is the meaning of the kingdom of God? Within the mystical-eschatological emphasis, the dominant metaphor for women's congregations was that of becoming a ~uly-Aug~st 1996 Dilanni ¯ Reli~ous L~e "spouse of Christ." To some people of today, this may seem intol-erably sexist, patriarchal or "kyriarchal," but the image contains a core of meaning valid for both men and women. It underscores the need for an affective union with Christ and with a personal God. Mystical language was its common coinage. Commentators spoke of "spiritual marriage" and "transforming union." Many books were written about progress in mental prayer, contempla-tion, and the three stages of the interior life. Today a hunger for spirituality is still alive among religious, witness the popularity of directed retreats and the Ignatian Exercises. It is part of what David Tracy calls an "amazing resurgence in spirituality.''3 Nevertheless, our consuming interest has been elsewhere. Whereas previously religious sought to move outward from a deep interiority, we have preferred to begin with exteriority. Like behaviorists, we have been convinced that action shapes hearts and that congregational renewal would come from movement into relevant apostolates that reexpressed our charism. The "spouse of Christ" model was criticized as a "beautiful soul" spir-ituality, and its practitioners were compared to birds preening themselves. Salvation was brought down to earth, and holiness was linked with wholeness--becoming a well-integrated person-- and with service to others. "Crazy" saints like Philip Neri (who did outlandish things out of humility) were out. The fasting of Catherine of Siena and others has been understood as "holy anorexia" (Rudolph Bell's term), a subconscious protest against male domination. Unless mortification was relational--a sacri-fice involved in one's work for others--it was conside~'ed unhealthy. Better to work for and with the poor than to fast in adoration of God. As a result, a new metaphor for religious life replaced spouse of Christ. It was the image of the prophet at the cutting edge of social and political issues,, breaking new ground in the liberation and humanization of peoples, especially through systemic change in favor of the poor and oppressed. After the Jesuits' dramatic shift toward faith and justice, the charisms of most other active congregations, no matter how diverse, were suddenly found to center on these same concerns. The Roman synod of 1971 called social justice a "constitutive" part of the Christian apostolate, and many interpreted this as meaning that it was to be a necessary component of each apostolate. Most recently, however, a reac-tion has set in. Jesuits like Avery Dulles and Martin Tripole, while Review for Religious agreeing .that social justice should be a fundamental concern of religious life, resist the notion that it is an essential ingredient of each Jesuit apostolate. It is now reported that even Pedro Arrupe SJ, its principal protagonist, had second thoughts about how it was absolutized.4 Strangely, the metaphor of religious as social prophet did not attract numbers of vocations, certainly not in the first world. Marie Augusta Neal admits this and attributes it to fear of its inherent difficulty and risks. But, historically, danger did not deter but rather whetted the appetite of people intent on the religious adventure. Nineteenth-century missionaries like St. Peter Chanel boarded rickety ships on precarious one-way trips lasting eleven months to preach to peoples who had not yet emerged from can-nibalism. Could the resistance to the new prophetic stance be due to something other than fear? Could it be that, however admirable, it is not perceived by Christian consciousness to be at the center of the religious project? In what follows I will set out three directions in which we must move in future efforts toward renewal. The first two are sociological and could apply to almost any social group or cor-porate entity. They are actually dialogues with Wittberg and with Nygren and Ukeritis, whose studies I find revealing. The third direction is theological and addresses some of the questions just raised. Directions for a Future The first direction: An effective religious community must be visible. Recent authors have sounded the alarm that religious life, especially among women, is disappearing as a visible corporate entity, as an institutional presence. Joan Chittister writes that religious communities have "done a great deal to foster the prophetic individuals in their midst," but "at the same time, they have done very little to function as prophetic groups.''5 Elsewhere she dramatizes: "Religious must ask themselves what they stand for as a congregation and who knows it, because if nobody knows it we don't stand for it." She continues: "When we stood for edu-cation, health service, and the care of innocent children, everyone knew it. When we stood for insertion of Catholics into the white Anglo-Saxon world, no one called that political, and everyone knew what we were about, Religious congregations stood as bul-j~ uly-dug~st 1996 Dilanni ¯ Religious Life warks against ignorance, illiteracy, disease, abandonment, and secularism. We turned our resources in those directions. Now we have the best-educated groups in the world, each member of which is regarded with professional respect, and the most invisi-ble congregations.''6 " This is an important point that should guide future planning. If as religious we desire truly to influence others and attract new candidates, we cannot act as disembodied spirits, noncorporeal freedoms, anti-institutional angels. We must witness not only as individuals but as a collective unity. And to do so we must be vis-ible as a collective unity. Clearly, religious were more visible as members of a group when they worked in institutional commit-ments and wore an identifiable religious habit. When they left these institutions and took on secular jobs in social service, when they declined the habit and were absorbed into the crowd, they tended to lose corporate impact of all kinds, even the new one of being socioreligious prophets. "The more its members became unidentifiable," says Wittberg, "the more difficult it became for any order, as a corporate entity, to fulfill its newly defined prophetic role.''7 Another major cause of the current invisibility of religious congregations has been our readiness to embrace contemporary democracy's postmodern move toward absolute egalitarianism and nonelitism. Eager to abdicate every hint of triumphalism, we have become levelers. This is seen in the way we have interpreted Lumen gentium's universal call to holiness, which, according to Wittberg, hit like a bombshell and robbed religious of a sense of distinctive identity. It had this effect because theologians and reli-gious interpreted it politically rather than theologically or spiri-tually. "We are all called to holiness," said the commentators, emphasizing the word all, as if the point of the doctrine were to rule out all talk about more or less effective roads to holiness or about religious life being a way of perfection aspiring to something higher. But is the political point the central thrust of the decla-ration? Should we not place less stress on the "all" and more on what we are all called to, that is, holiness? Should religious not be less worried about standing out (or failing to stand out) and more concerned about redoubling their efforts to achieve holiness within their life and lifestyle? In fact, what happened was that the idea of striving for personal holiness dropped out as the cen-tral concern for religious. Review for Religious The reason for this overemphasis on the political may be due to the church's relative inexperience with democracy and moder-nity. In her sociological study of religious orders; Wittberg con-tends that the 19th-century religious congregations, sharing the restorationist mentality of the church, never really came to grips with the modern thrust toward liberty, fraternity, and equality. Rather, these congregations retreated into a fuga mundi (flight from the world), reinstated 17th-century practices, and lived in a time warp for years. In America this was exacerbated because most religious sprang from and ° worked in isolated immigrant subcultures. It is perhaps because of this that, when Vatican II opened the doors, the congre-gations went overboard in their embrace of the new forms of participative democ-racy. We eagerly adopted its absolute horror of distinctions for fear of elitism and played down all differences between religious and laypersons. As a result we vanished as visible corporate groups purporting to be on a different road to holiness.8 But can this continue? Can the concept of religious life long endure in an atmosphere of hyper-egalitarianism? Would reli-gious life ever have sprung up at all if some persons did not desire to be different and follow Jesus in a more literal way? Wittberg describes religious life as a form of virtuoso or (less frequently) heroic religiosity. Practitioners of virtuoso religiosity are those within a religion who want to go the extra mile. They want to create a zone of intensity within the field of holiness. They p(r-ceive themselves as different and, to some degree, as exemplars. Prospective virtuosi come together, says Wittberg, "in the expec-tation that their participation will help to maintain some collective good--the health and welfare of the destitute, or the conversion of heretics, or even the establishment of a utopia of saints on earth that can serve as a beacon to others.''9 Christianity and other religions have always spawned such virtuosi. Luther dissolved the vows of the monks and declared everyone equal in the quest for holiness, but soon Protestantism was crowded with Pietists, Mennonites, and Anabaptists. Later it was the Shakers and today the Pentecostals. Recently, new virtu-osi groups have mushroomed Within Catholicism: the Legionaries of Christ, the Missionaries of Charity, the Lion ofJuda, Les Fr~res We must witness not only as individuals but as a collective unity. July-August 1996 DiIanni ¯ Religious Life de. St. Jean, the Opus Dei, the Neo-catechumenate, the Focolare, the Sant' Egidio community of Rome, Comunione e liberazione, and so forth. All model themselves on the early Christian com-munity in Acts or the seventy disciples commissioned by Jesus (Lk 10), both of which seem to represent Christianity lived in its highest purity. Like the early Christians, these new groups believe that forming Christians is not easy, but requires being challenged to live one's baptism; requires a formation process, a "way" (some form of RCI& program), a sustaining community, and a partici-pative liturgy. We must accept the fact that as religious we desire to be dif-ferent and follow Christ in a distinctive way. If we are to influence others, to witness as prophets, our commitment must be in some way public and Visible. If this is perceived as a higher way, so be it. Chalk it up to diversity. We cannot blur all distinctions out of a fear of elitism. All groups that aspire for something more are in danger of elitism and must be warned against it, but their enthu-siasm should not be crushed. Members of religious congregations purport to live their Christianity in a way that is differently orga-nized, more regulated, more intense, and at times more difficult than that of other Christians. They will have an impact on oth-ers to the degree that their sacrifice is real and their corporate witness is visible. Whether through all this they always succeed in becoming men and women of God is another question. The second direction: Effective religious community should be inten-tional as opposed to merely associational, and this demands a transcen-dent corporate goal and adequate commitment mechanisms. An intentional community is a community with a purpose for the sake of which members are willing to make significant sacri-fices of their individual preferences. Examples are sports teams and the military. An intentional community is different from an associational community, which admits a plurality of goals and calls for a lesser degree of sacrificing of individual preferences. Intentional communities have a strong sense of direction. This is due to at least two things: a transcendent corporate cause and a set of commitment mechanisms, that is, common sacrificial prac-tices that reinforce commitment at a level deeper than rational persuasion. We will consider these two elements in turn. A transcendent corporate goal: Discussing visibility, we have already dealt with the need for a goal, for being clear on where the Review for Religious group stands. Here I make the further point that the goal must be one that transcends the community itself. I say this because some authors seem to believe that the goal of a community can be inter-nal to ~the community itself. Edwin Keel and Susan Beaudry, for example, propose a third ruling metaphor for religious life, beyond those of the spouse of Christ and prophecy. For them, religious life is best presented under the image of a journey together toward God. They maintain that "what religious have been seeking, whether they realize it or not, and what religious community can offer, is neither surrogate family life, nor friendship, nor the intio macy~of small groupings, but faith companionship on the spiritual journey." 10 They describe the common spiritual journey in terms of a discovery of one's personal vocation before God and an integra-tion of it with that of others. Spiritual maturity is achieved by getting in touch with what Jung calls the Self, which lies deeper than the ego and is the place where we truly meet God. The old perfection model of holiness with its rigid rules tended to flat-ten individual differences and to foster immaturity. The journey image with its new and democratic skills--province assemblies, mission statements, corporate reflection processes, confrontation techniques (all now permanent parts of religious life)--may seem messier, but is psychologically healthier. Community life is like a family going on a trip in a crowded van, constantly negotiating, sometimes bickering, always arriving, never reaching. Some of these spiritual-journey elements are valuable; but I wonder whether the journey can be the dominant metaphor of religious life. Does it not tempt us to remain in an associational model of community, which, to believe tl~e experts, does not endure beyond one generation?I' Does it not come too close to what Gerald Arbuckle has called the "therapeutic" community? Can it generate the needed intensity and direction? For all the benefits of psychology, are not psychological self-absorption and an overly intense regard for the internal aspects of community part of the cause of our present decline? Wittberg says, "'The dominant language of religious life., shifted from theological constructs to social and psychological paradigms,' that were inad-equate to explain what was distinct or desirable about the lifestyle."~2 This has gone so far that in some congregations com-munity members who desire entry into a new local community must first present a written evaluation of themselves from the July-August 1996 Dilanni ¯ Religious Life community they are leaving. In other congregations the .concern for personal autonomy and consensus has at times resulted in the election of effete leaders at the local level. Is there nota middle ground between the not-in-touch-with-their-feelings religious of the past and some present-day religious who have become too self-involved as individuals or as community? In order to form an intentional community, people must come together for the sake of a cause that transcends both themselves and their experience of journeying together. A clearly articulated spiritual or apostolic vision and ideal must draw them on. Each member must partially relinquish his or her personal, vocation in favor of the vocation of the congregation. One's personal project must be trimmed in favor of the community proiect, Older reli-gious tell stories of pioneer days in schools and hospitals when they roomed together in classrooms and toiled almost slave hours. They may stress the pain and suffering, but from the glee with which they tell the stoW we know they would not have exchanged it for the world. Their reward lies in having been part of some-thing greater thanthemselves, protagonists together in a great religious adventure. Commitment mechanisms: Historically, intentional religious groups have been sustained in their resolve not only by clear tran-scendent goals but also by a number of practices that sociologists call commitment mechanisms. These are practices, customs, or rituals that reinforce motivation by solidifying the affective ties between the members. Sociologist Benjamin Zablocki contends that the commitment mechanisms discarded by congregations after Vatican II were actually essential for community survival.~3 The primary types of commitment mechanisms were first developed in the monasteries and then adapted to other forms of religious life. They are (1) common rules and rituals, (2) boundary maintenance, (3) shared sacrifices, and (4) mortification practices. 1. Common rules or rituals include the daily horarium and schedule, spiritual exercises, meals :in common, reading at meals, and grand silence. They are found in the constitutions and in books of customs. 2. Boundary-maintenance mechanisms Fiave the purpose of maintaining a clear distinction between members of the group and other people. Examples of such mechanisms are: wearing a common habit, living together in cloistered convents, bestowing new names, and reducing the visits of family and outsiders. (Today Review for Religious the lack of vocations has spawned the phenomenon of associative membership, which renders the boundaries more fluid and lessens the sense of identity. Most recently commentators are beginning to bemoan an excessive fluidity. Their plea is that such a religious congregation cannot long endure unless there is a strong core group of full-fledged members who are strongly distinguished from others.) 3. Shared sacrifices arise out of involvement in common works of the congregation. Historically there was no stronger source of cohesion than shared sacrifices in behalf of an institute's common apostolates. 4. Mortification practices include such customs as culpas, the chapter of faults, receiving monition, fasting on certain days, taking the discipline, wearing a common habit, and wearing a veil. These worked to strip off an old identity in favor of a new one and in the process helped to cement people into a higher unity. In reviewing these mechanisms I am in no way advocating a return to all or to any of them. On the other hand, religious life cannot prosper without some structures that reinforce motivation at the affective level. To move beyond individualism we need to invent common rituals and symbols that speak to us at the level of the subcon-scious. We cannot build community by teaching a charism only conceptually while leaving it to each member to embody it in his or her own way. If our religious life has no face, our communities will end up being only comfortable hotels. In replacing outdated commitment mechanisms, we must employ new psychological insights and provide adequate room for personal differences. But these new mechanisms must have some relation to past ones. In creating them we must carefully study the older structures to see what purpose they had in the mind of the founder, to discover what aspect of the charism they expressed. The new structures must be more suited to our times, but they must also connect with and incarnate the charism and spirituality of the institute. The role of the superior is a commitment mechanism of tra-ditional religious life that is not often mentioned. We must admit, People must come together for the sake of a cause that transcends both themselves and their experience of journeying together. ~dy-AuKtwt 1996 Dilanni ¯ Religious Life however, that nothing worked better to reinforce collective unity than Mother Superior. The traditional superior, especially when he or she was also the founder, was considered a voice of God. Today, conversely, some 75 percent of religious communities of women have no superior in any traditional sense. Mother Superior has been replaced by the "director" or "animator" or by a "lead-ership team." Such language, it seems to me, confuses two dif-ferent realities, authority and leadership. The first is the attribute of an office; the second, the quality of a person. In some congregations the role of superior has been largely taken over by an appointed middle-management bureaucracy with tendencies to perpetuate itself.~4 One sister has written to me say-i. ng, "Our best leaders are in our cemetery." Without desiring to turn back the clock, I ask: Was there a resonance present in the traditional role of superior that has been lost? If past superiors were legalistic and overbearing, were the best of them not the true spiritual leaders that We still hanker for? Were they not per-sons who loved the congregation and its charism and knew how to stir hearts and shape a vision? Commitment mechanisms are making a comeback in the new congregations and in the new lay religious movements in Europe and Latin America. The Neo-catechumenate, for example, invites members into a "way" (camino), which comprises certain distinct steps, a kind of RCIA for Catholics, through which each mem-ber must pass before they are considered "formed Christians." Some of their techniques involve confrontation and mutual crit-icism. New seminaries using Neo-catechumenal techniques, all called Redemptoris Mater, are springing up in many parts of the world. The Sant' Egidio lay community of Rome invites its mem-bers to sung vespers and a commentary on the Scripture every evening. Many religious congregations use directed retreats and the renewed thirty-day Ignatian Exercises as a more personalized form of commitment mechanism. Other communities have intro-duced formal faith-sharing sessions, a kind of lectio divina in which members Ponder scripture passages or the constitutions together and then discuss them. Patricia Wittberg suggests that it might be profitable to explore the new religious movements to see how traditional Catholic frameworks for "religious virtuos-ity are being reworked, whether consciously or unconsciously. ¯ in order to address the assumptions and values of the late-20th-and early-21 st-century American culture." 1~ Review for Religiou~ Visibility, intentionality, a clear and transcendent goal, and some commitment mechanisms--these are the sociological aspects necessary to be effective as a group. For Wittberg, their lack has been the major reason why the new metaphor of religious as reli-gious prophets has not truly taken hold. Ithas failed to galvanize religious communities, she believes, because contemporary indi-vidualism and pluralism have been allowed to dominate religious life. As a good sociologist, she remains neutral with regard to the desirability of the new metaphor itself. I wonder, however, if this goes far enough. Are there not other and deeper reasons why the new metaphor of religious prophet has not really caught on? If prophecy means being on the cutting edge, the question remains: On the cutting edge of what? of politics? of social betterment? of all this, plus something more? I accept and welcome the model of prophecy, but I do question its content as expounded by many religious at the pres-ent time. I believe that the prophet must identify the deepest assumptions of the age and try to respond to its deepest hungers. Have we; aspiring religious prophets, truly engaged our culture at its deepest levels? This brings me to my third and last statement of direction. Third direction: Effective religious community demands a concept of prophecy that engages the surrounding culture at its deepest levels and responds to its most profound hungers. Wittherg and others believe that because of restorationism the 19th-century church and its many new religious orders did not come to grips with the problems of modernity. My question is: In the prophetic model as currently understood, do we do so even now? I concur with Nygren and Ukeritis, who say that those con-gregations will be revitalized that are "rooted in their relationship with God, and that, in a spirit of fidelity to their founding purpose and responsiveness to absolute human need, confront the current gap between Gospel and the culture.''16 1 agree with Chittister's formal principle that religious congregations must "release every-where in society, at every level, through every individual member, wherever the members are, and whatever separate things they do, the white heat of those congregations' charism in one great cor-porate mind and one easily seen communal heart.''17 We must engage the dominant first-world culture and do so as corporate .t~uly-August 1996 Dilanni ¯ Religious Life entities. We cannot run from it or remain indifferent. But, because we are religious, we must be careful to engage it at its deepest levels and not merely superficially. Historically, religious life flourished precisely when it was perceived as countering a culture's expressed values while answer-ing its deepest hungers. St. Francis of Assisi attracted followers, not because he was in conformity with his times, but because he challenged his times and in this way spoke to its heart of hearts. As we move toward the future, we must ask ourselves: What are the deepest hungers of our culture? Judith Merkle says that "the question which faces religious congregations today is what aspect of reality has the power to most deeply call us to life." 18. This is really the same question, for we are part of our culture, and our own deepest hungers will not differ much from those of the general culture. Some authors answer this question by insisting that we will be called to life by moving away from individualism and becoming a transformative community bent on creating a better world. In their eyes, the deepest need of contemporary culture is to achieve better rela-tionship with the poor, the oppressed, and the marginal; and this will be achieved by eradicating unjust social structures and oppos-ing oppressive ideologies like patriarchy, sexism, and racism. But is such a project sufficient? Is it at the center of religious prophecy? Is it where we address the deepest needs of our culture? Certainly, many of these ethical issues are important. They are a response to Gaudium et spes and in tune with the attempt of the-ologians to develop a more earth-centered interpretation of the kingdom. This new notion of the kingdom does not contradict the traditional view, but complements it. It asks us not to allow our desire for heaven to blind us to our duty to extirpate crass injus-tices in this world. In this view, the kingdom is not only a future heaven but the actual presence of God's power for transforming the world. So the religious project, the kingdom, has two loci. But, in many religious congregations, has the sociopolitical not become the solitary day-to-day focus? Is this not why the so-called prophetic model attracts so few first-world candidates? Have we not gone the route of liberal Protestantism, which in its social-gospel emphasis is fast losing ground to the Pentecostals and Evangelicals? In their nonparticipation and shifts of loyalty, are not lay Christians trying to tell us something? Review for Religious Can a religious congregation survive if its primary, all-inclu-sive goal is to solve complex and intractable social and moral issues? I doubt it. This is so especially when, in practice if not in theory, God is reduced to being a ground for human generativity or creativity in the social arena. Sociopolitical issues are impor-tant and can even be construed as religious in nature, but they are not at the center of the religious project. The center of the religious project is clear and simple: to affirm the existence and the love of God. This is true especially in our times, in which the major event has been the "death of God," the conviction that the idea of God is either meaningless or even detrimental. The first attitude comes from the side of science and the second from an existential-ist philosophy of life. The scientific picture as taught in many universities is one of a world that evolved by sheer chance from a big bang to con-scious, reflective beings. If through some. accident all conscious beings are destroyed, the Godless universe would be bereft of consciousness, and being would be a perpetual winter, In the sci-entistic worldview, sheer chance takes the place of God, and human life is voided of any objective meaning or purpose. Moral ¯ systems' become games contrived by human 'beings to bring about the maximal satisfaction of desires while avoiding conflict. The moral game is born of an enlightened egoism. For existentialists, following Nietzsche, religion must be ban-ished because it is repressive and life-denying and robs us of rad-ical freedom. It imposes an objective moral system that does not allow us to create values. We must choose between a life of free-dom and a God of enslavement. "Man dies at the touch of the Absolute," says Merleau-Ponty. One way in which existentialist atheism shows up in our culture is in its penchant for absolutiz-ing choice. No matter how dire the consequences, Americans will plump for choice on any issue. If there is no God, then each indi-vidual can be God, not only in general but at every moment and in every decision. This combination of scientific atheism and an existentialist absolutizing of individual power and choice has given rise, as Nietzsche predicted, to a sense of meaninglessness, to nihilism, to The center of the religious project is clear and simple: to affirm the existence and the love of God. July-August 1996 DiIanni ¯ Religious Life the banalizing of life, to the "unbearable lightness of being," The death of God has ushered in the death of man (and woman). Choosing and consuming, consuming and choosing, modern men and women are stranded on the anorexia-bulimia line--on the endless shuttle between fullness and emptiness." Is this all there is?" they ask. And many teenagers commit suicide or random murder, and others just keep on dancing. "Even more than athe-ism," says Walter Kasper, "the nihilism that flows from atheism is the real mark of the age."~9 This nihilism or voiding of meaning has its positive side. It is the modern expression of the hunger for God. It is in providing a lived response to this hunger that contemporary religious life will achieve its true prophetic role. Beyond all else, religious life must be a drumbeat proclaiming that God exists, that God's love for us through Jesus is unconditional, that it sustains us in suffering and continues beyond our death. The way for religious to engage the surrounding culture effectively is to witness that, far from crush-ing life, God alone gives it ultimate meaning and sense. I believe that at least two things must be retrieved by religious to help them achieve this truly religious end: interiority and, along .with it, an ardent desire to relate to the personal God who transcends the world. By interiorityI mean a new emphasis on the life of prayer and reflection and on being teachers of the spiritual life. Pierre Hadot, a French historian of philosophy, is influencing sophisticated the-ologians like David Tracy into bringing spirituality into the cen-ter of theology. He criticizes modern theology for its sharp division between theory and spiritual practice. Hadot insists that, unlike people of earlier times and of non-Western cultures, we Western moderns have not allowed theology to express itself in spiritual exercises. The old Stoics had spiritual exercises for com-ing into contact with the Logos, and this was one reason why Simone Weil loved the Stoics. The modern segmenting of the-ology and praxis--seen, for example, in the dropping of devo-tions since Vatican II--is one reason for the deep hunger for spirituality today. R~ligious must once again emphasize growth in personal holiness and speak to people about their experience of prayer, about their interior praxis with God. Our formation pro-grams must not fail to impart a sense that each person has 'a spir-itual life in which it is possible to make progress through prayer. Joan Chittister is correct when she insists that we cannot "confuse work with prayer, good intentions with the spiritual life:''2° Review for Religious We must regain a sense of the personal God who transcends the world, but with whom we can enter into intimate union. In a 1989 America article I spoke of our need to love God as well as our neighbor and said that the love of God cannot be totally expressed through neighbor love, Several weeks later, in a letter to the edi-tor, J. Robert Hilbert sJ wrote that "one must be careful" in draw-ing a distinction between love of God and love of neighbor. "God," he says, "is not an 'other' in the sense of a categorical object to be spoken of in parallel with other objects of my knowl-edge and love. It is rather precisely in God's transcendentality as the absolute Other that love of God and love of neighbor come together in a unique and necessary oneness.''2~ I do not know if such talk of God as the "absolute Other" does the job of maintaining the necessary balance between the immanence and transcendence of God. I am sure, however, that in their return to spirituality contemporary Christians are rebelling against attempts to blur the distinction between the love of God and the love of neighbor, even though both are absolutely necesshry and intimately intertwined. Classically God has been conceived of as higher than and dis-tinct from the world, a Creator who does not need us but who loves us even beyond our death and asks us to requite that love. In ~our effort to rethink the notion of God in a way acceptable to modernity, we must avoid the danger of turning God into some underlying catalyst for our doing :good, an ~lan vital or wisdom force. In the last thirty years, so many theologians liberationists, feminists, process theologians, all striving to develop an idea of a God who is intrinsic to our lives--may have fallen into just this trap, Have they not carried too far the idea that we are God's project for social betterment, that in some Hegelian way the Absolute is working through our creativity to achieve a world of peace and justice? I have two problems with the current political and this-worldly interpretations of the kingdom. The first is with the type of pol-itics it generally espouses, and the second with the primacy of politics itself. ¯ First, does not the particular type of politics espoused by some religious carry a great deal of questionable ideological baggage? A "politically correct" reading is .given to work with the poor and oppressed. The abortion question is often studiously avoided. Feminist publications of the most radical sort are taken seriously. 3~uly-August 1996 Dilanni ¯ Religious Life Environmentalism is fast becoming a new religion among some religious, while they fail to realize that it has become extremely big business filling many already fat pockets. A listening ear is not lent to the arguments of those who distinguish between good and bad ways of helping the poor, arguments presented in thoughtful books like Marvin Olasky's Tragedy of American Compassion. And yet anybody who is truly concerned about the poor should also be attentive to the ways in which, with the best of motives, we may be locking them into a perpetual victimhood. But, beyond these particular issues, I think there is an overem-phasis on the sociopolitical in general. Social justice and the fos-tering of the earthly kingdom is not the whole gospel nor even the center of it. The hunger for another justice beyond social justice is never altogether absent from the human heart, Social justice is important, of course, because it is the minimum, upon which an earthly Christian community can be built. When it is dramat-ically absent, we cannot remain passive. When it is dramatically absent for many years for great numbers of people, it can for a time even be a consuming passion. But we must be careful that the gospel not be totally reduced to it. For the fact remains that we die eventually and that no program of social justice exists that can prevent our death or provide meaning to our dying. Beyond social justice, the church must have something to say also, perhaps especially, to those who are about to conclude their earthly life.22 Most religious, no matter how radical their politics, do retain a strong belief in a transcendent and personal God and a faith in the resurrection of the dead. But often this does not appear to be the main focus of their life and action. Unsure of the existence~ of the devil, many religious are very adept at naming the demonic. They are sure that sin has changed and we now better understand what constitutes real sin and real virtue, Evil, they think, is not located primarily in personal sins of commission, but in 'political and economic structures and in the sins of omission that keep these structures in place. Along with this perception, they have the conviction that the new technological possibilities available to us bring new responsibilities. Thus, they are fond of repeating that, since it is now possible for the first time to feed everyone, we have a special duty to create political structures and delivery sys-tems to implement this possibility. There is doubtless much to be said in favor of this, but, religiously speaking, it contains little that is new. Systemic and structural change is simply a new aspect Review for Religious that the perennial Christian demand of love of neighbor and of the stranger has assumed today. There remains the caveat of humility: that we not think we possess the answers to complex structural problems of politics and economics and that we curb the thought that we can ever build utopia on earth. In spite ofmy theoretical recognition of social justice's impor-tance and in spite of my practical efforts, past and present, in behalf of civil rights and of the poor, I believe that, from a reli-gious point of view, the social project remains ,superficial. Metaphysically, it is ultimately uninteresting. Cornel West, the brilliant black theology professor at Harvard Divinity School, often discusses social issues on Boston television. One day he was especially aroused and ended his speech with: "My brothers and sisters, this is the real important stuf!!" I shook my head and thought: Millions of people are dead and everyone is going to die. How can a theologian give such ultimate importance to this transient consciousness show we call the world? I am more in tune with Wilfrid Duffy SM, a priest-poet friend of mine afflicted with Parkinson's, whom I took to visit Michelangelo's statue of Moses in Rome. Disappointed with Moses' worldly appearance, he wrote a poem called "The Death of Moses" which ends with these words: ~ There was no dirge-- Just hard marble, noble features, Well-spaced fingers and toes, a certain strength, and some magnificence. But no d~sert; no voice of God, Unless I was not listen.ing. Perhaps it was I who had died. In the sociopolitical vision of the kingdom as practiced by some, where is the magic Of Bernini's sculpture of St. Teresa of Avila in rapture with God? What is the meaning of fasting, prayer, personal mortification, the Eucharist, confession, the drama of conversion and grace, justification, of Jacob wrestling with an angel? Interiority and mystery seem to get short shrift in the cur-rent version of the prophetic vision, as do original sin and personal sanctification and, yes, even ultimate salvation. Have we learned the Marxist lesson too well? Annette Pelletier IHM asks some poignant questions in this regard. "Have any., of the adaptations since Vatican II pro-claimed to the people of God the basic message that grace works? yuly-August 1996 Dilanni ¯ Reli~ousLife Politics, justice, and even morality cannot be the absolute center of the religious-life agenda. What else will or can ever change the present identity crisis of consecrated persons and their various congregations into an opportunity for reform, revitalization, and renewal if not the power of Mystery to fascinate but also to convert? Has this pri-mal experience of the Judeo-Christian tradition fallen by the way-side?" She continues: "Since Vatican II, adaptation and renewal have bridged the gap between the world and the consecrated life, but of what metal has that bridge been forged? Could it be that in bridging the gap an essential element of the identity of persons consecrated to God some-how got lost? What credible and clear evi-dence do religious women and men give to show that contact with the Holy somehow, mysteriously, does make a difference?" She quotes Richard Fragomeni saying that "the Christian tradition ultimately stands in silence before the operation of grace, the wonder of surprise, and the movement of a power beyond that of human consciousness and performance.''23 To be truly prophetic in the religious sense, religious life requires an integration of these two points of view about the king-dom-- the mystical-eschatological and the sociopsychological-- both of which have their roots in the gospel. The first rightly stresses the need for a mystical union with God' in this life and the hope for ultimate union with God hereafter. The first com-mandment, said Jesus, is that we love God with our whole heart. On the other hand, the Jesus we meet in prayer and in the Scriptures is the very embodiment of a God of compassion. Jesus reveals that Yahweh is not a "generic" God (Brueggemann), but a God who is interested in justice. To be involved with the God of Jesus is to be involved with the poor and the marginal of this world. We cannot be satisfied with urging them to suffer in the hope of an eternal reward in heaven. And yet secularism remains the deepest problem of the dom-inant culture, and it is at the center of the religious project. It is in grappling with this aspect of our culture that religious ,;rill truly and most deeply engage it. The deconstructionists are hard at work trying to be rid of all "metanarratives," and the pragma-tists are banishing any attempt to ground any~statement as true, A valedictorian at Harvard recently said: "At Harvard they teach Review for Religious you that you can hold any value you want, as long as you don't hold it to be true." Television is not far behind. It continues to dis-place the deep and serious with celebrity, with hi-tech gossip, and with the tolerance morality of the talk shows. I strongly applaud Joan Chittister's suggestion that we must be corporately visible, but the principal goals she sets--educating the world about °the new social questions of the age, about sexism, racism, the environment, and multiculturalism, about the whole agenda of political correctness--all remain at the level of politics and sometimes debatable politics. There is justice and justice. Politics, justice, and even morality cannot be the absolute center of the religious-life agenda. But coming to grips with an atheis-tic secularism can, for it is a directly theological and religious issue. What is more countercultural, to say that we are going to save planet Earth or to say that Jesus rose from the dead and that this makes all the difference? Which answers our deepest and most ultimate concerns? Which, metaphysically speaking, and which, from a religious point of view, is more interesting? Perhaps the last thirty years of religious life have been fruit-ful after all. With T.S. Eliot we may be able now to cease our exploration, return home, anddiscover the place for the first time. For in thirty years we have changed and perhaps only now have the wisdom to plan a renewal and a future. In our planning for the 21st century, can we not truly join action and contemplation, this-worldly love and the inystical-eschatological--envisage, that is, a close friendship between oneself as prophet and oneself as spouse of Christ? And can we not then send them both off on a splendid quest that we might call, according to the metaphor Qf Keel and Beaudry, "a journey together toward God"? Notes * See Patricia Wittberg, The Rise and Fall of Catholic Religious Orders (Albany: SUNY Press, 1994), p. 269. 2 See Albert DiIanni, Religious Life as Adventure (Staten Island: Alba House, 1994). 3 William R. Burrows's interview with David Tracy in America, 14 October 1995, p. 16. 4 See Martin R. Tripole, "The Roots of Faith-and-Justice: Critical Assessment," Review for Religious 54, no. 5 (September-October 1995): passim. s Joan Chittister, "Religious Life Today: Response to Kerkhofs," Religious Life Review 32, no. 4' (1993): 203. Dilanni ¯ Religious Life 6 Joan Chittister, "Religious Orders," National Catholic Reporter, 18 February 1994, p. 16. 7 Wittberg, Rise and Fall, p. 239. s The findings of Nygren and Ukeritis also seem to confirm that the flight to democracy was not well thought out: "Assumption~ regarding the applicabilit~ of democratic forms of governance to religious life were made with little or no conversation regarding the appropriateness of this move. Centuries-old notions of obedience were dismissed and replaced with concepts such as ,listening to the Spirit' which, while challenging, lack a history of experience to provide a context that produces consis-tency in form or process" (David Nygren and Miriam Ukeritis, The Future of Religious Orders in the United States [FORUS] [Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1993], p. 240). 9 Wittberg, Rise and Fall, p. 27. ,0 Edwin L. Keel SM and Susan Beaudry PM, "Journeying to God Together," Review for Religious 53, no. 3 (May-June 1994): 441. 1, See Elizabeth McDonough, "The Past Is Prologue: Quid Agis?" Review for Religious 51, no. 1 (January-February 1992): 82, and also Wittberg, Rise and Fall, p. 193. ,2Wittberg, Rise and Fall, p. 256. 13 See Wittberg, Rise and Fall, p. xi. 14On developments of this sort, see Elizabeth McDonough, "Beyond the Liberal Model: Quo Vadis?" Review for Religious 50, no. 2 (March- April 1991), pp. 172-173 and 176-177, and her "Past Is Prologue," pp. 79- 82. In the latter article she is using material from Patricia Wittberg, Creating a Future for Religious Life (New York: Paulist Press, 1991). ,s Wittberg, Rise and Fall, p. 270. ,6 .Nygren and Ukeritis, FORUS, p. 244. ,7 Chittister, "Religious Orders," p. 16. 18 Judith A. Merkel, Committed by Choice (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1992), p. 54. ,9 Walter Kasper, The God of Jesus Christ (New York: Crossroad, 1986), p. ll. 20 Chittister, "Religious Orders," p. 17. 2,America, 2 September 1989, p. 127. 22 It is unjust to ask some to struggle to the death for a future utopia to be enjoyed only by others in the future. Even the Marxist philosopher Theodore Adorno was exercised by this problem and insisted that there must also be a justice for the dead. 23 Annette M. Pelletier, "Fascination with the Holy--and Conversion," Review for Religious 53, no. 4 (July-August 1994): 562-563,565. Review for Religious JANET MALONE Internationality: ConsciousnessRaising and Conversion nternationality in religious congregations has a price, and .l. congregations that in recent years have called themselves inter-national are now in the various stages of conversion requisite to being purposefully international or what Catherine Harmer has called intentionally international. At this point it is important for them to keep their eyes open to internationality's richness, for the changes and conversion that are requisite to being truly interna-tional bring the difficulties--the price--very much to the fore. Ways of Coping Change can be scary, and becoming an international congre-gation has been quite difficult for many communities, to the point where certain resistances have surfaced as ways of coping with this new "crisis." In working with such congregations, I have noted various ways of coping. Some groups want to downplay the full connotation of internationality in its mission sense of supra-nationality even when in fact, with acceptance and incorporation of some different cultures and nationalities, a new congregational culture has already come into being that, in many ways, goes well beyond being the mere sum of its older and newer parts. Other congregations that have called themselves international by reason of their physical expansion into other nations now deal Janet Malone CND wrote "Coming Home: The Journey Within" for our May-June 1995 issue. Her address is 24-1002 Dufferin Avenue; Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; S7H 2C1 Canada. ~uly-August 1996 Malone ¯ Internationality with subtle and varying aspects of resistance throughout their congregations. In still other congregations, the resistance has been quite subtle, with efforts by some members to have their congregations refer to themselves, not as "international," but as "multicultural" or "intercultural" or as congregations "with an international character." Some congregations seem ready to rescind the appellation of internationality because of the cost in terms of both personal and corporate conversion. They would justify this retrograde step by emphasizing that they are not really international because they are present in only.a few other nations. On the other hand, if a congregation purposefully decides to become or to remain an international one, it most likely must go through, both personally and corporately, an actual step-by-step process of conversion. This involves consciousness raising. The Process of Consciousness Rai sing In this article I want to highlight the different stages of con-sciousness raising. Being consciously aware of these stages can help change "hearts of stone to hearts of flesh" (Ez 36:26) in the process of becoming purposefully international. In my January- February 1992 article "Internationality--At What Price?" I spoke about conversion; herein I shall elaborate on what I now see as the intermediate steps of consciousness raising in the conversion process. Sometimes the dominant culture is replaced by another group's culture with the result that the oppressed become the oppressor. When that happens, a congregation--using power in a way that creates scarcity, and marginalization--plays'the game of musical chairs. Whether the oppression is conscious or not, those with power marginalize others and continue the injustice. It is normal for there to be resistances, biases, prejudices, and stereotypes as a congregation becomes truly international, for various members are at different stages of consciousness awareness (and conversion) in their own. enculturation, acculturation, and inculturation. It has been my experience in worki.'ng with inter-national groups that resistance to change in the form of preju-dices and stereotypes comes from very sincere people who feel threatened by the unknown and wonder how the proposed changes will affect them. Like most things in life, consciousness Review for Religious raising does not happen all at once. Rather, it is a process of awareness and evaluation of hitherto unperceived injustices that preclude the changes necessary for conversion. The rhythm of consciousness raising is different for different individuals, and it holds a particular challenge for those in lead-ership roles in a congregation. These need to be somewhat com-fortable with the unknown, with taking risks. Only then can they encourage the members to take some requisite steps toward becoming comfortable with the attitudinal and structural changes that can eliminate subtle oppressions of which many members may be quite unaware. In so doing, they model equality and mutuality. Consciousness raising he.lps to bring about real change in the attitudes of individuals and in congregational structures that reflect the dominant culture. Consciousness raising gradually brings a group to an honest evaluation of the ways of being and doing in the group that, in many instances, are distinctive of the domi-nant, founding group. Such an evaluation can then lead to the necessary changes in praxis. Stages of Consciousness Raising Adapting the work of Gaylor and Fitzpatrick, I will now high-light six differeht stages of consciousness raising in congregations becoming purposefully international. Not linear, these six stages in consciousness raising tend to overlap in a helical fashion. The first stage, the "no big deal" stage, is characterized by per-plexity and sometimes denial that there is a problem, This can be experienced by both sides of the internationality challenge: those who are the majority and see no oppression whatsoever and those who--unaware of it or only minimally aware--are the receivers of such oppression. Thus, there can be outright denial of the injustice and dismissal of any claims of it or a trivializa-tion of the injustice. For example, in a mixed-language group where there is "whisper" translation, people in the majority group may interrupt a minority speaker in midsentence and demand immediate translation. On the other hand, members of the major-ity group may carry on a full conversation among themselves while translation is being provided for the minority group. Members of a majority find it difficult to see this kind of problem even when it is pointed out. The minority group may see this as ,the way things have always been and display a certain ffuly-August 1996 Malone ¯ Internationality passivity or resignation. In both instances there is no awareness or almost none in this "~no big deal" stage. If, however, a congrega-tion is really serious about its internationality, then each language group, regardless of numbers, deserves a sacred space to under-stand and be understood. At this stage, discrepancies between the majority's demands and the needs of the minority can be trivialized by the majority with such statements as "Oh, it wasn't intentional" and by the minority with "They don't mean to be rude." In both instances there is no consciousness or only a minimal awareness of injustices and oppression, subtle or otherwise. The second, "eye-opening" stage occurs when a member of either group, the majority or the minority, experiences such types of oppression with some discomfort. Itis very easy here to revert back to the "no big deal" stage, but at .this second stage both groups can see previously status-quo experiences in a new light. Consciousness is being raised; as Ecclesiastes 3 observes, the "sea-son" for it has come. Experiences that were seen as normal are now evaluated some-what differently. Still, this evaluation is fragile. If, as a member of the dominant group, I am not much impressed by this new eval-uation, then I. may become ambivalent and protective of the sta-res quo. If I am a member of the minority group, I may not speak out on an injustice for fear of being rejectedand labeled a trou-blemaker. Members of the majority may realize for the first time that they refer to a minority group from a developing nation as "cute" and "innocent," with "so much to learn." In this stage they come to a deeper insight into what they are really saying. The third, "on the fence" stage is that point where, although: individuals or groups in an international congregation now se,e unequivocally the injustices within the congregation towards cer-tain groups, they still do not have the courage to "walk their talk." They still try to curry favor with both sides. Being "on the fence," they maneuver between the two sides without taking a firm stand on the side of the oppressed. Although it is important to see both sides of any situation, still it is critical at certain times to get "off: the fence." The warn-ing of Jesus about being lukewarm resounds here. For example, in a congregation which has called itself international, a particular group lobbies to change that term to something like intercultural because it thinks, that will solve the discontent of some of the Review for Religious majority group. Without a critical analysis of the issues involved, many congregation members may stay "on the fence" and not try to explore possible resistances underneath. The fourth, "coming home" stage of consciousness raising is that point where an individual or a group in the international congregation moves to making public various convictions on issues integral to internationality. It is the point where the personal convictions expressed heretofore only in safe, private spaces are now shared in more public places within the congregation, although still in rather circumspect ways. This stage is both diffi-cult and challenging because "the medium becomes the message." For example, a per-son or a group may submit to the congre~ gational leadership a proposal for specific structural changes to enhance the congre-gation's internationality. The private has become public, but not as yet within the public forum of a chapter or assembly of the total congregation. The fifth, "passion" stage of conscious-ness raising is a .more integrated stage involving both head and heart. Persons immediately come to mind who have had a passion for certain truths: "I have a dream."; "Ask not what your country can do for you."; "Go and gather up the drops of blood . " This stage challenges individuals and groups to lace their reasoned and dispassionate discourse with some emotion, such as anger at instances of oppression and injustice. When expressed construc-tively and nonviolently, such anger can be an energy and .catalyst for change. For example, at international meetings where an impasse has been reached because of fears and resistances, a spe-cial meeting might be called to get at these fears and blocks to any change. The danger here can be that the only interventions rec-ognized in the group are those which focus solely on "defini-tions," "constitutions," and "canon law." The challenge is to get underneath the words to the energy of the emotions. Only when the stories of personal experiences around such feelings are shared is there any movement in the group toward some deeper con-scious awareness. Members of the majority may realize that they refer to a minority group from a developing nation as "cute" and "innocent," with "so much to learn." Malone ¯ Internationality Patience and waiting are also critically important in this stage; planting the seeds of change and waiting for them to blossom is what being prophetic is all about. It is the process of going from "mine" to "ours." For example, an important component of being international is to have an international communications office and journal, both of which are grassroots and decentralized so that inculturation can gradually occur from the bottom up. It may take some time for that dream to move from being "mine" to "ours" in an international group because of many different variables, some of which may be subtle efforts to hold on to the status quo. The sixth and last stage, "acceptance/appropriation/incorpora-tion," is the crux of consciousness raising. It is that season in the life of a congregation where being international is not just the decision of a chapter or decision-making body. Rather, it is the season where internationality is the lived reality in the group. Such acceptance/appropriation/incorporation leads to a sense of equality and mutuality in the congregation and is reflected in both personal and corporate attitudinal and structural changes. Personal Conversion Having surveyed the stages of consciousness raising about biases, prejudices, stereotypes, and resultant injustices and oppres-sion, we now explore their implications for conversion. Personal conversion may take many different shapes including intellectual, moral, and spiritual conversion. Although conversion, like con-sciousness raising, is not a linear process but in many ways a gift of the grace of G6d, yet this helical process has some distinct aspects. Intellectual conversion interfaces directly with the stages of consciousness raising. It is a seeing with new eyes that continuing to support or collude with oppressive structures and ways of being in one's congregation is wrong. Now morally aware of behaviors in these matters that are actually sinful, the members of the dom-inant group must become morally aware also of their passivity in not speaking out about an ol6pressive status quo. An attitudinal shift must occur that moves them to do something about the injus-tice, be that something ever so small in the large scale of things. When people perceive the general pattern of increased aware-ness and its call for moral conversion, they may notice the :pattern in groups not only where they oppress others but also where oth- Review for Religious ers oppress them. They should notice, too, that it is very easy for the oppressed to become the oppressors in other circumstances. Unless there is a conscious intent to break the cycle of oppression, ¯ it is likely to continue. Spiritual conversion calls members of a congregation to live the gospel in .a radical way, such that there can be true love, for-giveness, and reconciliation as the different ways of oppressing come to light. Such conversion is countercultural when there is reconciliation and not revenge. "Love is patient, kind, not jealous, does not seek its own interests, is not quick-tempered, and does not brood over injury. It does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with.the truth" (1 Co 13:4-6). Corporate Conversion Corporate conversion requires changes within the organiza-tional structures of the congregation so thfit the sense Of mutuality and equality will exist both in word and in the lived praxis. Catherine Harmer details the structural changes required to become intentionally international. These changes are summa-rized here: 1. Each of the different provinces/regions/cultural entities in a congregation has the necessary autonomy to make local decisions regarding ministry choices, personnel changes, formation, and finances. 2. The leadership in each province/region/area should normally be made up of the people of that country. 3. International congregational committees and task forces must include representatives from all areas. 4. General chapters must also be representative of the total congregation not bnly in attendance but also in plan-ning and staff. 5. Provision must be made to accommodate diverse lan-guage groups at such meetings. 6. The members of the central administration of the con-gregation must reflect its internationality. 7. The founding group should eventually cease to domi-nate in all aspects of the congregational life. Conclusion Some congregations, ~n their beginnings, were not founded as international groups.~ In recent years they may have called July-August 1996 Malone * Internationali~ themselves international because of their "physical" expansion to different nations. They go through birthpangs when this acci-dental internationality becomes a purposeful or intentional inter-nationality. This article has affirmed that various resistances to the new and the temptation to go back to the "good old days" are a nor~ mal part of such a new birth. This process, for both personal and corporate conversion, has been clarified by the application of Gaylor and Fitzpatrick's stages of consciousness raising to the matter of becoming a truly international congregation. References Jean Alvarez. "Prejudice in Religious Congregations." Human Development, Winter 1983. Christine C. Gaylor and Annelle Fitzpatrick. "The Stages of Consciousness Raising." Human Development, Fall 1987. Catherine Harmer. "Internationality: Intentional or Accidental." Review for Religious 52, no. 1 (January-February 1993): 111-118. Janet Malone. "Internationality--At What Price?" Review for Religious 51, no. 1 (January-February 1992): 109-117. Dorcas Surely, there was time to miss what might be missed: garments made, acts of charity attested to by friends and neighbors, the complexities of a simple style, feel of wool well-woven, the breathless moment prior to a newborn's angry cry. Then, did you hesitate at all on that gruff apostle's word before, gazelle-like (how else), you leapt from there to here? Leonar~i Cochran OP Review for Religious FINIAN McGINN Toward Multiculturalizing a Religious Community ~nheaot happens when a community evolves from a homoge- us ethnic group to a heterogeneous ethnic group? Do the inner structures of the group change? Do they have to change; if so, how far? How can we change structures to meet the multi-cultural needs of the members? Do we have any models of recent attempts toward multiculturalization of institutions? With more Hispanic and southeast Asian membership in U.S. religious com-munities, what are the areas of greatest tension? How do we pre-pare our members for a multicultural institution? Is there a different type of preparation for the older members than for the younger? Does the same phenomenon happen to public educational institu-tions, businesses, and large corporations? These are but a few of the issues confronting provincials in the United States as they realize that they have been writing more letters in Spanish to their members than those of the previous administration and that they see more and more Vietnamese-- survivors of the fall of Saigon in 1975--in their houses of forma-tion. What has happened to the province we entered in the 1950s? At that time most of us were German, Italian, Polish, and Irish-- predominantly Westerners of European descent. Now, in the mid 1990s, we have become pluralistic, much more ethnically diverse, and the old ways of doing things have begun to change. As ministers of the local :church, most of us have witnessed our parishes and other apostolates change demographically, but we Finian McGinn OFM serves as vicar provincial for the Santa Barbara province of the Franciscan friars. His address is 1500 34th Avenue; Oakland, California 94601. ffuly-August 1996 McGinn * Toward Multiculturalizin~ a Reli~ous Communi~ have failed to look inward at our own religious communities. We have tried to prepare the people in our areas of work by inviting experts to give inservices and workshops to inform the parish-ioners about the new reality they face and to help them understand the new refugee and immigrant neighbors in their midst. We have applied multicultural solutions to our apostolates, but we have failed to prescribe them for our own religious communities. Immigrants and Refugees in General What are the differences of today? Ethnographers tell us that the Hispanic, the southeast Asian, and the African American have different ways of looking at the family, at community life, work, interpersonal relationships, prayer; recreation, decision making, and at many other issues which are essential to religious life. Even though 'we see out communities beginning to change demo-graphically we continue to do what we have been doing for years. Superiors are becoming aware that many of the strategies that were used before are no longer effective today because of the dif-ferent cultural values held by the members. Is there agreement on a common hierarchy of values? How does a superior take into consideration the Asian notion of "sav-ing face" in his or her decision making? If the culture affirms dependence and docility, how does one teach independence, assertiveness and confrontation? If the culture emphasizes family, interpersonal relationships with persons of the same culture and close-knit ingroupings, how does it embrace a larger community of muhiethnic members? How do different cultural groups view the vows; how do they see religious obedience? How much does a province change to accommodate the new cultures? .Multiculturalizing in the United States presents a rather polit-ically sticky problem. At present the United States offers a con-text where xenophobia is quite present. Historically we have gone from the melting pot model to a nonwelcoming model and from: "Come but assimilate quickly" to "Don't come and, in fact; you're not welcome!" Today movements against immigration are strong; foreigners are looked upon as inferior, their culture deficient, their language an obstacle to the acquisition of English. The province is aware of and perhaps may even pick up these negative attitudes by contagion or osmosis. Minority candidates who lived in the society where antiimmigration propaganda is prevalent Review for Religious approach the province wondering in what manner they will be received. R. Otheguy, commenting on the melting pot notion of the United States, remarks: "Because of their experience with racism in this country, many Hispanics have long ago given up hope of disappearing"--of blending into U.S. society. Baker takes the reasoning a step further and concludes that Hispanics found in multiculturalism a way to become at least somewhat American and keep their cultural values at the same time. He states, "Because of the [Hispanic's] history of being the victim of racism, the result may be the prevention of assimilation and integration with a consequent need to embrace some form of multicultural-ism for survival, security, status, and self-enhancement." Ethnic minorities themselves speak of additive biculturalism and bilingualism (Cummins, 1989). The melting pot paradigm has stressed a subtractive aspect: "Acquire English and lose your native language! Assimilate into U.S. society and forget your own culture; it's a deficit." Ethnographers and multiculturalists, on the other hand, speak of English-plus and acculturation to the host cul-ture. "ApprEciate your own language and learn English too. Take on the good U.S. cultural values, but don't lose your own culture in the process!" Most minorities lean toward maintenance of their language and culture as they adapt them-selves to the U.S. resettlement process (Lambert & Taylor). Paulo Freire describes the approach whereby the dominant culture wit-tingly or unwittingly attempts to impose the mainstream culture on new arrivals as "cultural invasion . a form of cultural domi-nation." Hopefully today's religious community advocates the addi-tive approach. As in many of these issues, however, it is much easier to speak about it than to do it. How do different cultural groups view the vows; how do they see religious obedience? How much does a province change to accommodate. the new cultures ? A Pluralistic Religious Community in Missionary Lands After some years in a missionary area, the superior general of a congregation in Rome insists that groups of a congregation 3~uly-August 1996 McGinn ¯ Toward Multiculturalizing a Religious Community from different nations in a foreign missionary country form one province. Each small group initially came to the mission country and received a portion of the mission territory within which to work. Members of the same ethnic group struggled with the lan-guage together, worked together, prayed together, evangelized the territory together, and accepted and formed native vocations. After some years this group and others in the missionary nation are asked to begin to form one entity together with the native religious of the area. This is an extremely difficult process and almost always poses a threat to both the foreigners and the native-born religious. The foreigners are no longer the majority in the group. They brought the faith, founded the missions, trained and even baptized and formed the native religious. In fact, they are still held in awe by the native religious members of the congregation. The foreigners are older and have been trained in a different the-ology of mission. The native religious, members of the host cul-ture, know the nation and its culture much better ,than do the foreigners. They have definite ideas on what should be done in their own country but are afraid to offend the foreigners who have given them the faith in the first place. This leads to a cultural impasse. To form the one entity from many disparate groups and to agree upon a common set of values is fraught with tension. In the United States In religious communities of the United States, however, usu-ally the majority membership of the institution is of white west-ern European stock; they are members of the host culture who have been living religious life for some time and have reached a consensus or implicit agreement upon certain common values of the institution. The tension arises as other multiethnic members become a sizeable minority, become visible, and begin to make their voices heard within the membership. How do the new mem-bers fit in? How does the larger group make room for them? What interior and exterior changes must take place to allow this to happen? How Other Institutions Meet the Challenge Businesses are learning new strategies to capitalize on inter-national markets and to improve communication with foreign Review for Religious nationals. Many public school districts, impacted by the influx of immigrants and refugees, offer classes, inservices and workshops on understanding cultural differences to relate with parents and members of the minority community and to enhance crosscul-tural communication. Business and education are presently publishing ma6~y books and articles dealing with multicultural differences and ways of adapting to and understanding people of other cultures. We, as religious, have not yet tapped these sources for our own com-munities. Business Since the Peace Corps in the early 1960s, many types of cross-cultural training programs have been designed to prepare indi-viduals for life in another culture. The goal of such programs is to help the business organization reduce and' prevent business losses and personal trauma. Harris and Moran. describe at least four models of training in cross-cultural orientation programs, ranging from lectures and readings about the culturel through simulation activities and sen-sitivity training to a cultural awareness model which seeks to develop one's ability to recognize ~cultural influence~ in personal values, behaviors, and cognitions. The goals of any training in cultural awareness are the following: a)to develop one's skill in diagnosing .difficulties in intercultural communication, b) to teach one when to suspend judgment when confronted with behavior which appears odd, c) to help one become aware of one's lack of sufficient knowledge of the other culture, and d) to increase one's motivation to learn more about the culture and the people. Public School Districts Public schools train cultural staff persons in cross cultural com-munication and hire. experts of the target 'cultural groups to present orientation and inservice to administrators and both certificated and classified personnel. These inservices and workshops are offered to both new and veteran teachers and staff. The host culture is compared to the immigrant or refugee culture. Culture brokers and the cultural specialists explain the areas of possible tension and/or misunderstanding; differing'values are examined, discussedL, 3-7-7- .~dy-Aug~tst 1996 McGinn ¯ Toward Multiculturalizing a Religious Community and understood. The goal of the process is twofold. It seeks to offer awareness and understanding of the newly arrived ethnic group and to examine the behavior of the teachers, administrators, and staff toward this group. James A. Banks distinguishes between two types of curricula in the schools: the manifest curriculum and the hidden curriculum. It is the hidden curriculum which is more cogent and which impo.ses the implicit norms and values of the school. Hopefully, the process of cultural awareness will shed some light on the hidden values and norms of the institution. Steps Religious Groups Are Taking By far one of the most multicultural communities in the United States and elsewhere is the international community of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary. From its very foundation it has been international and universal in scope. It has no set policy governing ethnicity in the local house, yet from the beginning of the institute, its communities have been from different countries, ethnic groups, and cultures. Members of the institute have con-sistendy affirmed the intention that wherever possible, their com-munities be international in membership. Although they do not have formal courses in international living, the administration does try to provide the members with experiences locally, provincially, and at the general level that will expose them to the reality of living in a multicultural commu-nity. In recent years, two continuing formation programs have helped the members deepen this expression of international, mul-ticultural living in community: They also have regional meetings and meetings of administrators. "All of these gatherings, while addressing specific questions, give the opportunity for the sisters to get to know one another and to build up understanding and relationships. [The gatherings] deepen the sense of our being from many different places and our unity in diversity" (MOtte). It should be noted that in the gatherings the sisters use three linguae francae--French, Spanish, and English as official languages dur-ing the meetings. Maryknoll , Maryknoll has developed its Cross-Cultural Training Services for those who wish to discern theircall and prepare for cross- Review for Religious cultural ministry. A team of experts directs a month-long, inten-sive preparation, including a week retreat, for those planning to work abroad. The topics discussed during the training include culture and society, adjustment to a new culture, strategies for surviving culture and language shock, spirituality, inculturation, and discernment. As always, Maryknoll continues to offer a realistic prepara-tion to both religious and lay persons who find themselves called to a global ministry. Much of the content studied in the training sessions is vital and, with a little adaptation, can easily be used in workshops for religious institutions in the United States which are in the process of becoming multiethnic. Content of a Multicultural Awareness Program Should any province wish to set up a program to make itself more multicultural there shoul~t be certain key components of the content area. The actual training program could range from lectures, workshops to an institute, or any combination of the three. The speakers at the events should be experts in various areas of ethnic studies, preferably not members of the partici-pating religious group. In the world of language-minority students, J. Cummins speaks of certain "dimensions" necessary for the empowerment of minorities. The dimensions mentioned in Cummins's paradigm for empowerment touch the very center of multicultural living. They can easily be adapted from an educational institution to a reli-gious community. Cummins stresses four essential dimensions: language, collaboration, reciprocity, and advocacy. A. Language. The language issue is important. Theoreticians speak of language shock as. they describe, the early years of a person's resettlement in the United States. Bilingualists stress :the incor-poration of one's home language into the life of the school and its curriculum. The inclusion of the minority language and culture into the school has significant effects on the personality, attitudes, and the social and emotional well being of the students and their parents. The language issue in a religious community is also of impor-tance. The minority candidate must feel at ease in the language of the .host country. At times, both community and ministry err by failing to allow sufficient time f6r the acquisition of higher cog- 3~dy-.4ug~t 1996 McGinn * Toward Multiculturalizing a Religious Community The emotional drain of trying to live in a society that speaks one's second language is stressful for the minority religious. nitive and academic vocabulary to emerge in second-language acquisition, and, satisfied with the conversational idiom which we hear daily, tell the newly arrived religious, "There's a great need in the ministry for a Spanish-speaking religious. You know enough English now, get to work in a barrio parish. Fulfill our need in the Spanish-speaking ministry!" (The language learner, too, may become impatient with the slowness of the acquisition process and, in his or her impatience, opt to begin ministry sooner than he or she should.) This may be a great boon for the ministry of the province, but not for com-munity life. We have deprived the candi-date and the religious community of the depth and the wisdom which both can bring to community living. In this area it seems much better to err on the side of more English. rather than less. The'emotional drain of trying to live in a society that speaks one's second lan-guage is stressful for the minority religious. No matter how proficient one is in L2, there are times when learners simply shut down. Teachers, those who have studied abroad, and linguists describe the state of one who has paid attention all day to academic discourse in the weaker language and in the evening simply blanks out and is unable to comprehend even the simplest of phrases in L2. Larson and Smalley describe language shock as a component of culture shock that has profound effects on one who is trying to acquire the lan-guage of the host society. Rese~irchers point out that the disori-entation caused by language shock can induce a whole syndrome of rejection. The newly arrived must cope with the new stress and therefore must divert attention and energy from learning the second language. The learner begins to reject speakers of the tar-get language. These speakers become the source of his or her dis-orientation and, therefore, he or she has difficulty forming identifications necessary to learn the language of the host coun-try. The problem becomes even more complex if the learner per-ceives, erroneously or otherwise, that the speakers of the target language reject the learner and his or her culture .and language. Language has many paradoxical uses. Instead of opening doors, it can close them. It can,; at times, be used as a wall, or a Revlew for Religious defense to unite a group or to keep others out. Knowingly or unknowningly, fluently bilingual speakers will use the language which other members of the community do not understand to keep them out of the circle or to provide a feeling of belonging for themselves. Unless one knows the linguistic code--he or she can-not enter the inner circle. Opportunities to study the languages of the members of the community should also be offered and even encouraged for the majority members of the religious congregation. Bialystok and Hakuta treat the types of motivation in second-language learning and come to the conclusion that few of us learn a second lan-guage as an end in itself. Most of us learn it "to gain access, through verbal interaction, to cultural dealings with people who lay claim to that language." As most of us can read a language better than we can speak it, community liturgies and prayer of the hours could be said on alternate days in either language if the members of the local com-munity were in the process of~becoming bilingual. Fine language courses with new, nonthreatening and nonbelittling methodol-ogy are offered in practically every large city of the country. Corollary 1. Spending the time and energy in the attempt to learn a language used by a large number of the religious congregation (that of the host country and that of the minority cultures) is a good investment by the province in community life. B. Collaboration. Cummins claims that where the culture of the family is not given status in the school and communities and parents are kept powerless, then inferiority and lack of school progress may result. When there is parental collaboration with the teacher there is usually success. Religious communities at times tend to take the culture of origin of the member for granted and in no way envision it as a factor in the religious formation of the individual. We tend to think that their mother and dad are like our mother and dad and that their home is like our home. With the advent of people from many diverse areas of the world, the assumption no longer works if it ever did. The following is an example from education of this type of reasoning. A successful middle-school teacher recently remarked: "I just assumed that their home was like my home and for two years in middle school I demanded at least thirty minutes of written homework. Then I visited one of the homes. It was a revelation. ~dy-August 1996 McGinn ¯ Toward Multiculturalizing a Religious Community The.home and local community of the culturally different are areas that the religious province cannot afford to ignore. In a two-bedroom apartment three families were living (around 16 individuals). There was no quiet space, very lit.de furniture, and little ones were scurrying all around. If any homework could be done, it would be done at the kitchen-table, the only table in the home. This would be done while the five elders were watching television at the same time in the same room. I began to realize that doing homework in'a home such as that one was notan easy task. The example was not characteristic of only one family but of the vast majority of families of Hmong students at that school." Awareness of the culture and the val-ues of the minority religious is essential. Conchita Delgado-Gaitan has many stud-ies that analyze learning experiences in the home and parental strategies used to impart knowledge and values to the chil-dren. She compared the home strategies with those used by the school of the dom-inant culture to discover convergence or dissonance. She studied the linkage between the culture of the home and that of the school. The home and local community of the culturally different are areas that the religious province cannot afford to ignore. Culture shock, discussed in most cultural orientation work-shops, is not as easily remedied as one might think. This psychic ~hock is the anxiety which results from the disorientation encoun-tered upon entering a new culture. Larson and Smalley describe how essential characteristics of good mental health are often lost just by moving into a new culture. Extreme symptoms of culture shock may pass relatively quickly as ways of coping with the new environment are acquired. More subtle problems, however, may persist and produce stress which can last for years. Paul Pedersen, in his recent book, A Handbook for Developing Multicultural Awareness, confirms that culture shock is likely to last over the visitor's entire stay in an unfamiliar culture, reappear in a variety of forms, and not be limited to an initial adjustment. Spindler and Spindler, of Stanford University, have been train-ing people in ethnographic evaluation of educational environ, ments for many years. Cultural therapy, the term the ,Spindlers use to describe a procedure of reflective, cross-cultural analysis of Review for Religious individuals of different cultures through personal encounters, has become quite famous. The aim of the therapy is to promote cross cultural and intracultural behavioral understanding. The process involves open dialogue between people of different cultures (teacher and student or a member of the host culture and one of the cultural minority). It seeks to reveal to the educator and to the minority student unconscious biases and cultural ethnocentrism. Trueba shows how culture shock experienced by the culturally diverse can have an effect on the members of the host culture, and he observes: "Therefore, it is extremely important for teach-ers to realize that they are experiencing cultural shock when they try to function effectively with children who do not share their values and expectations. Academic success requires, then, that both teachers and students build learning environments in which success is possible for both." How can we make the local reli-gious communities places which assure success and fairness for all members of whatever culture? With each of the four dimensions paternalism on the part of the member of the host culture is a temptation, Among members of the religious institute, the environment should be one of equal-ity. A paternalistic attitude in this process would promote a depen-dency which would impede empowerment and fail to promote success. On the other hand, members of the religious commu-nity who have lived in other countries and those who have strug-gled to acquire another language--of host country or of the language minority--are equipped to act as culture brokers and even cultural therapists in helping to make the new culture more familiar and less strange and in creating an atmosphere which insures fairness and success. Corollary 2. Awareness of the new cultures in the religious community should be encouraged. Study of one's own culture and that of other members of the community should be pro-moted. Appreciation of the ethnic diversity of the community by listening and telling stories without ethnocentric bias and judgment will hopefully develop respect for the legitimate cultural differences of the religious community. C. Reciprocity. Cummi~as's third dimension stresses the fact that the language minority student must not simply receive the new knowledge passively but there should be a reciprocal inter-action, a dialogue in which the minority students bring their rich-ness to the process. 3n~uly-August 1996 McGinn ¯ Toward Multicultu~alizing a Religious Community In a religious community this type of sharing appears to be difficult to attain. It demands that those who have lived in the host country all their lives and have been in the religious com-munity for many more years must begin to listen to the new ones and look at the goals and mission of the congregation from their perspective. It requires a change of attitude. In a nonjudgmental manner, one can begin to act as an ethnographer and discover new realities and appreciate the vibrant faith and the beauty in approaches to the sacred which have not been part of one's own history. To do this one must allow a forum for the culturally dif-ferent and listen to them with respect. They become the teachers. Bilingual members and members who have lived in mission lands are an asset to the religious community. Religious of diverse cultures are at different levels of acculturation, and the bilingual and former missionary members of the community are equipped to act as bridge makers in opening the dialogue between the older religious of the host country and those who are culturally diverse. Corollary 3. Reciprocity is a step toward healing the rem-nants of cultural shock. "I struggle to understand and appre-ciate the minority religious' culture, language, approach to the divine, family, and community, and the newly arrived struggle to appreciate my culture, language, approach to the divine, family, and community." ~Many demands are involved in the process, but the struggle leads to mutual respect and understanding. D. Advocacy. In a school setting, Cummins insists that the majority teachers become advocates for the language minority children. Many of the instruments used in the evaluation of minor-ity students are based and standardized on the language of the majority population, and it is often easy to detect types of insti-tutionalized racism in the school and even in the hidden curric-ula. Therefore, the minority student needs someone who is able to open doors, give advice, and accompany him or her in situations which involve power and status relationships between dominant and dominated groups at different levels of a society. When we apply this to a religious community, we can begin to consider the customs of the congregation and its particular provincial statutes to discover cultural differences which could render harmonious living difficult. Advocacy involves seeing that house libraries have sufficient current books and periodicals in the mother tongue and insisting upon minority representation at Review for Religious various levels of formation and administration even to the actual selection of superiors who are open, tolerant and appreciative of other cultures represented in the community. Benjamin Schwarz states: "Dissatisfied minorities want, at a minimum, a real voice in determining their future--but a real voice for the minority means real sacrifice for the majority." Corollary. 4. Those who enjoy acceptance in the dominant society and who are comfortable with the everyday life in the religious community spontaneously offer direction and knowledgeable advocacy. They also help to provide a voice for the ethnic minority members of the community. Toward Multiculturalization Developing multicultural awareness in a community requires many changes. Pedersen concludes his work for cross-cultural counselors by stating that the many changes involved "will pro-duce a widening ripple effect as these changes bring about other changes." He continues: "We are moving toward a future that requires us to understand persons who are different from our-selves, whatever our culture might be. Developing multicultural awareness is the strategy for our survival as well as our growth in meeting the diverse needs of a multicultural global village." In a recent letter to all the friars, Herman Schaluck the gen-eral of the Order of Friars Minor, told his brothers that the new projects which the order has embarked upon in Africa, Thailand, and the former Soviet Union were intentionally international and multicultural in makeup to sign a new way of thinking. In spite of the difficulties inherent in the understanding of an international, multicultural fraternity, the order seeks this new quality of liv-ing together. The general explains: "Paul insistently states (Ga 6) that it is not a matter of being Jews or pagans, of being cir-cumcised or uncircumcised, but of being a 'new creature.' Life in an international [multicultural] fraternity is therefore not some-thing of secondary importance or a question of strategic maneu-vering: it is rather already evangelization itself by way of example." An Apostolic Challenge We considered a number of apparently hypothetical ques-tions about a religious community evolving from a homogeneous to a heterogeneous grouping. What happens? What changes ~uly-August 1996 McGinn ¯ Toward Multiculturalizing a Religious Community occur? Can it be done? Suppose we did design workshops and planning sessions on cross-cultural awareness for the total com-munity from the insights offered by education, business, and the training programs~for foreign missionaries. Suppose, to.o, we set up processes within the provincial structures for dialogue, reciprocity, and advocacy. Would the program be successful? Certainly many changes would occur, and change is almost always tension-filled and difficult to accept. However, it would be quite exciting to embark upon such a journey. It would demand much tolerance, patience, and charity on the part of the total member-ship to ensure that the program would succeed. What a sign of forgiveness, openness, trust, and conversion such a religious com-munity could offer the world around it. The approach would cer-tainly be countercultural. Only the members themselves know whether they are willing to do this. Perhaps a religious community is the only institution which can meet this challenge. I have spent many years trying to con-vince public schools, public school districts, and even welfare departments to become more multicultural but to no avail. Conversion, forgiveness, sacrifice, patience, understanding, and charity are woven into the very fabric of religious life. These are the same virtues required to make an institution multicultural. We religious are called to be a sign. Perhaps we Can be a sign to U.S. society that actually e pluribus unum is realizable. Bibliography Baker, C. Foundations of Bilingt~.al Education and Bilingualism. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 1993. Banks, J.A., and McGee Banks, C.A., eds. Multicultural Education. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1989. Bialystok, E., and Hakuta, K. In Other Words. New York: Basic Books, 1994. Cummins, J. Empowering Minority Students. Sacramento: CABE, 1989. Delgado-Gaitan, C. "Traditions and Transitions in the Learning Process of Mexican Children: A Ethnographic View." In Spindler, G. and L. (eds.) Interpretive Ethnography of Education: At Home and Abroad. Hillsdale: Laurence Erlbaum, 1987a. Delgado-Gaitan, C. "Parent Perceptions of School: Supportive Environments for Children." In Trueba, H. (ed.) Success or Failure? Learning and the Language Minority Student. Cambridge: Harper and Row, 1987b. Review for Religious Delgado-Gaitan, C~, and' Trueba, H. Crossing Cultural Borders: Education for Immigrant Families in America. New York: Falmer, 1991. Freire, P. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Seabury, 1970. Freire, P. The Politics of Education. Boston: Bergin and Garvey, 1985. Hanley, K., csj. Cross Cultural Training Services. Maryknoll, New York, Harr.is, ER., and Moran, R.T. Managing Cultural Differences. Houston: Gulf Publishing, 1991. Lambert, W.E., and Taylor, D.M. Coping with Cultural and Racial Diversi~y in Urban America. New York: Praeger, 1990. Larson, D.N., and Smalley,'W.A. Becoming Bilinguak A Guide to Learning Language. California: William Carey Library, 1972. Law, E.H.E The VVolf Shall Dwell with the Lamb. St. Louis: Chalice Press, 1993. Motte, personal correspondence, 1995. Otheguy, R. "Thinking about Bilingual Education: A Critical Appraisal." Harvard Educatiorial Review 52 (3), 1982. Pedersen, P. A Handbook for Developing Multicultural Awareness: Alexandria: A~. erican CounselingAssociation, 1994. Schaluck, H., OFM. "On the Way Towards a New Era," May 8. Prot. 083!.19. S'chwarz, B. "The Diversity Myth: America's Leading Export." The Atlantic Monthly 275 (5), 1985. Spindler, G., and Spindler, L., eds. Pathways to Cultural Awareness. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1994. Trueba, H.T., Jacobs, L., and Kirton, E. Cultural Conflict and Adaptation: The Case of Hmong Children in American Society. New York: Falmer, 1990. JUST PUBLISHED-- The Best of the Review - 5 The Church and 'Consecrated Life (see insert at back of book for ordering) "At a time when hope for religious life and its future is once again on the rise, the articles in this book offer an exceptional and much needed panorama of the critical issues of renewal faced by contemporary men and women religious. Elizabeth McDonough and David Fleming have done us an enormous favor in bringing together the Best of the Review in this area. I recommend this book enthusiastically; its authors take us another step along the journey to that future for religious life for which we all long." --Se~nSammon FMS Vicar General Marist Brothers, Rome 3~uly-August 1996 new life ROBERT E MALONEY It's Summer! A Letter to Young Religious J My dear brothers and sisters, It is wonderful to be young. At least, most of us who have grown older think so! Young adulthood is the summer of life; autumn and winter follow only later. In the vibrant years of youth, heart, respiration, and physical strength are at their peak efficiency. Our inner drives, too, are fully alive: our quest for meaning, our longing for deeper rela-tionships, our yearning to create a better future. I am writ-ing today to encourage you who are young to enjoy, and use well, the gifts of this summertimh in your life. Youth has many striking advantages. As the superior general of a community, I often see these in the lives of young religious, both men and women. Let me describe some of them briefly. First, youth has drive and enthusiasm. It is good to rejoice in youth's vigor. I can remember a period in my life when I could interview ~tudents all day long, prepar.e classes until late at night, be up again at five the next morning for prayer and the Eucharist, and then teach a full schedule. The day arrived when I could no longer do that. But I still look back with happy memories on the vibrant energies of youth. Young people can give with zest. And they want to give their lives to something'worth-while. They seek a cause, and when they find one they Robert P. Maloney CM serves as superior general of the Vincentians. His address is Congregazione della Missione; Via dei Capasso, 30; 00164 Roma, Italy. Revie~ for Religious ? launch into it with enthusiasm. ,Their dreams, their~hopes, their vision of the future have not yet been dimmed by bitter experi-ences, or failures, or the harsh fact' that much of reality changes quite slowly. Young people gaze at the world's needs and believe that they can make a contribution. Second, youth has imagination and spontaneity. Young people bring new horizons to communities~ They have the capacity to envision new solutions, They often feel free from rigid categories or structures that have become creaky or clumsily reinforced over the years. They find it easy to identify with the words of Vincent' de Paul that "love is inventive even to infinity.''1 They are willing to "dream the impossible dream." Spontaneity is one of the refreshing aspects of youth. Young people say unexpected things. They question practices that some of us older people never had any doubts about. At times we may find that. their questions make us uncomfortable or defensive. But we should by no means be quick to interpret youth's spontaneity as a sign of aggres-siveness; rather, it often comes from a genuine desire to seek the truth. Third, youth is able to change. Those of us who are older have ploughed deep furrows. It becomes increasingly harder for us to climb out of the ruts we have dug. The furrows of the young are shal-lower. They can be ploughed over. Their direction can be changed so that new waters run through them and new life sprouts up. That is why good initial formation is important for the young. They are pliable enough to ~hink new thoughts, learn new.ways, and create new things. Of course, youth has its struggles too, its gnawing problems. Let me dwell just for a moment on a few of these. Because youth is searching, it is often uncertain about its goals or even its values. Experience tells us that, today especially, young people have diffi-culty making a permanent commitment. There is so much rapid change in society, there is so much disillusionment with those whose values the young may once have prized, that they find it hard to decide where to sink their roots. This means that young people are often confused. They are grappling with the meaning of their live~i They are hesitant about making a definitive commitment. Experience tells us that, today especially, young people have difficulty making a permanent commitment. ff~uly-August 1996 Malone~ * It's Summer? One of the greatest challenges in ministry today is to present attractive, even risky, alternatives to young people and accom-pany them in the difficult task of deciding, Several recent studies point out that young'people seek explicit religious goals, intense community life and solidarity, and explicit and worldwide service to the most needy. Young people can certainly find these goals realized in the call to follow Christ faithfully and to give them-selves to the church's preferential option for the poor. Young people often struggle with thei~ sexuality. Of course, those of us who are older are engaged in the same~struggle too. But the young experience in an~ awakening way strong physical drive; sex-ual energy, a desire for close, intimate relationships. And, unfor-tunately, the turbulent years of adolescence often do not come to a calm, peaceful resolution, but rather to a negotiated truce, after which war may soon break out again. It is~helpful for those of us who live in community to recognize that this is a basic human story, not just ours. It is also important for the young to speak about their sexual struggles with great simplicity with a wise spiritual guide. Youth lacks experience. This is an inevitable fact. All of us expe~ rience life's joys and its sorrows only gradually. Growth takes time. Yet there is a deep knowledge and love that come only from experience. There is gold that can be refined only in the fire. Of Course, not everyone who experiences life's joys and .suf-ferings grows, But, on the other hand, no one grows without a healthy dose of realistic experience. Our ongoing formation pro-grams must. help young people reflect on their experience and grow from it. Having said all this, let me acknowledge that I have painted with broad strokes. Some of the gifts that I have described as characterizing young people are often found in good measure in those who are older too. Likewise, some of the problems that have briefly touched on above plague not just the young, buvalso their elders. Today let me lay before you, young religious, a series of chal-lenges. As .the superior general of an apostolic community, I find that these are the most important things in my heart as I think of the many young men and women who long to live religious life generously today. I call them challenges because my own per-sonal experience, with its frequent failures, tells me they are not easy to respond to deeply. Review for Religious Be deeply rooted in the person of Jesus. This seems obvious, but there is nothing more important that as an older brother I could say to you. "Remember," St. Vincent de Paul once wrote, "that we live in Jesus Christ by the death of Jesus Christ and that we ought to die in Jesus Christ by the life of Jesus Christ and that our life ought to be hidden in Jesus Christ and full of Jesus Christ and that in order to die like Jesus Christ it is necessary to live like Jesus Christ.''2 The Gospels ring with this conviction: Jesus is the absolute center. "I am the way, the truth, and the life," Jesus says. "No one comes to the Father except through me." "I am the vine." "I am the gate." "I am the shepherd." "I am the light." "I am the true bread come down from heaven. The one who feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood will live forever.''3 Let me simply recall to you today the wonderful prayer attributed to St. Patrick: Chri]t be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me. Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in c~'uiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger. I recommend two principal means for focusing on the per-son of Jesus, The first is daily meditative prayer. Make Christ the center of that prayer, especially the crucified Lord. Engage in a well-defined period of reflective prayer each day (for example, a half hour), and let the Lord capture your mind and your heart. The second means--and it is not completely distinct from the .first--is to find, love, and serve Christ in the person of the poor. They are our lords and masters. Jesus li~es on in them in a special way, particularly in the crucified peoples. It is so easy for the "world," and for us too, to become numb to their plight: the 5.7 million people of Haiti, who have been so poor for so long that their pain is no longer news; the 2.5 million Bosnian refugees, victims of "ethnic cleansing"i the 1.5 million Somalians on the edge of death by starvation; the countless Rwandans who have been brutally slain. Our contemplation of the crucified Lord can-not remain merely a pious exercise, nor can it be simply medita-tion on a past event. The Lord lives on in his members. He is .~uly-Auffust 1996 Maloney ¯ It's Summer? crucified in individual persons and in suffering peoples. The call is to see him and to serve him there. "When I was hungry you gave me to eat. When Iwas thirsty you gave me to drink.When I was naked you clothed me" (Mt 25:35-36). Learn from. the poor, and be inventive in serving them. I say this to you very directly: it is only the simple and hum~ ble who really grow in the Lord's life. Only0 they can learn the depths of God's wisdom. The saints knew this very well because they had made the gospel teachings their own. That is why the founders of communities urge. all their members to grow in sim-plicity and humility. Learn especially from the poor. They can teach all of us about gratitude for small gifts, about patience in waiting, about hoping against hope, about loving those around us, even in the midst of suffering and oppression, and about shar-ing the little that we have with our brothers and sisters. It is only when we have learned from the poor that we can be inventive in serving them. It is they who will explain to us their deepest needs, and then we can bring them gifts that will really be helpful. Your creativity and imaginativeness as young people will be nourished by what you can learn from them. They will be a life-giving source in your ongoing formation. I encou

PI'S RELIGIOSITY IN YANN MARTEL'S LIFE OF PI Yektiningtias English Literature, Art and Language Faculty, State University of Surabaya yektiningtias@gmail.com Drs. Much. Khoiri, M.Si English Literature, Art and Language Faculty, State University of Surabaya Much_choiri@yahoo.com Abstrak Agama merupakan istitusi mengenai ketuhanan. Agama berisi sekumpulan pengertian dan kebiasaan yang mengacu pada individu. Individu tersebut adalah individu yang religius, pernah religius, atau bisa jadi religius. Partisipasi dalam suatu hal yang berbau religius didefinisikan sebagai religiusitas. Individu yang memiliki religiusitas tidak berarti mereka menganut sebuah agama. Selagi mereka melakukan hal hal yang sebuah agama perintahkan terhadap para pengikutnya, seperti percaya kepada Tuhan, mencintai ciptaan Tuhan, dan melakukan tindakan religius, individu tersebut dapat dikatakan religius. Life of Pi, sebuah novel karya Yann Martel, menggambarkan religiusitas seorang anak laki –laki, Piscine Molitor Patel atau Pi. Sejalan dengan hal tersebut, tujuan dari pernelitian ini adalah untuk menggambarkan religiusitas dari Pi dalam hidupnya dan mengungkapkan faktor-faktor yang mempengaruhi religiusitas tersebut. Metode analisis secara tidak langsung berdasarkan teori psikologi remaja karya Frederick Tracy karena sebagian besar novel tersebut menyuguhkan kehidupan Pi ketika dia masih dalam masa remaja. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa Pi telah memenuhi tiga komponen religiusitas-keyakinan, perasaan, dan tindakan. Terlebih, ada lima faktor yang mempengaruhi religiusitas Pi. Faktor tersebut adalah pengaruh keluarga, pengaruh pekerja professional, kebutuhan, ketertarikan, dan rasionalitas. Kata kunci: agama, religiusitas, komponen religiusitas, remaja Abstract Religion is the institution of godness. It contains a set of meaning and behavior referring to individuals. The individuals are religious, were religious, or could be religious. The participation in religious things is defined as religiosity. Individuals who have religiosity do not mean they commit to a religion. As long as they do what a religion tells its followers to do, like believing God, loving God's creation, and doing religious action, the individuals are considered religious. Life of Pi, a novel by Yann Martel, depicts the religiosity of a boy, Piscine Molitor Patel or Pi. In line with that, the purpose of this study is to depict religiosity of Pi in his life and reveal the factors that influence it. The method of the analysis indirectly works mostly based on Frederick Tracy's psychology of adolescence theory because mostly the novel presents the life of Pi when he is in adolescent period. The result of this study shows that Pi has fulfilled three components of religiosity—knowing, feeling, and doing. Moreover, there are five factors that influence Pi's religiosity. They are family's influence, professional workers' influence, needs, interest, and rationality. Keywords: religion, religiosity, component of religiosity, adolescence INTRODUCTION Fiction, by its definition, is describing imaginary events and people. The contents of a prose literature which are included in fiction are drawn from imagination that shows creativity or original thought. An unrealistic plot like a boy who flies by a broom, talking animals, aliens, or monsters that attacks the earth often cause delusion. Thus, an author puts truths to make the work more realistic although as the mentality history, a work of art can be a manifestation of reality, critic of reality, and alternative thought of reality (Supaat, 2008: v). A modern literature has a notion that art or literature is a matter of creativity. Often the creativity is bounded with the legalistic and formalistic doctrines of religion. Thus Western societies put the religion aside from their literature. The literature is free and free from religious matters. On the contrary Y.B Mangunwijaya in Supaat (2004: 175) stated that basically all literatures are religious. T.S Elliot in Supaat (2004: 166) added that the value of literature must be seen from the ethic and religiousness. If there is an idea or agreement of a society of a religious ethic so the literature must be 'good' like the religious ethic. Religion within a fiction is based on religious ideas from the real world. The religious ideas can be included into a fictional prose because basically fictional characters are imaginary. Although the characters are made up, they still have people's same willingness, needs, and drives in the real world. What people do in real world includes seeking religious understandings. (http://altreligion. about.com/od/artandculture/a/Religion-And-Fiction.htm retrieved on March 7th 2013). Based on the explanation, art works often raises religious issues to make the story becomes more real. The issues contain the truths from real religious ideas. The authors put more understanding to the issues from the facts. A character seeks for religious understanding for some reasons. The character may find peace and satisfied feeling towards his or her life in religion. Although religion is a term for conceivable religions whether formal or informal (Ferm, 1959: 647) a character does not always practice what a particular religion that he or she commits' rules. A satisfaction is found deep inside a feeling. Because it is related to feeling, it can be related to religiosity. Stolz (2009: 347) defines religiosity as what an individual chooses, feels, believes, and acts that refer to a religion that already exists or to a self-made religion. Religion itself is a cultural symbol-system that responds to problems and possibilities that are related to a very important reality. This system influences everyday life and cannot be controlled directly. Stolz continues with religiosity is when an individual prays, sacrifices, believes, loves or fear his god while the religious symbol-system or religions are like Christianity and Islam (Stolz, 2009: 347). An author may put his understanding about religious things to his works. 'Literature going behind God' is an effort of a man in letter by his works in which nuances in religious with his total comprehension of faith , so that he could comprehend fully of his seeking of God, his Creator, and literature is a dynamic, productive, and creative media (Supaat, 2004: 176). Yann Martel puts his idea of religion and religious things into his fictional work, Life of Pi. "Pi is interested in religions: so am I. Pi is open to all faiths: so am I. Pi is comfortable in different Godhouses: so am I. There is a sociocultural component to religions. Just as there are different ways of feeding the body, there are different ways of feeding the soul. Each religion is one group of people's attempt to understand ultimate reality. I think in each one there is a portion of truth and a portion of error. So I see in all great religions the same frame of being, only seen from a different perspective." (http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Books/story?id=124838&page=5 retrieved on March 7th 2013) Life of Pi mostly presents such unrealistic things and events. The carnivorous trees and an impossible 227 days survival of a boy together with a Bengal tiger floating on a boat in Pacific Ocean seem hard to dissolve by mind. Although these things are in some ways unrealistic, Martel puts Gods and religions ideas into this work. The Author's Note in the beginning of his novel states that the story comes up from a man named Mr. Patel. Yann Martel, the author of Life of Pi, was in India in searching for inspiration here he met a man in a café who then tells him to meet a man with great story i.e. Piscine Molitor Patel. He then says that the story will make him believe in God. Life of Pi is uniquely presenting its adventurous content with religious values and zoology. Yann Martel was intelligently put those different things into synchronized single unit. The coordination of the true story of Mr. Patel told in first person is incredible. The story begins about Mr. Patel's education and working life which serve with the fact that he was a student of religious studies and zoology. Then it shifts to his life when he was a boy, son of a zoo owner. In this part, the story provides facts about some animals' life inside the cage or out there in the wild. The story next progress is story about Pi's religious life when he was in his teen that reveals his strange religious practice. The 227 days survival in Pacific Ocean on a boat with a Bengal tiger is the next part of this incredible story and it is closed with he is survived. This novel once comes up with controversy of its originality. Some critics come up with their idea that this novel resembles Scliar's Max and the Cats, a story about a family of German zookeepers sets sail to Brazil. The ship is shipwrecked and only a young man survives after floating at sea with a wild jaguar. This issue then goes down as a discussion between Scliar and Martel done. But Martel had been firstly mentioned Scliar's name in his Author's Note part of his book. (http://www.sparknotes.com /lit/lifeofpi/context.html, retrieved on February 12th, 2013). This issue affects the outstanding content of this novel. Some critics, however, still appreciate the novel. This novel makes the reader recalls the story of Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea Yann Martel was an author of seven awards in literature. His first book entitled The Facts Behind Helsinki Roccamatios and Other Stories was a collection of four short stories published in 1993 deals with themes like illness, the anguish of youth, grief, and loss that blend with the lunacy of 20th century history. This book achieved Journey Prize in Canada. Martel's second book, his first in the form of novel Self published in 1996. This book succeeded to win Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Award. This novel's theme was study of sexual orientation and identity. Also Martel was the author of a collection of letters to the prime minister of Canada, What Is Stephen HarperReading? (http://Literature.britishcouncil.org/ yann-martel on 17 oct 2012) After the publication of his novel in 2001 Life of Pi, his name was widely recognized by literature world. This novel was able to win five different awards. In 2001, this novel won Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction in Canada and also Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction. A year later, it won Commonwealth Writers Prize in Eurasia Region as the Best Book although it won over the shortlist. Also in the same year, Life of Pi was able to get the Man Booker Prize for Fiction that made him create much of literary splash rather than with his first two books and it also won the Boeke Prize in South Africa. As the recent achievement, Life of Pi has been filmed in 2012 and achieved a great success. Martel's works have been praised seven different literary awards although his life began with various odd jobs after he graduated for a degree in philosophy in Trent University in Ontario. He ever became a tree planter, dishwasher, and security guard before he committed in writing at the age of 27. Although he began his life with various odd jobs, his decision to write books after that was a right decision. He got praised for his ability to make multi themes and problems that are not common to be bound in to one. For his ability to combine uncommon multi themes and problems, he succeeded to make Life of Pi to become a novel of great combination of religious values, zoology, and adventurous life. As the opening of the novel, it is told that the novel will make you believe in God. This story reveals Pi's journey of life since he was child until he was mature and graduated from university. This story provides about Pi's religious life which is strange and it affects his understanding about his life and God's destiny for him. The combination of religious theme and zoology of the novel is purposely done for enriching Pi's religious life portraits. Pi is kind of person with maturity in his mind to combine his understanding about God of his religions towards the objects around him although he is still young. As human life is divided into four divisions (Tracy, 1920: 10) in which the first period is the period of childhood. The second is period of youth where this is the period of procreative function to the process of self maturing. The next period is the period of manhood and the last is the period of decay that is being dead. As the character of Pi in Yann Martel's Life of Pi is in the second period of life, he experiences great things in his religious life. In his adolescence that is ranged from 12 up to 24 years of life, Tracy (1920: 187) points out that, youngsters seek for spiritual meaning in religion as well as from the objects of nature, events, and their relationship with other fellows. Piscine Molitor Patel or Pi is originally a Hindu. He lives in a Hindu neighborhood when he was kid until he is adolescence. His religious practice has become strange when he meets two religious people i.e. a priest and an imam. Thus, this introduction constructs his understanding about other religions, Christianity and Islam. His decision to commit three religions, Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam simultaneously is also influenced by Bapu Gandhi who said that the most important thing is to love God. Pi has a strong love towards God although he is still a young man. Pi is having a disliking towards his biology teacher who does not believe in God's existence. Pi sees the doubt on the important of religion and the existence of God as just a while. Every man will pass it someday and reach a happy life. Although Pi is still young, he has already experienced his deep feeling about being religious and to religion itself. The feeling creates him to experience religious flaming. This deep religious feeling or religiosity happens in his teen. His religious feeling seems have mutualism with his personality as adolescence. His life whether they are individual or cultural and social more or less influence personality and affect his decision in understanding religions as the way to love God and being a religious on his multi religions practices. This religiosity that is seen from his religion combinations stresses the importance of individual factors, including social background and personal history. Those backgrounds are to build up his mind of committing three different religions at the same time. Thus this study is to reveal the form of his religiosity in the novel and the influencing factors. RESEARCH METHOD The source of this study is taken from a novel by Yann Martel, Life of Pi reprinted and republished in New York in 2012. The data collection is by analyzing the quotations, phrases, dialogues, or monologues in which reveal thought, speech, action, and attitude that reflects the idea of religiosity of the main character, Pi, from the novel Life of Pi. This study of religiosity will be applied by the concept of religiosity with its components, modes, dimension, orientation, and changes that often experienced by people. The religiosity used to determine and explain about the main character Pi issues of religiosity. To analyze the background of his commitment, it is used psychology of adolescence concept that consists of several psychological points of view about relationship between adolescence and family and religious life of adolescence. Close reading of the novel is done first to determine the major issue of it. The major issues are collected and proposed into a topic of the study by seeing the conflict, the monologue, the dialogue in the novel. After the topic is already decided, it is tried to figure out what should be analyzed with the topic. Thus it is collected two statements of problems. There are the depiction of Pi's religiosity and the factors that influence his religiosity. The next step is searching related information about concept of the topic and to figure it out, it is used religiosity concept and theory of psychology of adolescence for the analysis and the conclusion. CONCEPT OF RELIGIOSITY Religiosity is a concept that has a bound with religion. This concept of religiosity can be defined in some definitions that relate to the religion itself. Supaat (2008: 175) defines religiosity as an aspect which lies inside the deep heart, flaming in the inner heart, personal attitudes which more or less are mystery for the other people, because are based on intimate psychology i.e. universal totality, that includes human's ratio and feeling, inside the personal being. This religious attitude is pointed on personal side of an individual toward his God, and having attitudes as what God wants. Stolz (2009: 347).continues with religiosity is when an individual prays, sacrifices, believes, loves or fear his god. Religiosity can also be defined as participation in religious rituals, various behaviors, and attitude in group or society by an individual (Theodorson, 1969: 345). Rituals are usually what a religion tells the adherents to do. Whitehouse (2004: 4) explains rituals as actions that have lack of intrinsic meanings although there are possible interpretations or symbolic motivations that may be the background of the rituals. Although these actions are lack of intrinsic meaning, the ordeals are ritualized and the speculation of their significance and meaning are still present. Focusing on implicit motivations of people doing the behaviors has some tactical merits (Whitehouse, 2004:24). The explicit religious concept that ethnographers interpret is often difficult to differentiate that the concept is the interpretation of the ethnographers or the people's actual explicit religious concepts. The other reason is from the psychological point of view, implicit concepts are better predictors of behavior. The people can also be manipulated to do the actions because they are not consciously aware and will of their response to the stimulus. This leads to explicit reason to do the behaviors instead of the real motivation of them. The explicit knowledge is likely consisting of post hoc rationalization rather than a guide of the motivation for the behavior (Whitehouse 2004: 25). On the contrary, Fazio stated in Whitehouse (2004: 25) says that the conflicts between the implicit concept and explicit concept are not always true all the time. He says that explicit belief can also be a guide to the motivation. People who do the same ritual procedures regularly results in habituation. Those automated habits can make the people to have less reflection of the symbolic meanings of the rituals (Whitehouse, 2004: 6) for example in religious speech. People can be feeling bored of the doctrinal repetition. Rituals are the main things to do in order to get merits and not being sinful. As Tracy (1920: 183) stated that religion involves man's attitudes towards the Supreme Being without age differences and the main thing is to do positive attitudes towards the Being. To support these, an adherent often does various behaviors like fasting and to behave or keeping his or her good attitude by helping other people and doing good things. God is the invisible but owns the highest power and attitudes towards the Being, as sacred and profane. Durkheim (1915: 37) states that there are two divisions of world. They are sacred in which is the one containing all and profane which is the other all. These are the distinctive characteristics of religious thought. Sacred thing is not only about the personal beings called gods and spirits but a rock, a house, a tree, or anything can be sacred. Profane is what relates to daily life experience of human beings. For example, it is about someone's attitude that results in sins or the way a religion teaches human being to have a meaningful life by giving charity and helping one another so it will result in man's goodness. The representations which express the sacred things, the virtues and powers that they have, or the relation with profane things are like beliefs, myths, dogmas, and legends (Durkheim, 1915: 37) As well as Theodorson, Tarigan (2007:11) supports that. The definition of religiosity for him is as the human attitude which comes from God's blessing. God blesses human to believe in God, to enjoy modest life, to give charity, to help other people, to be lovable, and to be friendly. Because of the participations, behaviors, and attitudes based on particular religion that an adherent must do, sometimes these will cause strain to the adherents. They may feel under pressure because if they are not doing them, there will not be merits that they will get but sins and being afraid of God. God is someone who watches you to see that you behave yourself. (Powell, 1963: 289) The concept of religiosity is also generally accepted as multidimensional phenomenon. The phenomenon happens in the society related, influenced, or caused by many dimensions. The dimensions come from cultural, social, or individual contexts. Religious as the result of practicing and believing religion is also influenced by the religion's system of beliefs, rituals, and practices. Thus, individual actions are often influenced by the religion. Because of factors like afraid of being sinful person or to be considered as a religious person, adherents may do more than what a religion tells. This actualization of excessive religious, religiosity (Concise Oxford English Dictionary Eleventh Edition), besides to show that they are religious by doing it excessively, it also can be deviated from the real doctrines. It is agreeable that religion has to do with the relationship between man and his Maker or specifically it is the relationship between man's attitudes towards whatever he believes to be the owner of the highest power in universe (Tracy, 1920: 183). Because of the existence of attitudes, it needs to differentiate religion and religiosity although they bound each other. Religiosity is something that adherents do from what a religion orders. Then, religion defines as follows A religion is a set of meanings and behaviors having reference to individuals who are or were or could be religious. (Ferm, 1959: 647) The statements means that a religion is a container of what an individual must do or must not do either the individual is religious, was religious, or could be religious. Thus, it is only a term that contains all formal or informal religions in the world (Ferm, 1959: 647). Religion is the institution of godness which is unified system of beliefs, rituals, and practices that typically involve a broader community or believers who share common definitions of the sacred and the profane. (freebook.uvu.edu/SOC1010 retrieved on 18th October 2012) Supporting Ferm, Evans (1978: 305) has a definition of religion in which also has relationship between things or power which are uneasy to explain. Because religion freely allows a man to relate himself to the outer power that cannot be explained with science, quality and intensity of man's religiosity of his religion can be low or high. A man considered himself as religious man not only because he believes on religion , he can be considered as religious without doing religion's doctrines or a man who does it but is considered as not religious one as explained as follows that it needs a deep understanding to consider a man as religious person or not. To be religious is to effect in some way and in some measure a vital adjustment (however tentative and incomplete) to whatever is reacted to or regarded implicitly or explicitly as worth of serious and ulterior concern. (Ferm, 1959: 647) Supaat (2008: 175) stated that someone who is religious is defined as human being who has serious inner heart, pious, careful, and with deep spiritual considerations. GENERAL COMPONENT OF RELIGIOSITY For the social psychologist, religion has five main facets. They are the ideological or beliefs, the ritualistic or practice, the experiential or feelings, the intellectual or knowledge and the consequential or effects (Watts and Williams, 1988: 10). These facets bound into one dimension of religiosity. On the other hand, Duke (1988) defines the general components of religiosity seen from social psychologist are knowing or cognition, feeling or affection, and doing or behavior. Knowing or cognition is abstract. Knowing about things that are related to religiosity and religions are inside every man's mind. This is an ideology. The people believe what he believes that the things are true and good for him. Because ideology is only idea in this context in idea of religious things, the only thing that can be seen from this is the realization of this belief in the real world. For example a person believes that a religion is true. People cannot see his belief but can only see how the person shows his belief true religious doings like doing rituals. The feeling or affective is the feeling dimension of religiosity towards the social situations. The social situations contain things that God has created. Human being, animals, plants, goods, or institution are the creation of God. People who have religiosity are feeling grateful of the existence of His creations. Doing or behavior is the action of showing religiosity. This action aims to get positive effect. Religious doings are the realizations of religion as ideology and the feeling towards the God and His creation in the world. The behaviors are like attending religious rituals like servings God as a duty, studying about religion as the feeling to enlarge his knowledge and religiosity to his God, doing charity as the praise for his sufficiency and love feeling towards fellow, and helping the others to tighten the fellowship. In the matter of religious behavior, cognitive scientists more or less ignored the roles of explicit religious ideas and sentiments as the motivations of people doing the religious behavior (Whitehouse, 2004: 24). Boyer stated in Whitehouse (2004: 24) says that people are feeling the compulsion to participate in rituals because the natural environment often produces contaminants so the people use the rituals as the detection of and protection against them. These specializations are actually just normal cognitive systems. Of these components of religiosity, many researchers still hopes for more developed ways to measure religiosity of someone that the participation in institutional religion because there are differences in religious attitudes and experiences between dominations and between different people with the same denomination and there are fact of the equivalency of average attendance figures (Watts and Williams, 1988: 11). Some people may define themselves as religious in some sense although they play no part in organized religion. From a survey on religious scale items from Independent Television Authority Survey stated in (Watts and Williams, 1988: 11), individuals scored high on religiosity because they classified themselves as very religious or fairly religious, are certain that having some religious beliefs lead a good life, without belief in god life is meaningless, religion helps to maintain standard and morals of society, there is God, god watches each person, are very likely to think of god when they are worried or happy, religious belief affected their everyday lives. MODES OF RELIGIOUS INVOLVEMENT Individual participation on religion consists of two modes of religious involvements. Duke, in his journal, states that the modes are personal mode and institutional mode. The personal mode is built of religious beliefs, feelings, and behaviors. These are found in personal and individualized religion. The person accepts doctrinal orthodoxy from the cultural society around (Duke: 1998). In institutional mode, the religious beliefs, feelings, and behaviors are found in formalized and institutionalized religion. This mode accepts them in which related to religious rituals and worship services like in a particular church or other religions. While Duke divides an individual involvement is a religion as personal and institutional mode, the others like Davidson stated in Duke, separates it to private and public modes. RELIGIOUS ORIENTATION People's interest toward particular religion that makes them religious depends on their own decision. It is whether they are extrinsically or intrinsically oriented (Allport, 1967: 144). Allport's point of view of extrinsic religious is caused by outer reasons or influence. The reason why an individual is committing religious acts aims in seizing mundane goals like feeling comforted and protected and also is like to get a social status and approval. To measure an individual religiosity based on extrinsic orientation is by seeing the influence given by peers, family members, or professional workers. Durkheim demonstrates how process that influence by society motivates individual action. The only source of life at which we can morally reanimate ourselves is that formed by the society of our fellow beings; the only moral forces with we can sustain and increase our own are those which we get from others. (Durkheim, 1915: 425) It is different from intrinsic orientation which assumed without achieving a mundane goal even self denying quality as the reason of religious involvement. This orientation arises from the goal of the contents of the religious tradition itself. To measure this orientation is by seeing the personality. CHANGE IN RELIGIOUS COMMITMENT AND PARTICIPATION Life events relate to religiosity. Peter Berger stated in Cornwall (1998) states that plausibility structures i.e. family, church, or voluntary organizations and conversations with the others are important and can give influence to religiosity. Because there are many life events that will influence someone's religiosity, there is chance of the change of his or her commitment and participation in religion. The changes are change in belief and activity over the life cycle, religion disaffiliation and dropping out, religious conversion and reactivation, religious change as personal development. The changing of religious belief and activity can be related to life cycle. Teens or early twenties may have less religious belief and activity than they who are in late twenties or thirties. This changing is caused by several backgrounds like family backgrounds, early socialization, and to developmental issues of adolescence and young adulthood (Albrecht and Cornwall: 1998) In religious disaffiliation and dropping out, an individual decides to not join one organization because she or he chooses to join another or decides to stop his religious involvement in the organization. Even though this is action of switching, it does not mean they loose their religious faith. They only choose the best belief for them. Religious conversion has often been defined as a rather sudden process consisting of new religious insight or experience which leads to greater religiosity on the part of individual involved (Donahue taken from Albrecht and Cornwall: 1998). Supporting Donahue, Starbuck (1900: 21) added that sudden changes of character like from evil to goodness, sinfulness to righteousness, and indifference to spiritual insight or activity. In the adolescent period, the conversion is an awakening. The conversion can happen in many motifs: conversion from private investigation of alternative ideologies to highly social, emotionally arousing experience (Lofland and Skonovd stated in Albrecht and Cornwall: 1998). Starbuck (1900: 49) states that the motives and forces behind the religious awakening is based on the nature of conversion. To study the motives and fears, the people are grouped into their likeness and differences. They are fears, other self-regarding motives, altruistic motives, following out a moral ideal, remorse and conviction for sin, response to teaching, example and imitation, urging and other forms of social pressure (Starbuck, 1900: 49) Religious development changes as the individual goes matures. This maturation process is primarily seen through psychological study without focuses on the impact of normative events like marriage, first job, child bearing, and death (Albrecht and Cornwall: 1998) PSYCHOLOGY OF ADOLESCENCE Adolescence is the second stage of human life. In this stage, adolescents will experience a period of the birth of procreative function until the full maturity of their powers (Tracy, 1920: 10). This stage is begun in the second dozen period of human life. The first dozen period is childhood, the third is manhood and the fourth or the last period is the beginning of decay of the powers until death. In other word, the adolescent period started from the age of 12 years. Supporting Tracy, Goldenson (1984: 17-18) explains further about the beginning of adolescent of girls and boys. He stated that adolescent period of girls is begun when they are 12 until 24 years. Boys have a year later the beginning of adolescence than girls, which is from 13 until 22 years. The period of adolescence is subdivided into two periods but some writers divided it into three. In the three divisions of this period, there are early, middle, and later adolescence. In this division, the beginning of adolescence happens in the four or five first year while the rest divisions follow this. In two divisions, the period of adolescence is subdivided into early and later adolescence. Both are lined when the adolescents are in their sixteen or seventeen years of life. During the period of adolescence, adolescents will experience a period of puberty. Puberty is a period when sexual life is born and it is also the beginning of procreative quality of them. Although puberty will happen to every person, the birth is varied between an adolescent to the other adolescents. This means that an adolescent can have it when he is 12 and the other may have it in his 14. Besides puberty is the birth of sexual maturity, in some civilized people, puberty is a sign of social and religious obligations of individual. … Frequently by some new emphasis on the social and religious obligations of the individual, evidently with a half-conscious recognition of the close association between the racial and the religious life. (Tracy, 1920: 17). The same thing happens to adolescents in Christian Communions. In this community, adolescents are hoped to take new step of their religiousness and begin to take their religious responsibility. This will lead them to the closer and more open relationship with their church. As well as Tracy, Goldenson (1984: 17-18) stated that during this period, adolescence will experience major various changes that have different rates one to the other. The changes include changing of sexual characteristic, body image, sexual interest, social roles, intellectual development, and self concept. Tracy (1920: 18) stated that in the matter of thought and feeling, adolescence is the period of 'deepening'. The feeling of adolescents will experience a flaming where they will find deepest meaning of things. All experiences of them will make them to interpret them deeper and bound them into a higher thought. In this case Evans (1978: 93) supports Tracy. He explained that in period of operational thinking, adolescents will not face conflict in thought process from the concrete to the abstract form. The adolescents will be aware of logical of basic things and the formulation of hypotheses (Evans, 1978: 93). Thus, they will seek for the logical reasons behind some things, conditions, or situations around them then they began to understand them as something that they have known or purposely introduced when they were kid. The mind of the adolescent reaches out to that which is implicated or involved in the presentation. In a deeper sense than ever before, the mind now takes hold upon the ideal, builds castles, lays plans, and indulges in day dreams, with all kindred psychic adventures (Tracy, 1920: 18) The feeling of adolescents will be richer than when they are children. This will also become actual. The combination of feeling, thought will result of the birth of emotion. Adolescence has primary emotions. They are love, fear, anger, and curiosity. The adolescence does not learn the emotions. The emotions are inborn. Other emotions are built on those primary emotions. Love is a feeling of strong affection or attachment. This emotion makes adolescence concerns for someone or feels delight in an object, person, or situation. This primary emotion builds some secondary emotions like affection, joy, pleasure, and delight. Adolescence will feel alone and insecure without love. Fear is an emotion which ranges from worry. Hurlock stated in Kapunan (1971: 55) categorizes fear into three: fear of material objects, like animals, airplane, elevator; fear of social relationship, like being alone, meeting people for the first time, making a speech; general fear, like poverty, death, darkness, physical incapacity, marriage. Gates and Pressey stated in Kapunan (1971: 56) say that fear has positive values. Fear causes someone to be cautious and careful, thrifty, sober, and the fear prevents one from doing wrong. But, fear also can make one from going a head and can lead to failure. There are three ways to overcome fear. They are forewarning in which the adolescence should be cautioned of something they are afraid of, assurance in which they are told that nothing is to fear, and to live the experience. Some secondary emotions of fear are moods, anxiety, and worry. Anger is an emotion from resentment to rage. This emotion is caused by inability to do or get what is wanted. It may be being teased, treated unfairly, and being bossed. The expressions of anger are like disobedience, resistance, sneers, threats, satire, gossip, or oral attack. This anger also has positive effect. This can make one accomplish more, make one pause and re-examine his practices and limitations. Curiosity is the beginning of knowledge and learning when one starts asking question. This interest or curiosity makes children being aware of the changes around them. This makes their interest aroused. The birth of emotions of adolescence makes the adolescents becoming aware of the combination of those emotions. After that, the action rises. When children's action is imitative, habitual and automatic adolescents' action will be less imitative, habitual, and automatic. It will be controlled by the will although it is not fully controlling the action. It is because their intelligence control is spasmodic and intermittent. FAMILY AND ADOLESCENCE Family condition whether it is related to the parents' attitudes influences the attitude of adolescence. Since many of attitudes or values own by children are well structured in their eight or nine years that are difficult to change, this means the home environment is the primary factor involved in structuring them. Powell (1963: 266) added that although parents have strong role of structuring children's attitudes and values, the home environment also influences them. It is including children's observation of his parent's interaction with each other and with other adults. According to Warnath in Powell (1963: 267) home is the place for children of learning developmental social skill and the desire to participate in activities related to other individuals. THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF ADOLESCENCE Everyman is basically a religious being. They are capable of religion not at this age or that age. They are always capable of this. Although everyman's naturally religious, they are not capable of it in the same sense. It is not also the ideas and feelings towards a religion are the same in every man. An immature man does not have the same things as a mature man has of the ideas and feelings. It can be said that child's capability of religious experience is not the same in form and content as youth's and adult's. Since religion is a matter of thinking, feeling, and acting, children who are not mature, they themselves have intellectual power over their feeling and behavior (Tracy, 1920: 186). As long as they are given early introduction to God, their life is genuinely religious (Tracy, 1920: 186) as they easily absorb things around them. Thus, the character of children's religious life is based on their mental life and this progress. As everyone knows, child absorbs things around him but without the knowledge of his sense. Although the child tries to look deeper about the knowledge he gets from his surroundings, there is not larger degree of understanding that he will get. Although child may comprehend and speak bout the un-sensed for example the unseen and untouched things, there is not understanding about it. They only know that they can see the unseen if they have keener vision and where to look them. During childhood, children are told that God sees them but they cannot see God and God is near to them but they still cannot see God. They may ask such questions but without understanding. Thus, they will be satisfied to any answers given to them. Religion of child and the religion of youth have much in common but there are still features that differ one from another. The religion of youth is more subjectively personal than the religion of children. Religion of children is natural religion but the youth's is spiritual religion. Youth tries to find spiritual meaning of objects, events, and relationship of human life. Religion influences moral values as well as social attitudes not only for adults but also children and adolescents. Children know about religion early from the one closed to them like from parents. Since the children's religion is natural, as long as they are given early introduction about this, they will likely be religious. This differs to adolescent. Early introduction to concept of religion that is relationship between God and man often creates conflict in adolescence. They begin to question the concepts they have absorbed (Powell, 1963: 284) because they start to find out the hidden meaning of something, like no children. For in childhood there is a simple, direct response to the impressions of the environment, on the sensori-motor reflex plane, without the possibility of the deeper and stronger emotions, and with a minimum of logical interpretation or critical analysis. In youth this naive outlook gives way by degrees to one in which the subjective elements play a more prominent part, with the simple feelings giving place to the profounder emotions, mere sense-perception being supplemented by the more ambitious processes of cognition, and the instinctive and habitual motor reactions by deliberate choice and higher volition. (Tracy, 1920: 189) Adolescence is an important period of dedication in participation of organized religions in the world even in primitive form (Ferm, 1959: 378). Ferm also states that When the religious nurture of childhood must issue in personal commitment if significant religious maturity is to follow (Ferm, 1959: 378) Tracy (1920: 191) distincts two distinctive features of adolescence's religion. The first are the experience of intellectual doubts and difficulties whether it is accompanied by emotional tension and upheaval or not. The second is the experience known as conversion. Doubts and difficulties are related to religious questions. As children is very dogmatic which means they greatly absorbs what others say and answer based on questions that they ask, the mind of adolescence begins to criticize that. Ideas which have heretofore dwelt side by side in consciousness without any sense of clash or conflict, may now reveal to the more alert mind of youth certain incongruities and contradictions. (Tracy, 1920: 193) If the adolescence cannot deal with the idea that they have with the reality that they face, there will be conflict which leads to doubts of what they have believed. In some researches stated by Powell (1963: 286) relating to loss of religious interest with adolescent, show that young people do not loose 100 percents the interest of religion but they do not seem feeling satisfied with traditional religious belief and ritual. In this period, he added that confusion seems to happen that may lead to guilt feeling. Family environment which is included attitudes of father and mother influences the development of young people's religious attitudes, Parents often give their children with strict adherence to specific religion. This habit can make confusion to the children when they come to a more liberal home (Powell, 1963: 286). However, children with less religious even irreligious parents will make them insecure and envy of seeing their classmates involved in religious experience denied them. A better point of view of religion will be in the attitudes of children whose parents are religious and liberal. These combinations seem to make result in developing more mature religious views (Powell, 1963: 288). According to Allport cited in Powell (1963: 290) religious sentiments occur from needs, interests, temperament, rationality, and cultural response. Young people seek for new experiences, awareness of the presence of God, to be useful and unselfish, to participate responsibly, and become members of a wholesome fellowship (Powell, 1963: 291) Kuhlen and Arnold cited in Powell (1963: 289) agrees that religious beliefs become increasingly abstract with the increase of age. The more age he has, the more likely he becomes religious. For many adolescents, leaving religious practice is temporary since they will enter their adulthood that makes them likely to become affiliated with religious practice. DEPICTION OF PI'S RELIGIOSITY Three general components of religiosity are depicted by Pi. The depictions are Pi's knowing about God's existence, knowing about religion, feeling grateful of animals' existence, grateful of goods' existence, Pi's doing like serving God through personal prayer, committing three religions, loving the fellow, and loving animals. As adolescence, Pi has knowledge about the great power of God. Pi thinks that it is only a very serious disease that will kill God. What is meant by serious disease is a real serious disease that infects a human being. Pi thinks that God, the Supreme Being who has super power over all things in the world will not die or never dies because of thing like suffering disease like a man can. God is the creator of human being and all other creatures in this world. He disagrees with his teacher's opinion that God died during partition in 1947. He might also die during the war or when he was in orphanage. Pi believes and knows it so he thinks that it is an impossible thing for God to die that way like a human being does. He also thinks that if God's existence in a man's heart is dead, this condition will lead to terrible things. In other words this is a very dangerous condition. Pi states this because he does not want God disappears from every human being's heart. He compares the terrible things that will happen because of that condition with terrible disease. He attempts to say that the effect of both things towards human beings and other creatures in the world is vey dangerous. Someone who suffers a not-dangerous disease still can infect the people around him then imagine if the disease is terrible. This will have greater effect towards them. Then, if someone does not recognize his God anymore, this will make destruction. For example, if human beings are the highest God's creature compared to animals and plants do not have God inside their minds then the God's blessing like mercy towards the other will be lessen and the worst is disappearance of that. If the people do not have mercy anymore, they will damage the environment. Relating this to Pi's life that is closed to animals, Pi knows and believes that by keeping God inside his heart will make the world and its contents peaceful. Pi has a positive point of view of religion. For him religion is light. The light will guide human beings to the right way along their life's way. When Pi met his teacher, Mr. Kumar at his father's zoo, Pi was so happy to see him there. Mr. Kumar said that he often went to the zoo and thought that other people might think that it was his temple although he was indicating to the Pit of goats' and rhinos' cage. He later talked about politic that lead to religious debate between him and inside Pi's heart. Mr. Kumar thinks that the world will be peaceful if the politicians are like the goats and rhinos. But the real condition is reversed. Pi does not know anything about politics although his parents often complained about Mrs. Gandhi. He bluntly said that religion would save them. After Pi mentioned that they will be saved by religion from the political condition that was terrible, Mr. Kumar's response was not very good. He admitted that he did not believe in religion. He thought that religion is darkness. He thought that there were no grounds for believing thing like that. He only thought that religion was a superstitious bosh. He did not believe in God's existence. Hearing this Pi was only thinking that Mr. Kumar was only testing him for his knowledge of religion. He thought that he was like purposely saying that mammals lay eggs. After that Mr. Kumar is an atheist was in his mind. He was then surprised when he was told that God may have died somewhere some when. Although he was surprised of this, Pi did not hate the fact that Mr. Kumar is an atheist but Mr. Kumar's agonistic made Pi upset. Mr. Kumar spoke that God never came when he needed Him. When he was Pi's age, he was racked with polio. The God never came and saved Him but the medicine did. Pi did not respond anything about it although it was a bit much for him. Pi chooses not to argue with Mr. Kumar not because of his anger but more afraid of loosing someone he loved. The depiction of Pi's gratefulness of animals' existence is found when he was in the zoo. Pi's father was the owner of a zoo in Pondichery. He was feeling very happy of growing up in a zoo. Almost every animal in the zoo left an impression to Pi. In some case, Pi did not have to depend on his activity to the mundane thing like alarm clock for example. Pi did not have to have the clock because he could use the voice of animals around him to wake him up, to remind him for breakfast. He used the roar of a pride of lion who usually roar off between five-thirty and six every morning. The loud voice of howler monkeys punctuated his breakfast time. The animals in the zoo also give Pi a happy feeling. Besides from his mother's gaze, he also got a benevolent from bright-eyed otters, burly American bison, and also orang-utans. Pi was living his life as prince who had the fondest memories of living in a zoo because of the animals. The animals brought him advantages. From morning until dark, Pi was always welcomed by them. Every animal in the zoo has different characteristics, habits, and action. There are animals which voices are very disturbing but there are animals which are not. The habits or the actions of the animals whether they are annoying or not, has brought him to think that they are the graceful gifts from God. Seeing their action made Pi feeling as a lucky boy. Pi has always been feeling grateful of what God has given to him. Once when he is in trouble when floating on the Pacific Ocean, he finds goods that will make him survive. Although he is in trouble, he still remembers about the relationship of the goods' colour with one of the religions he has committed. In Hinduism, saffron is the most sacred color for the Hindu. This color represents fire and symbolizes purity. Wearing this color symbolizes the quest for light. If this color is related to what Pi finds in the lifeboat, this means the goods are source of light for Pi. The light is his survival from the fear. The boat makes him safe from the Pacific Ocean beneath him and the tarpaulin separates him with his Bengal tiger. At first, Pi does not think that the goods he has found will become his lifesaver. But, he then thinks that with the lid, he is separated from Richard Parker. This means he is protected from carnivore that is in the same boat with him. He is feeling grateful of that. Then if the tiger is managed to attack Pi from below, he should push the lid and it will warn him and make him fell backwards to the water. And here it is the function of the lifebuoy. The existence of the goods has caused joyful feeling for Pi. He even cannot compare them with all giving occasions that he has experienced before even the occasions bring great pleasure. Although Pi is floating on the Pacific Ocean, he still does prayers. Pi does the religious rituals adapted to the circumstances. He does all three religions rituals he commits. Pi still does the prayers because he has felt that doing prayer will bring him comfort. But, in practice, doing prayer is very hard for him. He thinks that to have faith in God is difficult. He has to have an opening up, trust, and act of love towards God. It is because he is not in a save condition. There are dangerous problems that he faces on the ocean. He sometimes fills with anger, desolation, and weariness. He is angry at the God who puts him in this kind of situation. In that kind of situation, Pi ensures himself that everything around him is God's, even the hat he is wearing, the attire, the cat, the ark, the wide acres, the ear. Pi has a very strange religious practice. Although he is still adolescence, he has already practiced three different religions. They are Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam. At the age of fourteen years old, Pi meets Jesus Christ and becomes a Christian although he was born Hindu. He is admired by the God's Son's sacrifice. He willingly sacrifices Himself for the goodness of humanity. He pays the humanity sins. The reason is because of love. Although Pi is a Hindu, he also commits to Christianity. He does both Hindu and Christian prayers even right after becoming Christian. Pi commits to Islam a year later. Again he is introduced to Islam by a professional worker. He is a Sufi who is a Muslim mystic. His name is Satish Kumar, person with the same name as his biology teacher. Pi is attracted to Islam because of the brotherhood and devotion that are told in Islam. Pi also feels good when he brings his forehead to the ground. He feels a deep religious contact then. After all those introductions to new religions, Pi practices all of them. Pi's love toward the fellow is depicted through his relationship with his biology teacher. Although Pi is born Hindu and is a well-content Hindu, he still respects anyone who does not have the same faith with him including his biology teacher, Mr. Satish Kumar. One day Pi sees Mr. Kumar in the zoo. He is a regular visitor of the zoo. When he is visiting zoo, he always reads labels and descriptive notices of every animal. He feels scientifically refreshed after visiting the zoo. In the zoo Mr. Kumar and Pi have a talk about political things in India. Mr. Kumar imagines if they have politicians like two rhinoceros and a goat, that live together in harmony that they are watching, India would not have faced many problems. Then Pi says that religion will save them. Mr. Kumar's response is out of Pi's mind. He thinks religion is darkness and God does not exist. Pi is surprised about this. Pi only thinks that he is testing him. But it is not. Mr. Kumar is an atheist, someone who does not believe in God's existence. Although Mr. Kumar's point of view about religion and God is not the same as Pi's, he still accepts this. He only thinks that anyone has doubt like Christ who ever doubts God for forsaking Him. Pi still makes Mr. Kumar as the reason he choose zoology as one of his major in university. Because he is the first atheist person that Pi meets, he is able to think that atheists are his brothers and sisters. He considers Mr. Kumar as a person of blood-relationship with him no matter what faith he has. The faith is their faith. They are free for it like Pi himself. Pi's love towards animals has made him to become a vegetarian. When Pi is in trouble finding the source of food on the boat on Pacific Ocean, he is finding many flying fish, Dorado fish, have flown into the lifeboat. He is finding this event as happy event because Richard Parker has had some food supplies to fill its hungry stomach. Pi also takes one of the fish. He covers the fish with blanket in order to not make him hurt. After that, he tries several times to kill the fish but he could not complete the action. Pi cannot make it because he feels pity of the fish. He even feels a bit responsible of the rat's death because he threw it to Richard Parker. To kill the fish, he thinks that he is between the affection feeling towards animals and the need to have meal. In his lifetime, he is a vegetarian. When Pi has been succeeded in killing the fish, the tears come down his cheeks. He cannot feel the life fighting anymore. He feels sad knowing that there is blood on the fish. Although fish is a common animal that human even other animals eat and they rarely think that the fish is a creature that has soul, Pi's aware that there is soul inside the fish. He is very sorry toward the soul living things that he has killed. The fish cannot enjoy its life anymore. Pi thinks the fish and him are the living creation of God. They should not kill each other. Because he loves it, he is feeling guilty. Then, he promise to pray for the fish in his prayer. FACTORS INFLUENCING PI'S RELIGIOSITY The religiosity of a person can be begun since early life of that person. This can appear to the mind of people when they are children. Not all people will experience religiosity since in their early age. Usually the forms of religiosity are based on religion. The moral values and social attitudes of the people will be likely influenced by it. Early introduction of religious things to people are mostly from the people around them but this religiosity can also come from inside the individuals. The factors that influence religiosity of Pi are family's influence, professional workers' influence, needs, interest, and rationality. Pi's religiosity comes from the influence of his parents because they are the closest figure for the children. Although Pi is from Hindu family, he defines his father as person who does not have strong belief about religion. He later explains that all new animals in the zoo owned by his father are blessed by priest. In the zoo there are also two small shrines. They are to Lord Ganesha and to Hanuman. But, the reason behind this is only to please the zoo director. His father thinks the existence of the shrines is good for his business to build a better relationship with the public, not personal reason like personal salvation for him. It is true that Pi is religious because he has been falling in love with Hinduism. But, the children's mental life grows. Pi sees his father as a less or lesser religious than him. Then he might think that committing two new other religions is okay for him. Because of this reason, he begins to think it won't be any problem with my family if I commits to these new religions. Besides of the religious life of his father, Pi also feels that when he was kid, he has never prohibited reading comic and other papers that contain anything about gods of any religion. Pi thinks that his mother was pleased to see him reading any books so long it was not naughty, because she herself is a big reader. Professional workers have a great influence towards Pi's religiosity. Pi was originally a Hindu because he was born in Hindu family. During his childhood, he was familiar with everything about Hinduism. Later on when he enters his adolescence period that is in his fourteen years old, he begins to know about Christianity. Pi is on a holiday trip in Munnar. In Munnar there are three hills. The hill on the right has a Hindu temple, the hill in the middle has a mosque, and the left hill has a Christian church. Pi is a school boy who attends a Christian school but he never goes inside a church. Then, because of curiosity he decides to hide around a corner of the rectory of the church because he is afraid. Inside the church he sees a figure, a priest who is sitting quietly and patiently waiting for anyone who wants to talk to him. On the next day he manages to enter the church and is welcomed by the priest, Father Martin. Pi thinks he is very welcoming. In that church he was told some story about Christianity including God's son who was willing to pay the humanity sins. Pi cannot accept this. He always questions this thing to Father Martin. He always answers it is because of love. Pi does not feel satisfied of the answer. On his last day in Munnar, Pi decides to come to the church again. At first he thinks that the priest is not in but he is. He says to Father Martin that he wants to be a Christian. He says that Pi already is. Before Pi leaves, he finds Father Martin smiling to him. It is the smile of Christ for him. From these, Father Martin's patience and kindness to give explanation to Pi and answers his questions too have made Pi to feel that Christian is not as what he thinks as people with great violence. He has seen the sincerity of Father Martin. He is feeling comforted about what the man is telling. These makes him understands about the religion and finally commits in it. Another professional worker that influences Pi to Pi's religiosity is an imam of a mosque in Mullah Street. At that time, Pi is also in his adolescent period. He is sixteen years old when he knows Islam. Pi actually does not have good impression about Islam. Islam has a reputation worse than Christianity. Islam has fewer gods but greate

The College Mefcuty. VOL. IV. GETTYSBURG, PA., FEBRUARY, 1897. No. 10. THE COLLEGE MEftClPRY, Published each month during the college year by the Students of Pennsylvania (Gettysburg) College. STAFF. Editor: ROBBIN B. WOLF, '97. Associate Editors : LEWIS C. MANGES, '97. ED. W. MEISEN H ELDER, '98. SAMUEL J. MILLER '97. CHARLES T. LARK '98. JOHN W. OTT, '97. CHARLES H. TILP, '98. E. L. KOLLER, '98. Alumni Association Editor: REV. D. FRANK GARLAND, A. M., Tanetown, Md. Business Manager: HARRY R, SMITH, '97. Assistant Business Manager: JOHN E. MEISENHELDER, '97. -"","./One volume (ten months). . . . $1.(10 lijl'ms • t Single copies, . . .15 Payable in advance. All Students are requested to hand us matter lor publication. The Alumni and ex-membera ot the College will favor us by sending Information concerning their whereabouts or any Items they may think would be Interesting for publication. All subscriptions and business matters should be addressed to the business manager. Matter intended for publication should be addressed to the Editor. Address, THE COLLEGE MERCUBY, Gettysburg, Pa. CONTENTS. EDITORIAL, --- 142 COLLEGE SPIRIT, - - 145 AN OYSTER ROAST, 146 COLLEGE L-OCALS, -. 14S ALUMNI NOTES, 150 LITERAL TRANSLATION OF THE IX ODE OF HORACE, - 152 OUR BABY, --- 152 ATHLETIC NOTES, --.•'■ 152 TOWN AND SEMINARY NOTES, 153 LITERARY SOCIETIES, 154 FRATERNITY NOTES, 154 EXCHANGES, 155 EDITORIAL-WE were delayed about two weeks in get-ting- out this issue of the MERCURY by the printers, who have been working night and day on the Spring election tickets THE plan proposed, in our last issue, for getting alumni news from all over the country has met with such encouraging response that it will be given a trial. The names and ad-dresses of those who have promised to help us are: Dr. Charles Baum, 630 North Broad St., Philadelphia; Rev. J. J. Young, D. D., 79 Christopher St., New York City, N. Y.; Rev. L. M. Kuhns, 2539 Pierce St., Omaha, Neb.; Mr. W. J. Gies, 2 Hillhouse Ave., New Haven, Conn.; Rev. J. Elmer Bittle, Turtle Creek, Allegheny county, Pa.; Rev. George Beiswanger, 1722 North Fulton St., Baltimore, Md.; Rev. Albert Bell, 117 East Maple St., York, Pa., and Rev. E. J. Metzler. Altoona, Pa. Several others written to, have riot yet replied. These wide awake gentlemen, loyal' sous of Alma Mater, take a lively interest in all that pertains to the history and work of the College, and the readers of the MERCURY may hereafter expect to find a newsy and lengthy column of Alumni personals. Their fellow Alumni living in their respective regions can forward items either to them or to this office. It is to be hoped that this evidence of interest in the Alumni will be reciprocated by an increasing interest of the Alumni in the MERCURY, and we suggest that one way of do-ing this would be for each subscriber to get his neighboring Alumni to send in their subscrip-tions. * * * THE "Board of Trustees" held their regu-lar semi-annual meeting on the 16th ult., H3 THE COLLEGE MERCURY. about eighteen of the members being present. Their most important action related to the date of Commencement. This has been changed from the next to the last Thursday in June, to the first Thursday in June. Several reasons lead to this. The General Synod meets the second week in June and a number of the "Board" and Faculty are delegates to the Synod. It has been learned through ex-perience that the boys don't do very good work in warm weather. The attractions out of doors seem to outweigh the attractions of-fered by the sciences. After the first of June, base-ball and tennis generally command more time and energy than study. The plan, how-ever, has some disadvantages, since College and Seminary Commencements will come on the same day of the same week. The winter term will close Nov. 26th and will open the next morning. A short recess will be given at Easter, from Thursday even-ing till Tuesday morning, thus giving the boys the privilege of celebrating the Resurrection Festival at their homes. * *- * WE were gratified at the hearty response of the boysr who are not members of the ''Staff," to the notice on the bulletin board. The pub-lication of one or two of the articles had to be deferred for lack of space. A similar notice will be put up each month, and it is to be hoped that the response will be equally prompt. * * WE desire to call attention ^o Prof. Kling-er's correction ot a mistake made in our last issue, and take this means of assuring him that the mistake was altogether unintentional and published without due consideration or inquiry. THERE is a certain feature in some of our neighboring institutions, which, if added, might be of great benefit to our Alma Mater. We refer to lectures, not only by the Profes-sors, but also by others. There are quite a number of cultivated Alumni in the neighbor-ing towns and cities who no doubt would con-sent to deliver a lecture to the student body on some educational topic. These would serve to broaden the minds of the students and would be highly appreciated. One or two lectures ,in the Y. M. C. A. course constitute all that we hear outside the class-room. The Stuck-enberg course of lectures was a step in the right direction. Let us have some others. * * * THE boys have decided to give an entertain-ment on the night of the 22nd. The subject has not yet been announced. The proceeds will be devoted to the interests of the Athletic Association. These plays are quite common at some other colleges and this proposed step shows that the Gettysburg boys mean to rank with the best. The young ladies of Irving- College have been quite successful in ther ef-forts and the boys can always do as well as the ladies. Let the coming play be made so inter-esting that it will be an inducement to con-tinue in that line and thus have the.monotony of the college course somewhat relieved. * LET it not be forgotten that the time for the "Inter-Collegiate State Oratorical Contest" is approaching. It will be held at Muhlenberg, on the 12th of March. Gettysburg is entitled to one contestant. In order to make a selection of this one, there will have to be a preliminary contest. Let there be a lot of applicants, so that the man who represents Gettysburg shall truly represent her. Let us be determined to win the prize this year. We have never yet won it and now it is our turn. It would be well for the literary societies to attend to this matter promptly. * * * SOME exception has been taken, especially by "The Yale Gettysburg Club" to some statements in our last issue in the essay on "College Literary Societies." Among others THE COLLEGE MERCURY. 144 was the statement that "Harvard always beats Yale in literary contests.'' As an explanation we would say that the essay was written some time ago and only given for publication be-cause the editor had been disappointed in sev-eral promised articles. .It was handed in on the spur of the moment and without revision. Since the writing of the essay Yale has had some signal literary victories over Harvard and Princeton, so that the words "always beats" were a little too strong and likely to create some misapprehension as to the undoubted high literary standing of Yale. * ., * "J. A. H." suggested in a previous number of the MERCURY, that there would be a larger number of Alumni in attendance Commence-ment week, if instead of the regular Alumni meeting, there would be an Alumni dinner. The suggestion seemed to meet with general approv-al, but, so far as we know, no action has been taken to accomplish this. With a little pre-sumption, we beg to offer an amendment to his suggestion, which is to substitute an Alumni dinner for the President's reception. This latter has been one of the most attractive features of Commencement week, but it has not been ap-preciated by the Alumni. One great advan-tage of the President's reception is that it affords a means of entertainment for the visit-ing young ladies, who would no doubt be ex-cluded from an Alumni dinner. But they have confessedly been so much abused of late that we think the change would be welcomed. On the other hand, an Alumni dinner would be for the Alumni and only those would attend it whose interest in the College would make the meeting very entertaining to all. We claim no originality for the above pro-posal, and it certainly is worthy of the consid-eration of the proper authorities. PHILIP MELANCTHON.—The year 1897 will be memorable as the four hundreth anniver-sary of the birth of Philip Melancthon, the scholar of Germany. All over the land of his birth, throughout the Luther-lands of Europe, and in America, and doubtless also in Eng-land, there will be "Melancthoncelebrations". Great preparations are being made for the event and the result will be a better apprecia-tion of the man and his services in the cause of literature and in the advancement of the kingdom of God in the Reformation. Some of the ablest men of our own church will deliver addresses, many of which wili find their way into permamnent form in magazine articles, and Melancthon literature will be deservedly increased. A glance over Poole's Index will be sufficient to convince one of the crying need of such literature in the English. The "Life of Melancthon" will also issue from three dif-ferent firms by as many writers in the near future. One of these is now on the market from the Pilger Co., of Reading, another will follow in early summer from the Lutheran Publication house in Philadelphia, and another in '98 from Putnam & Sons, of New York. Doubtless others besides Lutherans will join in doing honor to the memory of this great scholar, whom Luther denominated as "incon-ceivably learned". There is no doubt to be entertained of the superiority of his intellect, but his unbounded success as a writer, his prodigious learning, his purity of diction, his scholarly attainments must be attributed to this in addition, viz, that that he was an untiring toiler. Union of talent and application made him a scholar. He was a student—he studied. He determined when he went to the University of Wittenberg that "youth should study as well as frequent the university". His zeal in this "particular never abated to the end of his life. His great desire was to furnish young men with the motives and means for study. To this end he made abridgements of the various branches of philo-sophy, and reduced almost every art and science into a form which was of invaluable assistance to the student. For many years his Logic, Ethics, Treatise on the Soul, and Physics were used in all the Lutheran schools. He applied himself so earnestly to study that if II * '45 THE COLLEGE MERCURY. his friends were alarmed for his health and the elector wrote him, kindly admonishing him to be careful of his health. He studied medicine, theology, jurisprudence, and mathematics, besides his thorough mastery of languages. His success must be attributed very largely to the fact that he knew how "to toil terribly". His life has in it a lesson for the easy-going, careless student of today whose highest ambi-tion is "to get through" college, whose last thought is of acquiring an education. G, ILLITERACY OF BOYS.—In an article in the Educational Review by E. L. Godkin, on the "Illiteracy of Boys," the position is taken maintaining that our public schools give tbo little attention to English in the preparation of boys for College, and that private schools are little in advance of public schools in this par-ticular. The author says, "I meet everyday with men whom we call educated who do not seem to care how they speak or write. Their speech is full of solecisms, their letters and notes are unpunctuated scrawls and in their pronunciation the vowel sounds are summarily "got rid of." The colleges of America have in the past placed far too little stress on prepara-tion in English for admission. It was not un-til 1874 that Harvard required "any sort of Engish qualification" for entrance. One of the reasons alleged for faulty English is that in America education counts for little, socially, while in England bad grammar is supposed to indicate mean origin. Carelessness in speech is said to be growing. Many of the newspa-pers are given to slang and the language of the street, with a view to popularity. From the cradle to the college the home is a sharer in the blame for this illiteracy. Parents are too much given to "baby talk," thus cultivating a habit of carelessness in themselves and in their children. Too little attention to the matter of chaste English is given in the conversation at table and about the hearth-stone of the home. On the street children will unlearn in an hour the lessons of a week. Even publishers of books are guilty of sending forth millions of pages of trashy literature couched in wretched English. A higher standard for admission to college in English is needed and more atten-tion to the study of English in all our public schools is imperative. In our own institution the work heaped on the Professor of English literature is enough for three departments at least. Not less Latin or Greek but more Eng-lish in the classical course is the crying need of the hour in the educational work of the col-lege. G. To THE EDITOR OF THE MERCURY : I desire to correct a misapprehension of the aim of the "Philosophical Society" and of my relation to it. The society is not a "class," but simply a body of Seminary and College students, who come together fortnightly for the purpose of discussing some of the funda-mental processes of thinking, and also to talk over some of the problems of the day. I am not the "teacher" in any sense of the word, but a member holding the office of Vice President. The society was not organized by me, but is the outcome of the interest in scholarship excited in the student body by Dr. Stuckenberg's lectures. When asked by the students to become a member of such a body, I gladly consented, with the distinct understanding that I was to go in as ' 'one of the boys." I am ready at any time to organize a "class" in any subject belonging to my department, and to "teach" it with all my heart, but to trespass upon another depart-ment is neither my intention nor my right. OSCAR GODFREY KLINGER. COLLEaE SPIRIT. What is meant by college spirit? It means the love a student has for his college. It means j the interest he exhibits in her standing with other institutions, her government, her athlet- \ ics, her morals and her welfare in general. A student possessed with true love for his college will not permit her rating to be lowered, but W^i THE COLLEGE MERCURY. 146 would rather seek to elevate it; and in so do-ing see that no unscrupulous methods are em-ployed. He will defend his college from the assaults of those who unjustly attack her, as a true soldier defends his country, and would stand by his colors as firmly as a color-bearer does in battle. Further, he will assist his superiors, I mean his professors, b}' obeying them, for if he pays little attention to their counsels "he is but cutting off his nose to spite his face." There are many students who be lieve that their professors take no interest in their welfare, a belief in which I think they are very much mistaken. By what methods can a student elevate the standing of his college? One method has al-ready been given; to this may be added that he do his work faithfully and honestly, for what a student is after he is graduated will be mostly attributed to his college. For it does not ad-mit of a doubt that, all other things being equal, the alumnus of an institution who is seen by the public leading his fellows in professional, business or other pursuits will have that honor credited to the training he received at college, and thus people will be led to believe that his college is a college worthy to educate their sons. In the race for college honors, for there are some who work merely to obtain that end, a spirit worthy of honor is in that student who obtains the crown on his own merits, but words of condemnation too great cannot be spoken of that student who works merely for honor and, in addition, uses dishonest means. No true college spirit here. As an example of false college spirit there is a student in a Theo-logical Seminary who, while he was in college, was a plodder, but where he is now he can ob-tain no mark or honors and has stopped his plodding. Is this true college spirit ? Far from it. Further, in the government of an institution a true college spirit may be shown. Those who are in charge of the government do not always know what men in the march to success are the gamblers, the drunkards, and the van-dals. Those students who believe in pure government as an essential to the success of a college ought to show their loyalty and have ousted from the army these men. Surely, is not college love, loyalt}' and spirit very defi-cient here ? Next to divine law comes the moral law and such students as are immoral should not be among our number. There can be no doubt that in athletic con-tests the spirit of a college is shown as promi-nently as anywhere else. How great is the rejoicing over a victory and the brooding over defeat. The men who constitute our athletic teams should be men of true spirit, for the}7, to a certain degree, make a college what it is. So that those who are deficient in their studies, void of respect, loose in morals, should not be permitted to represent the college. College spirit has two sides, good and evil, and will make an everlasting impression upon the young man, for from the seed college spirit is reaped a habit, from a habit a character, a character a destiny. Shall it be good or evil ? M. AN OYSTER ROAST. So calm and quiet was the night. Not a sound was heard along historic Seminary Ridge except the monotonous puff, puff, puff of the engine in the steam-plant back of the Seminary buildings. The light of the mid- December moon, filtering through the naked trees, seemed to change the puffs of steam, which escaped with lazy precision and punctu-ated the silence of the night, into halos of wreath-like brilliancy. Towards the buildings which crest the hill and are inhabited by the youthful saints—for whose pretty brows the ephemeral halos were probably intended—were hurrying many gay and well-groomed couples; college widows, of established age and dignity-; society queens, of numerous ill-starred conquests; vivacious debu-tantes, of unknown possibilities; each piloted by a theological social lion. The long expected night had arrived; the I■ H7 THE COLLEGE NEERCURY. society event of the season was about to be given by these promiscuous scions of unclassi-fied genealogical trees. A whole barrel of choice oysters had been purchased. For the sake of novelty and economy, the engine house served as a reception-room, cloak-room and banquet hall. The coal dust and smutty soot flakes had been carefully removed from the j floor and walls; tri-colored bunting and multi-colored lanterns had been borrowed for the oc-casion and draped semi-artistically about the walls and girders; a long table covered with immaculate linen and illuminated by hand-some banquet lamps, also borrowed, extended the length of the room. Mr. Jones, the en-gineer, was the chefiox the occasion, but inci-dentally fed the furnaces with coal and kept his eyes on the barrel of "blue-points which had been placed right outside the door which was left conveniently ajar. It was a peculiarly novel scene, after all had assembled; "The mild eyed, ,melancholy lotus ' eaters'' never dreamed of anything quite like it. Occasionally some of the volatile products j of highly heated bituminized coal escaped from the furnaces and mixed with the prevalent aeriform matter of different origin but pro-duced no effect upon the assemblage other than a sudden ebullition ofjocosity. Anything which under ordinary circumstances would produce discomfort seemed to cause volleys of second-hand wit to ricochet impetuously along the line of hungry guests who were now, awaiting the first course of "raws." Meanwhile "Hans," "Judy," "Dick," "Pete" and "Billee," a quintettee of jolly col-lege boys, had mysteriously met in front of the old, wide-winged, Doric edifice on the college campus. After a short parley they retired into the shadow of "Gym" but quickly returned bearing something between them. As they darted stealthily from shadow to shadow, the little brown stone cherubs high up in the tower of Recitation Hall, looked down and smiled as they recognized a little, old, red wheelbarrow ill concealed among the five. They had seen such sights before. When "Hans" had led his party safely to the edge of the Seminary grove, where they say, the spectre soldiers stand in battle line on somber July nights, he placed his men on guard and started out to reconnoiter. The barrel was soon located; a signal from the captain quickly brought his four muscular companions to the coal-bin from which they silently removed the barrel. Be-fore leaving "Hans" returned to look upon the victims. While peeping through the dust covered windows he heard some belated guests approaching and lightly stepped into the shadow. "Doctor, do you smell the oysters ?'' he heard a theological professor's wife ask her husband as they approached the door, and he replied, "yes, don't they smell delicious?" and "Hans" muttered sotto voce, as he went back to his companions, "Well, I guess nit." The "robbery was soon detected and con-sternation seized upon the banqueters. Carl Browne Coxey looked like a cross between a frightened poodle and a Circassian freak, as he pushed his hands wildly through his hair, and with frightful facial contortions, said, "I'll give twenty dollars for the apprehension of the purloiners of our ostreoid bivalves." Freddie Balm, in his unseemly haste to obtain the re-ward, dashed from the building, climbed a treacherous tree to look into a darkened room, fell and broke the government fence. John Evangelical Hindall dropped his padded shoulders, blinked his eyes and said, "ei,ei,ei." Rev. Mephistopheles Crowmore, who came from the far, far west, croaked dolefully about "snakes in the grass," and "Pud" Shower, appreciating the joke, but forgetting his sur-roundings, fiercely danced the Choochie- Choochie. J. H. Arms sent to town for a few oysters and a photographer so that he might have his picture taken while in the act of eat-ing one of the "succulents" and thus prove that he had enough, anywa}'. While these incidents were occurring, Mr. Jones was flashing his dark lantern up and down the grove, and its intermittent light was observed by five young fellows, satiated with laughter and oysters, who were leaving a hid- THE COLLEGE MERCURY. den nook in Reynold's grove, and moving toward the College. Each one carried with him a fine, large oyster shell, which now adorns his room, only some fair hand has since then painted upon it an old, red wheelbarrow, with this inscription below: '■The best laid schemes of mice an' m-.-n, Gang aft a' glee." COLLEGE LOCALS. EDMUND W. MEISENHKLDER and E L. ROLLER, Editors. number have weeklies ? Pay up your back subscriptions ! This is the only way to keep the MERCURY moving. Dr. B.—"Now Mr. N. where was the Flaminian road." Mr. N., '98.—"Between Rome and Ar-menia." Hurrah ! At last we will get a new yell. It is a long felt want. Now all we need are the fellows to give it, and they are always plenty. Mr. D.—"Hamilton died by committing a duel." Probably we do speak too often about sup-porting the Spectium, but we ask 5'our for-bearance. Let each lower classman ask him-self if he is doing as much for the present Spectrum as he wants the '98 men to do for him. There is no reason, except it be our-selves, why we should not produce an annual which shall equal the annual of any other col-lege. Other colleges have no difficulty as re-gards literary material, why should we ? Surely we think we are equal in this respect to the college men of other institutions. What do you think ? Dr. S.—"What does arboreal mean ?" "Guv." '99.—"Wild. It is used when we want to designate wild animals." Already some of our boys have been out practicing base ball. It is a good idea. We expect to see the finest base ball team our col-lege has ever had. Begin work early and get on the first team. There is always room at the top. Dr. S.—"What purpose does the tail of the monkey serve." Mr. C, '98—"Apprehension. Nobody knows who stole the Sem. oysters. If you find out, report to Harmes or Cox. "That oyster supper cost us all the way twelve dollars." Mr. D., '99.—"Professor, what was that ex-ercise law ?" Prof. H.—"I suppose you mean the excise law." B., 1900 has been the first unfortunate to go through the ice. No serious results have fol-lowed. Do you think that the MERCURY can be run on wind ? No we must have money. Would 3'ou like to see the MERCURY fail, when all other colleges have monthlies and a good Mr. L., dead?" (in Greek,) "Prof, is a corpse The first one of the entertainments arranged by the Y. M. C. A., took place on Friday evening, Jan. 15th. The concert was given by the Mozart Symphony Club and was a'fine one. This concert has been the best, which we have had the opportunity of enjoying, for a long time. We have had some poor ones and we were in prime condition to appreciate a good company. Herr Hoch was the favorite of the evening and acquitted himself nobly, and much to the delight of the audience. The conduct of the student body was admir-able and was so thought by the company them-selves, who left very well pleased with their treatment. There is but one criticism to make, namely, the concert was not sufficiently well attended. Turn out and patronize the other entertainments. Some treats are in store for you. Remember, we want to see a Y. M. C. A. hall grace the campus not many years hence. One of the '99 men gives promise of making a man as noble as George Washington, inas-much as he cannot tell a lie. The following story about S., will corroberate this statement. Proctor.—"S., was that you who blew that horn?" S. '99.—"No, sir!" Proctor.—"Didn't you blow that horn ?" S—"No, sir !" Proctor.—"See here now S., don't tell me a lie, didn't vou blow that horn?" S.—"Yes, sir." Several surprising statements have already been made by some of the Juniors in Logic. F., 98 says—"An animal that swims is a a fish. Man swims. Therefore a man is a fish." "Earney" A., 97, has a ver>^ refined musi-i 1 ■ l 149 THE COLLEGE MERCURY. cal taste ; but still he thinks the young (?) lady with the Mozart Symphony Club "should have sung United States." S., '98, (In Juvenal)—translates "cum tu dcponis amiclus turgidus" as follows: "when you lay aside your dirty clothes." The Preps wonder how A. B. B. V. O., gets excused from chapel and church on Sunday. Sound sleep is a very necessary thing. E., 97, reading in papers the account of the fire at Wanamaker's Dept. store, spreads the news that "John Wanamaker's Depot store was burned." S., 1900 usually does his sleeping in French class and becomes very indignant when Dr. M. disturbs his sound slumbers by calling on him to recite "Tom" N., (class of 1919) has developed wonderful propensities for spelling—his latest spelling for dog is "D-O-Voni !" The lecture by Judge Alfred Ellison on "Kings and Queens or Earth's True Royalty," was well attended and enjoyed, despite the condition of the chapel. The lecture abound-ed in humorous anecdotes, and the lecturer recited quite a number of his own poems dur-ing the course of his talk. Again has King Death come into our midst and deprived us of Mr. H. Dee Peters, of the class of 1902. He was the step-son of Rev. D. T. Koser, of Arendtsville. He left school about the middle of December and died two weeks later from hemorrhages of the lungs, being only twenty years old. He was a young man of ability and firm Christian character and gave promise of brilliant success in college and in life. His sister, who accompanied him to and from school every morning and even-ing, must now come alone. While he was here for only one term-, and not very well known, yet his death should be an example to us, who are behind. We too, may be taken away, we know not how soon, and therefore should al-ways be ready, as he was, and not be afraid to meet our Judge. The MERCURY extends sincere sympathy to the friends and family of the deceased. [The above was inadvertently omitted from our last issue.] The Easter vacation has been shortened to five days, and the college year will end the last week in May, and Commencement will oc-cur the first week in June. This change meets the approval of the boys generally. The Photographers, Tipton and Mumper, have been seen quite frequently this term on the campus and in the buildings taking views for the Spectrum. One view, that of the whole campus, a combination of four different plates, is an especially fine piece of workmanship. This is the "dull term" of the year—noth-ing to break the monotony but the course of lectures and concerts given by the Y. M. C. A. Everyone should take advantage of them. K., '97, says that "The Gospels include Acts, Romans and Epistles to the Hebrews. Dr. H.—Mr. S., '99, How many men were in Saul's army when he went out against the Philistines ? Mr. S. (getting the signal mixed,)—30,000. Dr. H.—Did you say 3000? Mr. S.—Yes, sir. Dr. H. (who heard the prompting)—Sound must increase as it travels from the back part of the room to my desk. Mr. C, '99, remarked as he left Dr. M.'s room that the next time he visited the dutch locality of Recitation Hall he would wear his shield so as to be protected from the flying missiles which occasionally pervade that local-ity. Mr. S., '99, (on returning from a call at 11.30 P. M., decides on practicing an exercise in elocution). Taking a full breath he slowly but loudly repeats, Now—I—am—alone. Mr. C, '99, (from under the covers in an adjoining room). If you don't break that off you won't be very long. Jerry of'98 and Willie of '99, two of the crack shots on the campus, ^recently exhibited some fine marksmanship by'chasing an (idea) over the athletic field. They mistook a bundle of charred paper which was tossed about by the wind for a chicken hawk and several shots were fired before the mistake was seen. The following officers have been elected by the Seniors, for class day exercises: Master of Ceremonies, Henry W. Bikle, Gettysburg; Ivy Oration, George W. Englar, Linwood, Md.; Ivy Poem, ,J. William Ott, Rocky Ridge, Md.; Class History, J. Hay Kain, York, Pa.; Class Poem, Fred. W. Fri-day, Jefferson, Md.; Class Roll, Clifton G. White, Manheim, Pa.; Faculty Roll, White Hutton, Chambersburg, Pa.; Presentation Ora-tion, Robbin B. Wolf, Gettysburg, Pa.; Man-tle Presentation, Frank S. Leisenring, Cham- THK COLLEGE MERCURY. !50 bersburg, Pa.; Tricks, John E. Meisenhelder, Hanover, Pa.; Love Cup, Charles B. Erb, Boyertown, Pa.; Our Absent Ones, Arthur B. Coble, Lykens, Pa.; Class Prophecy, William E. Wheeler, Baltimore, Md.; Conferring of Decrees, Samuel W. Miller, Edgemont, Md. ALUiviNi- '37. In looking up the members of the vari-ous classes, the Alumni Department of the '98 Spectrum has ascertained that Thomas Means, Esq., who was supposed to be the oldest living graduate, died in Centreville, Ind., March 5th, 1894. '39. Rev. W. F. Eyster, D. D., of Crete, Neb., the surviving member of '39, is now the oldest living graduate. '41. Rev. Nathan H. Conwell, of Philadel-phia, died last summer. His death was not generally known. '42. Rev. M. Sheeleigh, D. D., read a poem at the Melanchtou Memorial Services, which were held in St. Matthews church, Philadel-phia, Feb. 16, 1897. '43. Rev. W. M. Paxton.D. D. LL. D., pro-fessor of Homiletics, in Princeton Seminar}-, preached the sermon at the installation of Rev. D. W. Woods, Jr., pastor of the Presbyterian church, Friday evening, Jan. 29. '45. Rev. Wm. Uhl died recently at Los Angeles, Cal., after having spent a long and eventful life. '46. At the recent meeting of the Board of Trustees, Rev. W. M. Baum, D. D., and Rev. L. E. Albert, D. D., were appointed a com-mittee to present the matter of providing a new dormitory, to the church at large. '52. The address of Geo. H. Spang, Esq., is changed from Bedford to Hollidaysburg. '59. Rev. J. G. Goettman, D. D., Trinity church, Pittsburg, is seeking rest and heakh in the Somerset county mountains '60. Rev. L. Groh, pastor of St. Mark's Lutheran church, Omaha, was presented by his parishioners with a handsome mantle clock. At the last communion there were seven accessions. '63. Prof. E. J. Wolf, D. D., will deliver the address at the Melanchthon celebration, under the auspices of the New York Luther League. '68. Rev. L. M. Heilman, D. D., of Harris-burg, has been suffering with bronchial trou-ble for the past few months. He spent some time in Colorado, but finding that the climate did not agree with him, has now gone to Florida. We hope that he will find relief in that sunny clime. '70. Rev. A. G. Fastnacht is editor of the York Lutheran, and Rev. W. S. Freas, D. D., '73, is business manager. Rev. Fastnacht re-cently celebrated his twentieth anniversary as pastor of one of York's churches. '77. Rev. S. Stall, D. D., editor of the Lutheran Observe), is one of the associate edi-tors of the Open Church, a quarterly magazine of applied Christianity. To the last number he has contributed a valuable article on 1' Methods of Church Work.'' '73. Rev. Dr. Freas made one of the ad-dresses at the dedication of Trinity United Evangelical church, of York, on Sunday after-noon, January 24th. '73. Rev. E. H. Leisenring preached his seventh anniversar}* sermon January 3rd. There are three young men at college from his congregation. '74. Rev, C. M. Stock, of Hanover, was elected Secretary of the Board of Trustees at. its recent meeting. '76. The Pittsburg Times of Jan. 2nd, says : "A remarkable action was taken by the Coun-cil of the First English Lutheran church, of which Rev. Wm. A. Shipman, a minister of much ability and great popularity, is pastor. Upon his solicitation an open court was estab-lished in which all literary, socialistic and soci-ological questions shall be discussed with open doors and free speech to all denominations.'' '77. The good people of Grace church, Win-chester, Va., celebrated, in a royal manner, the birthday of their pastor, Rev. W. L. Sea-brook. Both he and his family received many beautiful presents. '77. Harry M. Claybaugh, Attorney-Gen-eral for the State of Maryland, has been se-lected .as a member of the reception committee for the Inaugural Ball. '77 Rev. H. B. Wile, of Carlise, addressed the students in Brua Chapel, Sunday after-noon, Jan. 31st, the Day of Prayer for Col-leges. He also preached in Christ church in the evening to a large congregation. He is a THE COLLEGE MERCURY. very eloquent speaker and is very popular among the students. '78. Rev. Albert Bell, of St. Luke's church, York, is instructing a class in vocal music in his church. '79. Rev. Luther Kuhlmau, of Frederick, Md., filled the pulpit of Dr. Hamma, at Al-toona, Pa., recently, during the Doctor's ab-sence in Washington. '80. Rev. Geo. S. Bowers, pastor of St. Mark's Lutheran church, Hagerstowu, was re-cently presented with a large hall rack and a fine Smyrna rug besides many other useful things, by the members of his congregation. '80. Rev. L. N. Fleck, Stoyestown, Pa., was remembered by one of his Sunday Schools with a purse of money, and by another with the gift of a fine overcoat. The next conven-tion of the Allegheny Synod will be held in his church at Stoyestown. '81. Rev. S. J. Taylor, of Berlin, Pa., read a paper on "The New Birth" before the Min-isters' Club of Meyersdale, Berlin and Salis-bury at the regular monthly meeting, Feb. 1st. '83. Rev. L. M. Kuhns, of Washington, D. C, was recently in Akroii, O., preaching for pastors Keller and Lesher. '83. Rev. F. H. Crissman, ofthe Brushtown Avenue church, has been on the sick list but is now convalescent. '83. Rev. W. W. Anstadt was installed as pastor of Zion's Lutheran church, Hollidays-burg, on Sunday evening, January 17th. Rev. P. G. Bell, of Altoona, and Rev. W. A. Shipman, '76, of Johnstown, conducted the installation services. '84. Rev. L- M. Zimmerman, pastor of Christ Lutheran church, Baltimore, had a very severe attack of La Grippe recently. '86. Rev. Luther DeYoe, ofHarrisburg, Pa., is resting a little while at Atlantic City. He ministers to a very large congregation, and has been over-taxed-. He hopes very soon to be in his pulpit again. '86. The new church building at White-marsh, Pa., Rev. J. Eugene Dietterich, pastor, was dedicated on Sunday, February 7th. '88. On the 29th of Dec. Rev. S. D. Daugh-erty and his wife gave a reception to the young people of his church, in honor of the College and University students of the congregation, who were home for the holiday vacation. '88. Rev. J. M. Francis, of Columbia City, Indiana, is now writing his sermons on a new Universal "Hammond" typewriter, the gift of a few of his friends. '88. Rev. D. Frank Garland, of Taneytowu, Md., has been engaged by the Lutheran Pub-lication Society to write a "Life of Melanc-thon." The book will contain about 145 pages and is intended to serve as a hand-book. It will be published some time during the present year. '90. Rev. E. E. Blint recently held a two weeks' service in his church at Littlestown. The meetings were interesting and instructive. Rev. Blint is doing a most excellent work in his field. '90. Rev. W. J. Bucher, of New Bethle-hem, has been called to Clarion, Pa'., and will accept. '90. Rev. Noah E. Yeiser, of India, writes for the back numbers of the MERCURY and sends in his subscription for another year. Though thousands of miles away, he has not forgotten his Alma Mater. The MERCURY extends best wishes for his success in bis no-ble work. '91. Rev. Stanley Billheimer, of West Wash-ington, had his salary increased recently. Plis congregation is small, but appreciative, and owns a very valuable property. '92. E. H. Herman is in deserved promi-nence in the councils ofthe Republinan party of Maryland. '92. Rev. H. E. Berke}-, who was very in-fluential in the establishment of the new paper, The York County Lutheran, has been elected as its editor. '92. Rev. Jesse W. Ball, of Los Angeles, Cal., in a recent issue of The Littheran World writes of the polyglot character of his congre-gation, in which he has representatives of Norway, Sweeden, Denmark, Holland, an American Indian and a converted Jew. '93. Rev. Andrew J. Rudisill, of New Bloomfield, recently visited his parents near Gettysburg, and also looked up his friends at College and Seminar)'. '93. Rev. and Mrs. G. M. Diffenderfer, of Newport, visited friends in Gettysburg last month. '93. Rev. Marion J. Kline was installed pas-tor ofthe Bethlehem Lutheran church. Harris- THE, COLLEGE MERCURY. ■52 burg, Jan. 24. Rev. Dr. Huber, '55, deliv-ered the charge to the pastor, and Rev. Dr. Gilbert, '57, Harrisburg, to the people. '93. The address of Rev. Eugene E. Neu-dewitz is changed from 228 W. 10th St., New York, to 85 Wayne St., Jersey City, N. J. '95 Dr. M. L. Boyer is practicing medicine at 1309 N. 29th St., Phila., where he has a splendid practice. '95. EL L. M. Hoffman, (Yale '97) one of Yale's most prominent athletes, won another first prize at the recent exhibition in the Yale Gymnasium, for superior work on "the long horse." The prize awarded him is a very handsome gold cup, appropriately inscribed, and is the fifth trophy of the kind already won by Mr. Hoffman. The prizes previously won, were a "first" on "the side horse," "two firsts" in "tumbling," and a "second" on "the long horse." '96. W. H. Mengeslatelj' visited the College and Seminary for several days. He intends to enter the Seminary next Fall. LITERAL TRANSLATION OF THE IX ODE OF HORACE. You see Soracte deep with snow, And the trees with heavy weight bent low, And river chilled with stinging frost; Rut cheerful be what e'er the cost. Bring out the good old Sabine wine, And happy be while yet in prime, Leave else to gods who rule supreme, Whose power stills the winds most keen, The aged ash trees are unmoved, The cypress tree, the same doth prove. Ask not what chance may bring to thee. It may be sorrow, may he glee. While you are yet quite young in years, Have pleasure with the dearest dears Until old age his steps advance. Indulge at times in merry dance. Stroll on the campus and side-walks, And with the young have pleasant talks. If you in games were won't to play, Speak if light laugh did her betray. Steal golden ring from dimpled hand. She may resist, but not with stand. C. S. It., Professor—What is the difference between idealism and realism ? 'Varsity Girl—Idealism is when you con-template matrimony. Professor—Yes ; and realism? 'Varsity Girl—You get that afterward.— Philadelphia Review. OUE BABY. I heard a sweet sound soft and low, Come drifting 'mougst the trees, While on the Campus I stood frying each note to seize. I quickly urged myself to where I heard the sweet sound fall, And found out to my great surprise, It was in Phrena Hall. I stopped outside the door a while, Then quietly went in And pretty soon, just as before, I heard the sound again. The babe which made the sound I heard, Was not named John or Hannah, But merely bore this pretty name : "Our Babv"—Grand Piano. ATHLETICS. CHARI.ES T. LARK, Editor. Capt. Burns, '01, with his usual push and determination, has been getting our base-ball material together and unless appearances are very deceitful, the "orange and blue" will be represented on the diamond this spring by a finer team than she has had for some years. Our men are training hard and regular prac-tice in the "cage" and bowling alleys, is adhered to, from which there can be but good results. The problem of the pitcher is the most serious one which confronts a college team, and it very often happens that, through weak-ness in this respect, man}'otherwise fine teams fail to make the showing they should. We are indeed exceptionally fortunate in having so many applicants for this position, a number of whom have considerable reputation for their ability in this line, among which number are: Burns, '01; Dale, '00; Gladfelter, '00: Roehn, '99; Culler, '98. As most of the above mentioned men are in the lower classes we may feel sure of having good men in the box for some years to come. White, '97, who has had considerable ex-perience on his class team, will, in all proba-bility, occupy the position behind the bat, made vacant hy Tate, '96. Stifel, '00, has been elected by the Athletic Association to the managership of the Track Team of which Krb, '97, has been chosen cap-tain, and systematic practice is indulged in. The team already contains a number of ath- '53 THE COLLEGE MERCURY. letes of no mean ability and, as the new men are rapidly falling into line, we may confi-dently expect to be represented on the track by a lot of men who would be a credit to any institution. Our base-ball season will be considerably shortened, owing to the fact that College will close three weeks earlier than it did in former years, Commencement being on June 3rd. Manager Armstrong has already arranged for a number of games and has but a few more dates open. He is working hard to get a game with U. P. as we are quite desirous of crossing bats with the University. TOWN /\ND SEIVJINARY NOTES. s. J. MILLER, Editor. TOWN. A fire alarm system is being agitated in Get-tysburg, to be used in connection with the telephone. A large gong would be so placed that by touching a button at the exchange the alarm would be given indicating the location of the fire. The Lutheran Observer gives the following account of the battle-field parks at Chicka-mauga and Gettysburg. The Government has spent a much larger sum of money at the for-mer place than at the latter. Of the 3874 acres to be acquired at Gettysburg, the Government has 845 acres of which 521 acres were donated by the Gettysburg Battle-field Association. It has, on the other hand, bought 5568 acres at Chickamauga out of the 8000, within the limits prescribed by the Act. The Government has expended $758,876.20 at Chickamauga and only $251,219.46 at Gettysburg. The County Sunday School Convention will be held in this place, Feb. 23. It will likely j be held in the Presbyterian church. Rev. T. P. Ege, last Wednesday a week, at-tended the winter session of the Archdeaconry of the Episcopal church, convened in Harris- ! burg, and took part in the discussion, the sub-ject of which was the church's attitude toward the social element. A bill appropriating $50,000 for a statue of President Lincoln at Gettysburg, was passed by the U. S. Senate. About twenty-members of the Bar and Bench of Adams county attended the annual Bar supper on the evening of the 19th tilt. The occasion was an extremely pleasant one. 1 Speech-making was a very interesting feature of the evening. Judge Swope was toast-mas-ter and the following responses were made : "Some Words of Advice from the Nestor of Our Bar," Hon. D. McConaughy; "The Bench of Adams County," Wm. McSherry, Jr., Esq.; "The Bar of Adams County," C. S. Duncan, Esq.; "The Diligent Practitioner," Hon. G. J. Benner; "Our Law Makers," W. C. Sheely' Esq.; "Lawyers' Wives and Law-yers' Sweethearts," Judge Swope and Hon. G. J. Benner; "Legal Ethics," John B. McPher-son, Esq ; "Reminiscences of Our Last Bar Supper," Edw. A. Weaver, Esq.; "The Press and Its Mission," C. E. Stahley, Esq., "Rem-iniscences of Philadelphia Bar," J. L. Kendle-hart, Esq.; "Permanency of Our Annual Sup-per," Wm. P. Quimby, Esq.; "Cordiality of Bench and Bar," Judge Beales. A Farmers' Institute was held in Gettys-burg, Friday and Saturday, Feb. 12th and 13th, under the auspices of the Department of Agriculture of Pennsylvania. Day of Prayer for Colleges was observed Sunday, Jan. 31st, in Christ Lutheran church in the morning and in Brua Chapel in the af-ternoon. The morning services were con-ducted by the pastor. Rev. Herbert Alleman, and in the afternoon, under the direction of the College Y. M C. A., by Rev. Wile, of Carlisle, Pa., his theme being "Godliness." On Friday evening, January 29th, the re-cently elected pastor of the Presbyterian church, Rev. D. W. Woods, Jr., was installed. The exercises were very interesting and im-pressive and were largely attended. Rev. W. S. VanCleve presided and Rev. Wm. M. Pax-ton, D. D., LL. D., Prof, ot Homiletics in the Theological Department of Princeton Univers-ity, delivered the installation sermon. Rev. Dr. J. A. Crawford, of Chambersburg, deliv-ered the charge to the pastor, and Rev. Dr. S. A. Martin, President of Wilson College, the charge to the Congregation. SEMINARY. The Missionary Study Class has completed the course on Missionary Biography and has taken up for this term, "Missions and Apostles of Medieval Europe." Rev. Cross preached at Stone church, Sun-day, Jan. 17th. Revs. Nicholas and Ibach were out preach-ing on 31st ult. TH1C COLLEGE MERCURY. T54 Rev. Arthur Bredeubek, of the Senior class, was unanimously elected pastor of the Luth-eran church, at Thurmont, Md. Messers. Berger and Fulper made Home Missionary addresses at Flohr's church, on Jan. 31st. LITERARY SOCIETIES. JOHN W. OTT, Editor. PHRENA. The following officers were installed on Fri-day evening, Jan. 29th, 1897: Pres., Stockslager; V. Pres., Tholan; Rec. Sec, Bikle, Jr.; Chap., Woods; Mon., Miller; Critics, Bikle, Sr., Duck, Clare, Woods; Asst. Lib., Miller. The following special program was rendered by our '00 men on Friday evening, Feb. 5th. Piano Duet Gates and Frey Declamation .Bechtol Declamation - Young Essay Miss Frey Vocal Selection Quartette Declamation Hickman Essay Brandt Declamation Gilbert Declamation Hammacker Piano Duet Gates and Clare Essay .' Hurst Debate. Resolved, That despotism is the best form of government for an ignorant people. AFF. NEG. Miller, Frey, Ernest, Hummer, Weigle Clare. Vdcal Selection Quartette PHILO. Noticeable interest was taken in the first program of the term, and especially on the part of the new men. Koller and Sieber, '00, were initiated into the society on Jan. 22c!, '97. Preparations are being made for a special program to be rendered this mouth. Philo's interest in the "Amateur Theatrical" was evinced at the last meeting by the appoint-ment of a committee to consider the advisa-bility of getting up a dramatic entertainment. A complete catalogue of Yale has been for-warded to the society, for the reading room, by W. J. G., '93, on behalf of the Gettysburg Club of Yale. FRATERNITY NOTES. PHI KAPPA PSI. M. W. Weidman, M. D., '61, has been elected President of the Pennsylvania State Medical Board. Harry M. Clabaugh, '77, Attorney-General of the State of Maryland, was appointed a member of the Inaugural Ball Reception Com-mittee. S. D. Schmucker, Esq., '61, of Baltimore, and W. E. Parsons, D. D., '67, of Washing-ton, D. C, attended the recent meeting of the Board of Trustees of the College. M. C. Horiue, D. D:, '62, recently dedi-cated the new Bethany Evangelical Lutheran church, Reading. Rev. S. A. Martin, D. D., President of Wil-son College, Chambersburg, Pa., was present at the installation services of Rev. D. W. Woods, Jr., as pastor of the Presbyterian church, Gettysburg. W. R. Reitzell, '96, is studying law at Cor-nell Universit}'. PHI GAMMA DELTA. Bro. C. W. Fairbanks, Theta Deuteron, was elected by the legislature of Indiana to succeed Hon. D. W. Voorhees as Senator from that State. Bro. H. B. Wile, '77, delivered the address to the students in Brua Chapel on the 31st, ult, the Day of Prayer for Colleges, and preached in the College church in the evening. Bros. E. G. Miller. '85; D. F. Garland, '88, and L. E. DeYoe, '89, visited friends in town last month. Bros. H. L. Stahler, '82, and L. Y. Smith, '90, Sigma Deuteron, spent several days with the Chapter a short time ago. Bro. Shaar spent last Sunday with his par-ents at Steelton. SIGMA CHI. Rev. C. M. Stock, '74, was elected Secre-tary of the Board of Trustees of Pennsylvania College at a recent meeting held in Gettys-burg. Rosensteel visited the Chapter at Dickinson several weeks ago. Newton Fredericks, who left college a short 155 THE COLLEGE MERCURY. time ago, intends to enter the Lawrenceville Preparatory School at Lawrenceville, N. J. Wm. H. H. Bixler ex-'98 is taking a course in dentistry at Louisville, Ky. Garnet Gehr, '91, was elected attorney for the Commissioners of Franklin county. W. W. Good, ex-'99, has entered Troy Business College. Charles Humrichouse, ex-'97, has been made junior partner in his father's wholesale coffee and sugar house in Baltimore. PHI DELTA THETA. M. J. Killian, Va., Alpha, recently filled the pulpit of Trinity Lutheran church, Chambers-burg, Pa. D. Julian Forney has just recovered from a slight illness. Kain was elected historian of the Senior class, in place of Ott, resigned. A charter has been granted to the Case School of Applied Science, Cleveland, Ohio. The annual chapter letters, now coming in, show marked progress in all of the sixty-nine. The Fraternity is preparing to celebrate the birthday of its oldest surviving founder—Rev. Robert Morrison, Miami, '49. ALPHA TAU OMEGA. William H. Menges, '96, spent Sunday, Jan. 30th, with the Chapter. Chas. B. Erb, '97, has been elected Captain of the College Track Team. Paul W. Roller, '94, recently preached in the College church. Paul W. Kuhns, '89, of Omaha, Neb., was married a few days ago. Maurice R. Zullinger, '98, is at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, having an operation per-formed for his disease. John W. Cable, ex-'97, is a student at F. and M. College. Joe S. Hay, ex '95, is in attendance at Bellevue Hospital, New York. Chas. S. Emmert, ex-'97, recently gave a German to his Hagerstown friends. estate now amounting to nearly $3,000,000 to colleges named in his will. This will be distributed equally to the fol-lowing institutions, after the legal expenses are deducted: Amherst, Boudoin, Dartmouth, Williams, Yale, Columbia, Hamilton, Lafay-ette, Lincoln, Maryville, Marietta, Adelbert, Wabash, Park, Wesleyan, Universities of Ro-chester, Cornell, Virginia, Hampton, and the Union Theological Seminaries.—Ex. In all the Universities of France there exists no college periodical, no glee clubs, 110 frater-nities, no athletics, no commencements. The requirements of Johns Hopkins Univer-sity have been so high that but 784 of 2,976 students have obtained degrees.—Ex. Princeton has made application to establish a chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society there. The request will probably be granted. The student who refuses to subscribe for a College paper and then reads it over the shoulder of his neighbor, is short enough to tie his shoe-strings to his necktie.—Ex. Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast. That is the reason they put a brass band around a dog's neck. Write for the MERCURY ! To increase its readers' knowledge : Subscribe for the MERCURY ! For the sake of the College : Encourage the MERCURY 1 In the work it is to do ! Support the MERCURY ! The whole year through. "Give me a kiss, my darling do," He said when he gazed in her eyes so blue. "I won't," she said, "you lazy elf, , - Screw up your lips and help yourself."—Ex. He hugged the fair Miss Lemon, And squeezed her very tight, She angry grew and drawing back Hit him with all her might. He sues her for striking him; ■ In court she him thus taunts, "Who could expect to squeeze a Lemon Unless a punch he wants?" —Princeton Tiger. EXCHANGES. FURNITURE. Cabinet Making, PICTURE FRAMES. Mr. Fayerweather has willed his residuary Baltimore street, Gettysburg, Pa. ADVERTISEMENTS. BASE ISisitors to J3 /A _J J_J £ettl/si>urSr College, . . SUPPLIES, . . cBpalcliqcj Loag ue Ball, jWiits, Mas^s, otQ. Managers should send for samples and special rates. Every requisite for TENNIS, GOLF, CRICKET, TRACK AND FIEI-D. GYMNASIUM EQUIPMENTS AND OUTFITS, COMPLETE CATALOGUE SPRING AND SUMMER SPORTS FREE. "This Name the Guarantee." A. Q. Spalding: & Bros., NEW YORK, PHILADELPHIA, CHICAGO. iioa CHESTNUT STREET, PHILADELPHIA *llJright's £ngraving jfcouse VflAS become the recognized leader in unique styles of *?& COLLEGE and FRATERNITY EN-GRAVINGS and STATIONERY, College and Class-Day Invitations, engraved and printed from steel plates; Programmes, Menus, Wedding and Reception Invitations, Announcements, etc., etc. Examine prices aud styles before ordering elsewhere. '50 Visiting Cards from New Engraved Plate for $1,00. ERNEST A. WRIGHT, 1108 Chestnut Street, PHILADELPHIA Hon. W. J. Bryan's Book All who ure interested in furthering the snle of flow. W. J. Bryan's vrw bonk sl.oultl correspond Immediately wit), the publishers. The work will contain . . . AN ACCOUNT OF HIS CAMPAIGN TOUR. HIS BIOGRAPHY, TCrnD'BYHISWIFB HIS V0S1 IMrORTADT SPStCHIS 'HI RIS1JI,TS OF THE CAUPAIGli OF \m. t REV IE* OF THE POLITICAL SITUA'lIOiN. • •OACCNTS WAMT^D © • • Mi myan tins an-nounced his intention of devoting: one-half of all roy ItH'S to furthering the cause of bimetallism. Tii^rH are already indications of an enormous sale. Address W. B. COlNKtY COMPANY, Publishers 341-351 Dearborn St.CHICAGO Settysburg, tPenn*a, -WILL FIX!) THE-Cumberland Valley R. R. running in a South-westerly direction from Harrisbnrg, Pa., through Carlisle. Cfiambcrshurg, Hagerstmvn tin 1 Martinsburg to Winchester, Via., a direct and available *£ route from the North, East and vyesl to Gettysburg, Pa., via. Harrisbnrg and Carlisle. Through tickets via. this route on sale at all P. R. R. offices, and baggage checked through to destination. Also, a popular route to the South via. Carlisle. Ask for your tickets via. I. F. BOYD, Superintendent. id Valley Railroad and Carlisle. Pa. II. A. RIDDLE, lien. Passenger Agent. FPU. H. MlNNlCH, onfeetionervj, OYSTERS Manufacturer, Wholesale and Retail hni/r,- in NEXT DOOF^ TO 5 Suits from $121 to Lowest Maes. 5 p° PAIR'S0 E' f Pants from S4.DD to $121, (^Centre ?«>quare.^ COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS 1 SURGEONS, -^-BALTIIVIOFIE, IV|D.-^ ^mmsm ?>i^^Y&zgmm3&Q%t&- KM The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Balti-more, Maryland, is a well-equipped school. Four ses-sions are required for graduation. For full informa-tion send for the annual catalogue, or write to THOMAS OPIE, M. D., Dean, Cor. Calvert and Saratoga Sts. Established 1876.- eSfPBNBOSB MYMSJ JEWELER, Gettysburg Souvenir Spoons, College Souvenir Spoons, No. 10 Baltimore Street, GETTYSBURG, PENN'A. J# A. TAWNEY Is ready to furnish clubs and boarding houses BREAD, ROLLS, &0., at short notice and reasonable rates. Cor.Washington and Middle Sts., Gettysburg. sy 6i£o. 1

iiirTiriTXTxnTiTirxTrrritTnrxnx-intirTTiv iimtuiminir'' mi mm 111 ill .#■-, -:- THE ~:~ Gettysburg mE^CURY. flOVEmBER, 1897. CONTENTS: Melancthon, the Scholar of Germany, Rev. F. D. Garland, A Prose Shakespeare, Rev. Edwin Heyl Delk, A. M [A Few Facts About Prehistoric California, Rev. M. H. Stine, Ph.D., IWhat is Nature, Prof. Oscar G. Klinger, A. M., INovember, lA Few Things About the Southern Negio, H. D. Shimer,. [Educational Value of Poetry Plie College Musical Organizations, Py First Smoke, Editors' Desk iAthletics |A Gettysburg Glee Book,. |The Junior Kanes, Our Exchange Table,. i Wise and Otherwise,. "■0. MILLER, PRINTER. GETTYSBURG. -^ijS«-'-^*^>"-j> R. H. REININGER, Merchant Tailor. Suits from {12,00 to {40.00, Pants from $4.00 to $12,00, The Best Work at the Lowest Prices. CENTRE SQUARE, NEXT DOOR TO POST-OFFICE-OP STAIRS, READY FOR FALL jlND WINTER, Suits to Order—Prices $12.00 to $35.00; Trousers, $2.50 to $9.00. ALL KINDS OF REPAIRING DONE. All the new effects in Check and Over Plaids you will find at THE LEADING A TAILOR, CLOTHIER & 4 \ GENTS' FURNISHER, Jtl UVCDC No. 11 Balto. St., ■ Hi HlltlfOj GETTYSBURG, PA. WJ£ Wierman, S/orM Stroet, Sroceries. EPH. H. MlNNlCH, Manufacturer, Wholesale & Retail Dealerln CONFECT10NEHY AND ICE CREAM, - the students of Pennsylvania (Gettysburg) College. Subscription price One Dollar a year in advance, single copies Fifteen cents. Sudents, Professors and Alumni are cordially invited to contribute. All subscriptions and business matter should be addressed to the Business Manager. Articles for publication should be addressed to the Editor. \ Address, The Gettysburg flercury, Gettysburg, Penna. MELANCTHON THE SCHOLAR OF GERMANY. BY REV. F. D. GARLAND '88. In the general judgment of men Philip Melancthon occupies a place among the great masters in the realm of literature. His literary fame has stood the test of time, has been tried in the fur-nace and found pure, has been weighed in the balance and has not been found wanting. We are not humiliated but are ennobled "1 offering our tribute of praise to the memory of great men like Melancthon. The remembrance of their character and achieve-ment will enrich us. No one can study the life-work and literary fame of this great scholar without being inspired to emulate his devotion to the cause of education, his zeal for the enrichment of THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. literature and his eminent labor for the public good. r. Melancthon lived at a crisis period in the history of the church and of the world. He lived in the midst of the great con-flict between liberty and despotism—a battle that was being fought for no single nation, for no single generation. The im-portance of authors like Melancthon has not always been correctly estimated. "Dante is worshipped at the grave to which he was hurried by persecution," while "Milton in his own day was the blind adder that spit his venom on the king's person" and later the "mighty orb of song." So Melancthon's memory suffered in the keeping of more than two generations who scarcely spoke a word in his favor. But Melancthon's noble effort to bring the actual world nearer ideal perfection in that mighty struggle of the centuries is being better appreciated. He was the most celebrated and the most powerful literary champion of those principles which were then struggling for infant existence. Luther who spoke of him as "the inconceivably learned and elegant" Melanc-thon sat at his feet for instruction. He was the Scholar of Ger-many in that day when the mighty conflict between that which was and that which ought to be took place, when the struggle was transferred from the "tented field" to the realm of ideas, which "burning all over with indestructible life were marshalled against principalities and powers." He lived to lead when "the brain and not the arm, the thinker and not the soldier, books and not kings," were set to rule the world. Erasmus the great scholar was right when he wrote of Melancthon, "Christ designs this youth to excel us all." 2. The genius of Melancthon was marked at an early age. Matriculated at Heidelberg University at the early age of twelve, he became pre-emineni. for his philological and philosophical studies, and was regarded worthy of the degree of bachelor of philosophy at the age of fourteen. On account of his extreme youth he was at the end of the following year denied the degree of Magisterof which he was adjudged altogether worthy. While but a mere boy he prepared rudiments of the Greek language which afterwards were published. During his residence at the Tubingen university he devoted himself diligently to the study of logic, jurisprudence, mathematics, theology and medicine. He was made a Doctor of Philosophy before he was seventeen and THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. soon after that became a public lecturer in the university. He gave especial attention to the classics Latin and Greek. At the age of twenty-one he was elected Professor of Greek language and litera-ture in the university of Wittenberg. He was a careful, critical, and accurate scholar. His mind was characterized by keen in-sight, logical order, unbounded power of endurance and ripened judgment. 3. His success was achieved in two particular directions. (a) His services in promoting the cause of education in gen-eral were great. His high regard for the place and power of edu-cation in matters of government and religion is shown in an ad-dress delivered at the opening of an institution of learning in Nuremberg. He said : "In the proper constitution of a State, schools of learning are primarily requisite, where the rising gen-eration which is the foundation of the future empire should be instructed; (or it is a most fallacious idea to suppose that solid excellence is likely to be acquired without due regard to instruc-tion. A Spartan said that their walls ought to be constructed of iron and not of stone; but I am of opinion that wisdom forms a better protection than arms or walls," On that principle he acted with great zeal throughout his life. He urged princes to reform the universities for the instruction of youth, as of all others, the most important object. Princes everywhere sought his advice in the establishment of schools, accepted his plans and adopted his methods. He stood easily at the head of the many great literary enterprises and engagements of that age, so that he has very properly been called "the founder of the learned schools of Ger-many." He not only inspired to the establishment of schools but he also prepared text books and furnished the proper means of study. He was indeed the pioneer in the preparation of the modern text book. He made abridgments of the various branches of philosophy, logic, ethics, etc., which were used in all the Lutheran schools for many years. He reduced almost every art and science into a form and arrangement which was of invaluable assistance to the student. He aroused the youth to study and created in the minds of his pupils a taste for literature. He revo-lutionized the methods and the means of study. His zeal in this work never abated while life lasted. His wonderful success was shown in the fact that from his boyhood days as teacher until his THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. death his lecture room was crowded with eager students, often as many as two thousand, among whom were barons, counts and princes from all parts of Europe. He wrote once and this senti-ment expresses the aim and glory of his career : "No service is more acceptable to God and no conduct more pious and praise-worthy than to aim at truth and to acquire its transforming in-fluence." (b) In authorship he was pre-eminent. Luther wrote more than he. But Luther was as he said of himself 'the rough pio-neer", preparing the way for "Master Philip who comes along softly and gently, who sows and waters heartily, since God has so richly endowed him with gifts". "Luther scattered their sparks among the masses ; but it remained for Melancthon by his logical and systematic writings to win not only princes, but also a large number of the learned and cultured for the cause of the Reforma-tion". He wrote commentaries on Genesis, Proverbs, Daniel, The Psalms, and also on Romans, Collossians and the Gospel of John. He wrote the first Protestant work on systematic theology. Of this Luther said, "He who has the bible and this work of Philip perfectly in memory is a divine against whom neither the devil nor any heretic can be able to take advantage. It is the best book next to the Holy Scriptures". In Ethics Melancthon's influence was immeasurable, and more enduring than his influence in theology. He is the author of the Augsburg Confession, the "First Protestant Confession of Faith", of which the late Dr. Schaff wrote : "It best exhibits the prevailing genius of the Ger-man Reformation and will ever be cherished as one of the noblest monuments of faith from the pentecostal period of Protestant-ism". 4. Melancthon was a toiler. As Cecil said of Sir Walter Raleigh, "He can toil terribly". He had that best genius, the genius of work. It was not only brain but iron labour with him that counted for success. He reached the heights of his literary fame by no easy path. "Had I not lived with Mirabeau", says Dumont, "I never should have known all that can be done in one day". So he who knew Philip Melanchton had an opportunity of noting possibility of accomplishment. Native talent coupled with persevering toil lifted Philip Melancthon above the level of ordi-nary achievement in the world of letters and made him worthy of that most distinguished designation, "The Preceptor of Ger-many". THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. A PROSE SHAKESPEARE. BY REV. EDWIN HEYL DELK, A. M. Books are the dried life-blood of personal and national history. Touch them with a living sympathy, and all the griefs, joys and heroisms of the past spring into being, thus re-enacting for us the tragedy and comedy of the human soul. There is another fact to recall in our char-acterization of literature, i. e., tnat there is a literature of knowledge and a literature of power. Darwin's "Origin of Species" well represents the books of the first order— the literature of knowledge. No single book has thrown such a flood of light upon the method of creation. This book, with his ''Descent of Man," have changed the view point of the scientific world upon the genesis and suprem-acy of man. Shakespeare's "Hamlet" is a work of the second order—the literature of power. It addresses itself not simply to the intellectual life but stirs our deepest emotion and brings before the imagination the horror and weakness of irresolution. Such a poem as Browning's "Saul," or Shakespeare's "Hamlet," become formative forces in the region of character because they address not only the analytical but also the volitional and ideal in human thought. Shakespeare is our master interpreter of life and puts before us as no other single writer has ever done before, or since, the complex motives, the marred action, the glit-tering ambition, the deteriorating moral nature, the mul-tiplicity of human types, the sweep of passion and the majestic march of historical providence. Unfortunately Shakespeare is praised much, but read little. His work is made a literary Bible and placed on the centre-table of undisturbed reverence. To many, his English has grown archaic, and his blank verse is too obscure a medium for the communication of his message. For the man of cul-ture, he will always remain the master interpreter of life, and, therefore, the supreme literary power. As he gath-ered his great life procession from all history, he has be-come the world's poet. He has become for all modern ,,; ,,,- wmmmmmmmamaammm THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. peoples the standard for the measurement of all literature of power. To select any one writer, then, and declare him to be a prose Shakespeare is a stupendous claim which borders on the audacious, or comic, according to one's mood. And yet, as I place the name of Balzac beside that of Shakespeare, I feel no personal uneasiness in my stlf-provided criticism. To men who know their Balzac as well as their Shakespeare, there will be fell no incon-gruity in placing the writer of the "Comedie Humaine" and the framer of "Lear" and "Midsummer Night's Dream" in the same class—the class of supreme literary genius. One must make at the outset, however, this acknowl-edgment, that Shakespeare was far and away the greater master of form and literary expression. But in their grasp of life and its deepest and most complex emotions, in the breadth and variety of their characters, in the pas-sion and intensity of their feeling, in the powerful and subtle presentation of human action, in their marvelous balance of realism and idealism, in their titanic and inex-haustible creative power, Balzac and Shakespeare were brothers. The Englishman was the greater, by reason of the fecundating and larger era in which he wrought, and by right of his more finished medium of expression which gives a grandiose setting to his immortal pictures of his-tory and individual action. A glance now at our prose Shakespeare. Honore de Balzac was born at Tours, May 16th, 1799. Nothing in his parentage, or place of birth, can account for his genius. To his sister Laure, who made him her hero through life, he owed a sympathy which was far more influential to his creative temperament than the early literary associations which nourish so many writers. He was not a good student, from the scholastic stand-point, but was an omnivorous reader and an intense lover of nature. The desire for fame early lured him to essay the craft of letters. He went to Paris with his family in 1814, and devoted himself to study. He was in constant at-tendance at the lectures of the Sorbonne, and to please his THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. father, took a three years' course in law. When the hour came for his family to leave the French capital, he de-clared his purpose to give his days and life to literature rather than law. As a test of his devotion to the chosen art, his father offered him a menial's allowance for two years. He remained in Paris working at a drama entitled "Crom-well." He broke down, under the strain of partial failure and want, and had to retire from the gay city. Soon, however, he went back again to his attic. Here he wrought furiously at short stories, in order to secure food and fuel. The ten short stories he wrote before his twenty-eighth year, he did not care to acknowledge, when he had come to his literary throne. They were the output of his apprentice days. Though a born novelist, he was not a born stylist and only after much toil and polish-ing did he master language sufficiently well to express the facts and fancies that crowded tumultously upon his eye and brain. It was not until he was twenty-eight years of age that he produced his first notable book—"Les Chouans." The '-Physiology of Marriage" followed quickly in 1830, and "At the Sign of the Cat and Racket" a year later. These books at once revealed his marvelous phychological powers, as his earlier stories gave promise of the definiteness of his objective vision. The streets of Paris now became the laboratory of his literary experi-mentation. Night and day he would walk the boulevards and quays gathering his material, testing its relation to the past, and its present relation to the whole fabric of society. Then he would rttire to his attic, and living for weeks on little or nothing, select from his material, tet up certain characters, live with his creations in imaginary walks and positive communings, until his dramatic talent made his creation a real thing. Then, when all was fused, his hard driven pen put upon paper some section of that great social drama—the "Comedie Humaine." At first, Balzac did not plan the writing of a systematic study of all classes and types of human characters. He was bent, primarily, on writing stories charged full with actual life. 'Yet it was more than a swarm of stories that was buz- THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. zing in his head ; it was a swarm of individuals often more truly alive to him than the friends with whom he loved to converse about them. And just because he knew these people of his brain, just because he entered into the least details of their daily lives, Balzac was destined to become much more than a mere philosopher or student of society, to which a creator of characters, endowed with that absolute dramatic vision which distinguishes Homer and Shakespeare and Chaucer. But b^cau^e he was also something of a philosopher and student of sociology, he conceived the stupendous idea of linking their charac-ters with one another and with their several environ-ments, in order that he might make himself not merely the historian but also the creator of an entire society." It is only as we view his co-ordinated work,not any sin. gle volume, that we begin to appreciate his tremendous grasp on the whole of life. His financial failures, his legal studies, his own irregular habits, his beautiful love affair, his multitudinous sympathies were all utilized in the interpretation of "the human comedy." Because he saw life straight and full his novels are not food for chil-dren or callow youth. Sin and its putrifactions are as boldly painted as sainthood and the oratory. Balzac was too elemental in his nature, and too sincere in his purpose to paint in grays and neutral tints. His color-scheme ranges from purest white to loathsome black. In pre-senting three thousand personages in his co-ordinated "comedy," he must, needs project upon his canvass many a maimed and distorted life. If fault this be, it is one he has in common with Shak ^speare and the Bible—neither of which can be read in their entirety in the nursery, or class-room. Balzac's works are for the mature student of life—with all its sorrow, joy and passion. He divided his great scheme into three great divisions: 1, "Sciences of Private Life," which consist of twenty-four novels, nov-elettes, and tales ; II, "Scenes of Provincial Life," num-bering ten stories, nearly all of which are masterpieces; III, "Scenes of Country Life," and the "Parisian Scenes," the latter containing his greatest works. In this latter class, THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. we find some twenty-four titles, six of them being novels "L'Histoire de Csesar Pirotteau," "Le Pere Goriot," "La Di'ehesse de Langeau," "La Cousins Bette." and his other profoundly popular studies. This series was sunple-mented by his "Studies in Philosophy"—twenty in num-ber, which furnish his metaphysical background of life, i.e., "The Magic Skin," "The Elixir of Life," "Louis Lambert," "Seraphita," and "Jesus Christ en Flandre." I know how ludicrously inadequate this mention of the greatest of novelists is, but I simply wish to call attention. For an exposition of his philosophy of life I would suggest the reading of George Frederick Parson's introduction to Balzac's "Louis Lambert," For an analysis of the whole "Comedie" Balzac's own division. "Studies of Manners," "Philosophical Studies" and "Analytic Studies," I find William P. Trent's article in a "Library of the World's Best Literature" to be as clear and accessible a presenta-tion as I know. ISaintsbury commenced an English edition of the great master's works and the introductions are invaluable. But for the realization that Balzac has given us a prose Lear we must read his own "Le Pere Gor-iot" and feel the terror, the devotion and the frenzy of the old neglected father's life and death. To know that there is a French Beatrice, Desdemona, Hamlet, Falstaff, Iago, one must follow for himself the career of Louis Lambert, Baron Hulot, Cousine Bette, Eugene Grandet and Rastiquac in their tortuous risings towards the In-finite, or their gurgling descent into the human hell of despair. To know Balzac thus is to know life. To know life is to cry aloud to God. A FEW FACTS ABOUT PRE-HISTORIC CALIFORNIA. BY REV. M. H. STINE, PH. U., '77. California is the land of wonders. Its climate is a happy surprise to the visitor from almost every State in the Union. Its delicious fruits are unexcelled in perfection and variety. Its natural scenery comprehends mountain and valley, forest and desert, all included in a surpris-ingly small extent of square miles. The busy life of the 10 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. city, the densely populated valley, and the silence and loneliness of the uninhabited mi-sa and the mountain, rock-ribbed and sublime in its towering heights, are all in the compass of a day's journey. This State so rich in its natural wonders has also its pre-historic surprises and apparent contradictions. Per-haps nowhere in America outside of Mexico are tbere more marked evidences of the existence of a pre-historic civilization far in advance of the North American Indian than in the Golden State. With the brief space at our command, we can call attention to only a few of these evidences. One of these is in Tuolumne county Here be-neath what is known as Table mountain "have been found many works of man's hand." Table Mountain it-self is a wonder. It is the remains of a flow of lava which originated in the crater of a volcano miles away. It seems as if the lava instead of seeking its lowest level had persisted in flowing along the ridge of the hill. The fact is, that the mountains which were at the time of the flow of the lava much higher than the present summit, have been carried away. Prof. Whitney truthfully says (Geology of Cal., "Vol I.): "The whole face of the country must, therefore, have undergone an entire change since the eruption took place, during which this mass of lava was poured out." Conceive, if you can, the sublime truth that mountains three thousand feet in height, have been completely removed. On this mountain, at Altaville, a skull was taken from a mining shaft at a depth of 130 feet beneath the surface. Seven different layers of lava and gravel were arranged in regular strata above it. Stone mortars, spear heads, and other stone relics were found 300 feet beneath the sur-face. We naturally wonder whether the people who left these relics were the same that built the irrigating ditches in the southern part of the State in what is now desert. And were they the people who laid the foundation and built the superstructure of the massive buildings, the ruins of which have been discovered in the southern part of the State ? T THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 11 It has been asserted that when Table Mountain was formed California was totally different from what it is now. Parts of the San Joaquin Valley may then still have been covered with water, whilst the great Mojave desert was at the bottom of an inland sea. Dr. Cooper says : (Geographical Survey, W. of 100 Meridian, Vol. I, p. 11) "The country consisted of peninsulas and islands, like those of the present East Indies." If these people who lived on the supposed islands laid the foundations of temples and built water ways, they were no doubt more civilized than the people who sought for gold where now the heights of Table Mountain rear their rugged walls. The question as to where those people came from is most interesting, especially if we adopt the views of Igna-tius Donnelly (Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, p. 135, 175 etc.) That they came from the South originally seems plausible. Evidently the civilization of Mexico and Cen-tral America is the oldest in the Western World. When we make this assertion we do not forget that Prof. Whitney and others, hold that the human remains and evidences of human handiwork prove that men lived in Pliocene times. We ask, do the houses and other relics exhumed from beneath the lava beds of Vesuvius prove that Pompeiians lived in Pliocene times ? It will be ob-jected that the two examples are not sufficiently alike to comparison. It is true, no mountains have been removed near Pompeii since the city was buried nor have the val-leys been elevated into mountain ranges ; but some very stupendous changes have been made in the face of Italy and elsewhere since Pompeii was destroyed. So two or three or five thousand years may have produced marvel-ous changes on the Pacific Coast, where the rumblings of earthquakes are monthly occurrences even in the closing years of the nineteenth century. We ask, are the remains even at the base of a mountain a proof that men lived in Pliocene times ? Were all mountains formed before and in Pliocene times ? 12 THE GETTYSBURG MJReUKY. WHAT IS NATURE? BY PROF. OSCAR G. KLIXUER, A M. While in conversation with a student-friend some time since, our talk turned upon Nature as it presents itself to poet, artist, scientist and the illiterate man. and he wondered how one and the same thing could produce such different conceptions in different minds. He then asked the question which forms the caption of this article, "What is Nature"? In my reply I endeavored to show that what Natnre is for each man depends upon what he is. I hope now to justify this answer by a rapid analysis of the conditions and processes of the act of knowing. The mind as substance is forever hid from human cog-nition, but the instrument and laws of its activity are now matters of everyday knowledge. No doubt longer exists that it uses as the means of its manifestations the nervous system with the brain as its center. The brain is hermetically sealed within the skull. "'The hair, the thick skin of the scalp, the skull, and two membranes at least, one of them a tough one, surround the brain ; and this organ moreover, like the spinal cord, is bathed by a serous fluid in which it floats suspended." (James). In the skull are several apertures filled with the nerves of the special senses—sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. Sitting at the center, the mind receives its materials of knowledge from sensations generated by external stimuli and carried upward to the brain by longitudinal vibra-tions of the several nerves. The relations of mind and brain are so close that psychologists ar^ unanimous in affirming that "the immediate condition of a state of con-sciousness is an activity of some sort in the cerebral hemisphere." Further it is believed that with every sense dead, mind would exist, if at all, only as a mere blank—"not mind, but only the unrealized possibility of mind." (John Caird). It is not to be doubted then that mind is awakened and furnished with the materials of knowledge by sensations which have their origin in the external world. TH.fi GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 13 But the materials of knowledge are not knowledge any more than the materials of a house are the house itself. The sensations which come to the brain must be reacted upon by the mind and the product which results we call knowledge. "It is neither wholly from within nor wholly from without, but both the external and the .nternal fac-tors co-operate in its formation." (Stuckenberg). This re-action takes place through perception, conception, judg-ment, etc:, and implies the recognition of differences and similarities. Let us call the reacting mind the subjective, and Ihe external stimulus the objective; knowledge as the individual, concrete act of knowing may then be denned as the union of the subjective and the objective in a state of consciousness. It may be necessary to indicate the exact meaning of the phrase "state of consciousness." A single intelligent introspective glance will show that what we mean by con-sciousness is a "stream" (James) of thoughts and feelings and volitions all intermingled and inseparable. Now a "state" of consciousness is the content of this stream in-cluded within certain definite time-limits. As all intelli-gence lies within consciousness, we must study the nature of the concrete act of knowing in this time-portion of it. It is in a state of consciousness, then, that the individual knowing-act takes place. This act I have termed a union of subjective and objective elements. It remains, there-fore, to determine just what these respective elements are and we shall then be in a position to get a glimpse of Nature as an absolutely objective reality. It must be borne in mind, however, that knowledge is, in fact, an indissoluble union of these elements and the separation of which I speak is mere abstraction. One can think of the color of the rose to the neglect of its other properties but he cannot, of course, separate it from them without de-stroying the rose. Take a single act of knowing an object such as hourly occurs in the laboratory. Here we have the different ele-ments in the cold light of the intellect without any color-lng of feeling. There lies the substance to be analyzed 14 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. and named. The eyes are turned upon it and on the retina is thrown an image of it. This sets up a vibration which proceeds upward to the brain. Somewhere at the brain's base, this sensation, a purely neural process is changed into a perception of color and form, a purely psychic product. So the ear and the nerves of taste and touch carry up to the same center their wholly diverse sensations of sound and taste and feel. The mind is now furnished with the data of knowledge, viz., certain neural affections which interpreted by the mind we call proper-ties of the object. But this is not the whole act of knowing. Whatever the mind cognizes comes to it under certain forms of knowledge—categories, as Kant calls them : fundamental ideas, as Whewell calls them ; ideas of the pure reason as others call them. These forms in which all sensations are received and worked over are such as time, space, cause, substance, indentity, etc. That object is there, it is now, it is itself, it had a cause. Now all these ideas which necessarily enter into every interpretation of the objective belong to the mind itself; hence in the knowing-act they are contributed by the mind in its reaction upon the in-coming sensations. Let us, now, in that union of the subjective and the ob-jective which we call scientific knowledge abstract from the whole the elements which the mind has furnished and note what remains. 1. Nothing is more commonly spoken of than the "laws" of Nature. But law is an idea of the reason and so far as we know has only an ascribed objective exist-ence. What we actually perceive in Nature are only uni-formities : water always seeks its own level, a stone al-ways falls to the ground, etc. Matter has certain modes of acting which are uniform and invariable and these modes we call laws. 2. Again, we affirm without thought of possible con-tradiction that "every change has a cause." But cause, also, is one of the fundamental ideas and "it is now uni-versally conceded that we have no perception by the THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 15 senses of any causal connection or nexus in the material world." What we do perceive is only sequence, but when one phenomenon always follow another and the relation of antecedent and consequent seems to be a necessary one, we call the phenomenon that comes first the cause of the one that comes second. And so, if space permitted, it would he possible to show that force, life, order, purpose, substance and all the other most common terms in scien-tific nomenclature stand for ideas, not things. To this I append the witness of Professor Cocker : "Order, pur-pose, design, law, are not objects of sense ; all that we perceive by the senses is a cerlain collocation and dis-position of matter in space." Nature, then, in its bleak objectivity when abstracted from all that the mind necessarily reads into it in every act of interpretation, is matter existing in what seems to be a system of uniformities, coexistences, sequences. This it is which furnishes the stimuli to the various senses and by them generates the different sensations upon which each individual mind must react in harmony with its own natural endowment. Its own natural endowment, I repeat, because difference is what constitutes individuality, and it is safe to say that no two human beings have ever been endowed in precisely the same way. No man is a chance product, however.— except, indeed, he be a transcendent genius—and natural endowment is determined, under the laws of heredity and environment, by his ancestry and the accidents of his early training. Some minds are practical, others poetical, artistic, philosophical. In some the constructive imagi-nation is most active and things are always seen in a bor-rowed light. In others the spirit of investigation is pro-dominant and the analytic tendency, as is the case of John Stuart Mill, becomes a burdensome nuisance. Other men there are whose whole thought centers about the problem of getting on in the world and they are never bothered by the aspirations of an aesthetic nature. Such men never see a landscape, and Niagara to them is only so much waste power! 16 THE GETTYSBURG MEKCURY. I said at the beginning that ''what Nature is to each man depends upon what he is." If he be a physicist, as Edison. Nature will be to him a reservoir of forces or one force manifesting itself in different modes. If he be a chemist, as von Liebig, Nature will be to him a unity of molecules combined in different proportions. If he be a biologist, as Huxley, Nature will be to him a great vit.il laboratory in which cells are built up and destroyed in end-less succession. If he be a poet, as Bryant, Nature will be to him a great speaking allegory, a store-house of imagery and sentiment, a dully-sentient reality capable of feeling— "Dim and faint May be its sense of pleasure and of pain, ■ As in our dreams ; but, haply, real still." If he be an unlettered farmer, as poor Hodge. Nature will be to him but su much soil in which to sow and so much sunlight in which to garner the harvest. I have space for only one illustration of my meaning In the West the sun is setting in a blaze of glory. Orange and gold melt into each other and pass into crimson. A magnificent tint spreads over the sky to the far East shot-through with beams of light. Hodge looks at it and re-marks, "Red at night, the sailor's delight." But John Ruskin, scientist, poet, and artist, looks at it and thinks of the contest waged between day and night since early dawn ; night has at length conquered, and "the sun sinks below the horizon, bathed in the crimson of his own blood. So every interpretation of Nature is colored by.— say rather, its whole content is given by,—the personality of the interpreter. It is to each of us poverty-striken or rich as our minds are endowed with sublime or only com-monplace ideas. We get from Nature just what we bring to it. To the "Mercury." NOVEMBER. Summer days have sped away. Summer clouds no more appear, November comes with skies of gray, Winter's snows again seem near. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 17 The grass grows sere in the meadows Where the hoar-frost falls by night, No blossoms nod to their shadows, Nor beckon the bees to alight. Forest trees send down their shower Of dry leaves all over the ground. The robin—iar South is his bower— Sings to gladden his mate with the sound. Yet autumn days truly are gladsome ; Fulfillment of promise are they— Promise of fruit from the blossom Matured by the sun's ripening ray. What if purple asters turn gray, And golden-rod flames grow dim— The flower is more than the bloom of the day; There's a wealth of seed within. So life's not for a day, but for fruit; And the labor of summer's not lost. The best fruits ripen the latest, And some ripen onty in frost. And when pink petals are faded and withered, And almond trees flourish like snow; They that look out of the windows lie darkened, And the daughters of music brought low ; When the silver cords are unstrung, And the golden bowls broken be ; Return like the honey-bee, home, With thy treasure laid up on high. AEIEIE, '91. A FEW THINGS ABOUT THE SOUTHERN NEGRO. BY H. D. SHIMER, '96. This summer I was engaged in colporter work in the South. As every one knows, the South is the home of the colored man ; or if it may not be called his home, that is where one finds him very frequently. To me, coming from a state where it is the exception and not the rule to find colored people living, the colored man proved to be a very interesting subject for study. It is about him that I am now going to write ; and my writing, I will base upon what I saw and experienced. 18 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. Probably one of the first things that attracts ones atten-tion, when traveling among colored people, is the fact that they are a very happy and contented people. They live in the present, and for the present. How often have I seen colored persons clad in filthy rags, not knowing whence their next meal would come, bearing upon their countenance the smile of perfect contentment, and sing-ing, as only they can sing, some old plantation song! And why are they so happy ? It is because they are satis-fied with what they have. They, as a rule, lack true am-bition. While the white man toils and worries and plans for the future, unsatisfied until he has made for himself and his family a comfortable home, the colored man as a rule is perfectly satisfied to let the future take care of itself, and is the happiest man in the world, if he has just enough in the present to keep his body and soul together. What cares he for a palace in which to live ? Does not a little hut give him shelter from rain and from storm? What need has he of a palace for a home ? Does not the little log house give ample room for himself, and for his family ! Is it not easier to fill a small home with happi-ness than a large one ? Thus reasons the colored man; and I was compelled to believe that there was something in his reasoning ; for I have seen colored families, with a a dozen or more members in each family, live in miser-able hovels of one room, and live there in perfect content-ment. From what I could learn, during the seasons when negroes have work and make a little money, they spend their money about as fast as they earn it; and when they earn no money they live on almost nothing. They lack | that true ambition, which tends to make their future bet-ter than their present. When they have much, they are happy with much; when they have little, they are happy with little. A second thing in which I was interested in the colored people was their education. In the section of country where I was,-the facilities for acquiring a moderate edu-tion were average. School-houses for the colored people were so scattered about that any colored family was THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY, 19 within a reasonable distance of a school-house. As a re-sult, most of the colored children attend school. But one thing especiallv attracted my attention. It was the fact that little children from six up to ten or twelve years of of age, were very bright and active. In fact many of them were as bright as white children of their age. But when they got beyond ten or twelve years of age they seemed to become stupid and dull. I noticed this almost invariably among the strictly African children. The only way I could account for this was : From six up to ten or twelve years of age, their perceptive faculties were very active, and they could perceive things very readily, and thus were apparently very bright; but when they came to the age when the reflective faculties should assert themselves, they were lacking in their reflective powers, and consequently, for the lack of these powers, they became dull and stupid. Of course there are some few who are exceptions, and sometimes these few make very smart men and women. Yet how often can these exceptions claim their mental powers from the African race! How often are the minds of these exceptions made more active and fertile by Caucasian blood and energy ? Viewing the colored man from a religious standpoint, we are compelled to say that he is a very religious being. Without a doubt our colored brother has as much of the religious element in his nature as we have who are of fairer complexion. To realize the truth of this statement we have only to go to the great revival meetings which the colored people hold from time to time. There we may see religion in one of its phases, though not always in its true phase. In these meetings there is life ; and it is there that the religious nature of the colored man often unconsciously wings its flight on pinions of abnormal ex-citement, and soars higher and higher, until it exhausts itself in unconscious agony. Socially and morally the colored people with whom I came in contact were not. up to the standard of the white race. There was not that purity of heart, earnestness of true motive, and elevation of thought and conversation 20 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. among them which characterizes the noble characters of our own race. True, there are kind, charitable. Christian people among the colored race ; yet with all their virtues, there is something within the character of the colored man, which does not measure up to the standard of char acter among our own people. For instance, if a good col-ored brother, on his way home from religious services, should happen to take a chicken home with him that did not belong to him, his colored brelhren would hardly ques-tion his Christianity for such a deed. Again, colored ser-vants have a great liking for taking things that belong to their employer, and appropriating them to their own use. There seems to be a positive weakness in the colored man for that kind of thing. Topsy was no excep-tion to this rule. The families among them also point to a weakness in their moral and social disposition. There where purit}r and love should reign, I found too often the opposite ; the baser nature ruling and moral purity placed in the back-ground. It is true that this same thing may be said of very many of the homes of our own race ; yet we can say there are homes among our people where love does reign, and where moral purity finds an exalted place. In view of these foregoing facts this question naturally presents itself : What kind of citizens do the colored peo-ple as a rule make ? Closely allied to this question is another : What kind of citizens are they likely to make in the future ? In answer to the first question, we can say that the majority of the colored voters of the South have not suf-ficient education to use intelligently the ballot-box ; and it is a question whether the North did not entrust too much to the negro when it gave to him indiscriminately full rights of citizenship. There are few people in the South who want back their slaves. They agree with us that slavery was wrong. But there are many people in the South, the most intelligent and best thinking class of people, who honestly hold that the large majority of negroes, have not sufficient knowledge to use intelligently ^^^^^■■^^^■^^^^^H ^^^^^^■M THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 21 the bnllot-box, and that the North made a mistake when it gave to negroes, indiscriminately, the full power and authority of citizenship. In answer to the second question it is to be hoped that the negro will make a better citizen in the future than he does now. If he does not there is trouble ahead. The colored people in the South are increasing at an alarming rate. It will be but a short time until they will outnum-ber the white people in the 8outh. In such an event, the colored people would elect their representatives to govern-ment and municipal offices. What would be the outcome of such a step is hard to tell. We all know that the white population of the South would not look with favor upon such a step, and it would be justified in not so doing, if the intellectual and moral standard of the colored race be-comes no higher than it now is. Unless the colored race make rapid strides in intelligence and moral strength, it will be many years before they will be fit subjects to take active part in our governmental affairs. EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF POETRY. Life is a conscious effort to cancel the limitations be-tween the real and the ideal. The noblest life is an heroic effort to realize an ideal so grand and pure that it is unat-tainable. That branch of instruction which does the most to help the student cancel the limitations betwetn his real self and his ideal self has the greatest educational value. Tompkins says : "Life's ideal, heroic struggle is exhibited in its most perfect form in literature." The manifold objects and influences in the physical world are the means which man is to use in realizing his ideal self. But man without the poet's soul does not recognize their value. He walks through the world having eyes but he sees not. "A primrose by the river's brim, A yellow primrose is to him ; And it is nothing more." 22 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. The poet utilizes the common objects in the physical world and makes them a power unto spiritual. The ordi-nary individual sees in the nautilus nothing but a com-mon, insignificant little animal, but Holmes saw in that little animal a type of the human soul struggling to shake off the base and sensuous things of earth and attain its true spiritual freedom. The growth of the little ani-mal from the narrow, restricted cell to the Droader, higher one, was to him a type of the human soul broadened and elevated through the acquisition of knowledge and virtue. The nautilus cast off the shell which had restricted his freedom and separated him from the physical heaven. Holmes saw in that a type of the soul that has cast off all ignorance, prejudice and sin, and attained its true spiritual freedom. The intellect recognizes the fitness of the object in the physical world to typify growth in the spiritual world; the emotions are called into play and the soul is filled with pleasure as it sees the unity. But it must also move the will or it would be deficient as an educational force. The student sees that the end of the little creature is to become physically free. It has attained its freedom and left nothing between it and the physical heaven. He is not free. Passions, sin and ignor-ance still chain him to the earth. His will is moved to do what the little nautilus has already done. He moves for-ward and to his own soul utters Holmes' mandate : "Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll; Leave thy low vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from Heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea." It is the poetic in life that "lifts the soul from the com-mon sod to a purer air and a broader view." The poetic soul recognizes in the physical world around him expressions of universal spiritual truth. Tompkins says, in substance, that the matter-of-fact scientist studies the lily as a physical organism and misses the best it has i^^^^Hj^^^^l^^^H THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 23 for man, if he stops there. The true scientist, who is always a poet, adjusts his ear to its whispers of infinite truth and beauty, and finds the message it has for man. The matter of fact botanist would have analyzed the gentian as a physical organism and stopped with a knowl-edge of its structure, habitat, etc. Whittier saw a deeper lesson. He was familiar with the New England custom of placing a pressed gentian on the inner side of the win-dows as a Xmas decoration. This though beautiful with-in looks like a dark speck to the traveler passing ; and the poet wrote his lesson: "So from the trodden ways of earth, Some sweet souls who veil their worth, And offer to the careless glance The clouding gray of circumstance. They blossom best where hearth fires burn, So loving eyes above they turn, The flowers of inward grace, that hide Their beauty from the world outside. But deeper meaning comes to me, My half immortal flower, from thee! Man judges from a partial view, None ever yet his brother knew; The Eternal Eye that sees the whole May better read the darkened soul, And find, to outward sense denied, The flower upon the inmost side." Ryan saw two roses, one perfect, blooming; the other broken, crushed. He noticed that the crushed rose breath-ed forth the sweetest perfume. He saw in that flower a type of the human soul chastened, but sweetened by sor-row and suffering, and he sent forth his message to man-kind: "It is a truth beyond our ken— And yet a truth that all may read, It is with roses as with men, The sweetest hearts are those that bleed. The Flower which Bethlehem saw bloom Out of a heart all full of grace, Gave never forth its full perfume Until the cross became its vase." Thomas Moore watched the carrier pigeon soaring 24 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. through the air at a great height in order to surmount every obstacle between her and the place to which she was destined. In that scene he recognized a type of the soul soaring above the sins and snares of this world to the place for which it was destined. His soul was filled with emotion as he saw the faithful bird soaring with a fidelity which man—proud man with all his intelligence, rarely, if ever, reaches. He seized his pen and to the world of literature gave this poetic prayer: "So grant me God. from every care And stain of passion free, Aloit through Virtue's purer air, To hold my course to thee! No sin to cloud, no lure to stay My soul, as home she springs; Thy sunshine on her joyful way, Thy freedom in her wings." BUTTERWORTH, '99. THE COLLEGE MUSICAL ORGANIZATIONS. In our college life, along with its literary work, we should cultivate that which softens, soothes and elevates our natures—something which will drive away dull care and instill in us new life, spirit and energy. Could there be a more pleasant or effectual means for bringing about the desired result than that of music ? Its place in the college world is clearly recognized, it fills a felt want. Of course as everything else it has its time and place, as there are occasions when it might put a person in a "beat-ing" frame of mind and especially is this true of the stu-dent. The singing of Miss Quito just reminds me of the painful fact that—that which sounds well does not always leave a good impression, (thinking of the Hanover-York trip), however, a few minors (not Freshman) only throw the richness of the majors more into prominence. Without doubt the instrument most universally used j and mastered by college men is the old reliable "frog-hv your-throat," tin horn and indeed I want to toot the same a little over the prospects of our Musical Clubs for the coming season. Almost fifty men responded to the call ^■■■^^^^^^^■■^^^^^^■^^H THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 25 for applicants, and although by the graduation of '97 we lost much excellent talent, yet we are glad to say that the musical abilities of the new men exceeded expectations and feel quite safe in predicting that our institution will be represented musically this year in a very creditable manner. A preliminary selection for the Glee and also for the Man-dolin, Banjo, and Guitar Club has been made and the boys are working hard, as already several dates have been ar-ranged. Efforts are being made to revive the old college orchestra, and we trust that the same may be completely successful. We would bespeak for the Clubs the united, hearty support of the student body. That the members are not working for their own financial gain is shown by their intention of turning over to the cause of athletics any proceeds which may result from their labors. This is indeed a most commendable move, one which has the true jingle-that of putting aside small interests and seek-ing to benefit old Gettysburg. Conscious that the "phrasing" of this little "toot" has not been of a sufficiently high tone and knowing that the final sentence of the same must have seemed to you, dear reader, to be about as slow as, well-adazio-in coming, with this parting blast I'll give you a "whole" rest—never B sharp in your criticisms, never B flat in your praise, but always B natural. C. T. L., '98. MY FIRST SMOKE. We were seated in our study Wheu my chum said, "Have a smoke ; This won't sicken anybody." So I tried just for a joke. The effect was soon alarming, 'Round and 'round me all things sped, Until nothing was so charming As my own dear springless bed. Not alone a head near splitting, Other strange things soon were felt, Pains and sickness intermitting In the regions of my belt. 26 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. Matters had become so serious That uiy thoughts were not my own, Aud the words 1 said, delirious, Would not sound well 'round my home. If Proserpine and Pluto Hearkened to the prayeis I made, Chum won't chill, though winter's cold snow Freeze the grave where he is laid. H. M. C, '99. EDITORS' DESK. "Life is a page of paper white, Upon which each of us may write His word or two, and then conies night! Great^' begin, though thou hast time But for a line ; be it sublime! Not failure, but low aim is crime." -Lowell. ONE thing is strikingly lacking in our college life. It is the singing of songs that are distinctively our own. Occasionally we see a fair sized crowd able to unite on a strain of a song of the day, or on a stanza or two of some of the old favorites, but as a college body, we have nothing that we can call our sonq or songs, This is a serious deficiency in our college life. Take only a recent occurence, the rousing reception we gave to Mayor Strong and his party. After lusty cheer-ing and yells, and inspiring responses from our visitors were over, we all felt like singing. Here and there in the scattering crowd, a solitary voice sang out that "For Bonny Annie Laurie, I'd Lay Me Down and Die"; or per-chance, "My Bonny Lies Over The Oc^an"' uttered the far-away feeling of another. The typical college fellow, whose capacity for noise is never exhausted, declares his own wishes in, "There'll Be a Hot Time In The Old Town To-night"; but no song reached the universal heart. Here is the need—what is the remedy ? It is in tin composing and compiling of a book of "Gettysburg Col-lege Songs." A collection of this kind should contain I^^^^^^^Hi^^^^^HB^^^^H^^^^^^Hi^^M THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 27 number of original songs composed by students and alumni, and a careful selection from the songs which be-long to the college world in general, not forgetting the good old melodies that have come down from former ages. That we can publish such a book is not to be doubted a moment. The great number of men who sought for place on our Glee Club and Mandolin Club, our excellent Chapel singing, are only a few proofs that we have considerable musical ability represented in our number. Other colleges are not asleep on this point. All the larger institutions have a book of their own. Swarthmore has just published such a book. F. & M. students are busy composing special songs for Thanksgiving Day, when they hope to conquer Swarthmore on the gridiron. The students of Dickinson have recently organized into a musical association for the purpose of individual and col-lege advancement in this beautiful and uplifting art. Has Gettysburg nothing to sing about? Let us think and act. Let us no longer be content to write about the Col-lege and to talk about it. We want to sing and shout its praises! We believe that MERCURY hereby sounds a key-note to which students and alumni will chord. If the advance-ment of the College of late years is a true indicator of the future, all her friends will unite in a grand harmony and swell the praises of Alma Mater. We are listening. * * * NEVER before in the history of our College has a better time presented itself for the students to write literary articles of merit. Several professors are willing to direct the student along original lines and will help them in the development of something new, something worthy the attention of all. This is a grand opportunity to lead the students into methods of original thinking. It is a rare opportunity. A "rehash" of something old is weari-ness to the flesh. Aim at originality. You have the time, !i you seize it now. You have the brains, if you use them 28 THE GETTYSBURU MKRCURY. properly. You have the means of bringing your thoughts to the public. Are you going to do it ? * * IT is an unpleasant fact that a lack of the proper inter-est has characterized the work in our Literary Societies during this term. So far the majority of meetings have been held with not many more than a quorum present. Such a condition reflects not so much on the Societies as organizations, as on the individual members composing them. It clearly shows that they do not appreciate and take advantage of one of the most beneficial features of college life. To say that no other department in College furnishes more practical training and knowledge for the necessary intercourse and contact with others in life, than the Literary Society, is simply to repeat what has heen said hundreds of times by those who are in positions to know. The above statement is frequently made by those who neglected their opportunities in this respect, and only when the latter were gone did they realize their loss. Warning from such a source should certainly not be treated with indifference. It is to be hoped that every student of Penna. College will become alive to his own interests and take an active interest in Literary Society work. WHEN the majority of students are asked to do some work aside from the curriculum, there comes the reply— "I have no time now." There are only two conditions that will admit of such an answer. The students have either an over abundance of work or they waste too much time in doing it. A large percentage are subject to the latter condition. This becomes a great problem and one that deserves special attention. Each student must solve it for himself. You have often heard it said that if you want anything done promptly, go to the busiest man. This seems the reverse to what we might consider the true order of things. Yet it is practically true. The secret of THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 29 it all lies in the fact that they have learned how to sys-tematize their work. They do not go at their duties as though they had an indefinite period of time in which to complete them. Only a definite period is allowed, and realizing that they must be done within the fixed limits, they set to work with an object in view. This requires close application, but. never fails to bring the desired results. WE are under great obligations to the many alumni who have already consented to conlribute. We trust that you will not wait for a spacial invitation, but will send us articles voluntarily We take pleasure in announcing a few authors and subjects which will appear in early num-bers: Dr. J. H. W. Stuckenberg, "Sociology"; Dr. P. Anstadt, "Dr. Schmucker"; Dr. M. H. Stine, "Early Mis-sions in Cal."; Dr. E. J. Wolf; Dr. J. W. Richard, "Fe-male Education in Germany"; Rev. Henry B. Wile; Capt. F. M. Ott, "The Hazleton Strike"; Prof. Stahl, Rev. A. R. Steck, Rev. H. C. Alleman, C. S. Duncan, Esq., Dr. E. S. Breidenbaugh, and other members of the faculty and alumni, together with articles by the students of Col-j lege and Seminary. ATHLETICS. Our Foot-Ball season has about come to a close. With regret, we must say that it was not as successful as first indications led us to expect; but there are reasons to be given why this was the case. First and foremost was the lack of proper coaching at the beginning of the season ; then, the injuries received iu our larger games by many of the players. The question naturally arises here whether it is advisable to play U. P. so early in the season. Granting that our men are taught many of the fiier points of the game and that our own College is brought before the people, is it advisable to risk so much where there is no possible chance of victory? Through this year's game with U. P., we lost the services of our captain for several weeks just at the time when he was most needed. When the team from the University of Maryland appeared on the field, 11 was seen that they averaged quite a great deal more than our team, but notwithstanding this fact our boys entered into the game with a dash. y continual "bucking of the line," the University boys advanced the ball 0 our twenty yard line. Then our boys stood determined to sell their ■ L 30 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. lives dearly; but in vain, for by short gains, the Maryland boys crossed the coveted goal line. The goal was kicked. The ball was again put in play. After an interchange of punts, Dale caught the ball on our 45-yard line, and by the aid of excellent interference, made a run of 65 yards for a touchdown. We scored once more in the first half, making the score 12—6 in our favor. In the second half University of Maryland scored once, but on account of violating a rule in regard to kicking a goal, Capt. Dale would not permit them the privilege of a trial at goal. This immediately caused a dispute, which finally ended by the Maryland boys leaving the field. Score, Gettysburg 12, U. of M. 10. Next came the long looked for Indian game. Their fame had come be" fore them, and to say that they did credit to it is expressing it mildly. This was the prettiest game to behold that was ever played at Gettysburg. The Indians had learned some plays from Princeton, which were almost impossible to be broken up. Their weight combined with the excellent plays which they used, made it possible for them to run up the big score of 82—o on us. The result of the game with Baltimore City College was never in dfuM. Our men, especially the tackles, made gains almost as they pleased. After many long runs around the ends, and frequent "bucking of the line," our boys at the end of the second halt had run the score up to 40—o. Length of halves, 20 and 10 minutes. On Saturday evening after the game, our coach, Mr. Thomas, left for his home, his work here being finished. He certainly must be commended for the good results he brought out of the limited material which he had at his disposal. H. C. R., '99. A GETTYSBURG GLEE BOOK. A much felt want in old Gettysburg is a college song book Students and others have realized this for years, but no active measures, to our knowledge, have been taken to remedy the matter. Why not start a move-ment now which will bring about the desired result ? We need a college song book. We can have a college song book. Why not say we will have a college song book ? If others can why not we ? Philo should have its song; Phrena should have hers. Gettysburg demands it. "Gettysburg College March" wouldn't be a bad title for one of the numbers on the pro-gram of the instrumental club. However it isn't necessary that a volume of entirely new music be ar ranged. For instance, in the Harvard song book, with the exception of 1 "Johnny Harvard" and a few other selections, the book is merely a collec-tion of the favorite songs of Harvard's sons. The writer has frequently been asked to sing some of Gettysburg's college songs; when he replied that he scarcely knew what to class a Gettysburg college song, a look ot | amazement greeted him. No wonder. All colleges have their songs. Only we haven't learned ours. You can't learn them with a few practices in the spring of the year on the college campus. Place the collection of our | H^^^^^BaaH ■^^^^■B THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 31 favorites within reach of our student body, then they will learn thern and that correctly. How can it be done? Swarthrnore's class of '98 undertook aud perfected such a work just recently. The Harvard Glee Club officials superintended their book. Committees have been appointed by the student body of other institutions? Can't we adopt one of these or some other scheme that may be convenient, to place within reach of the student body a song book, which, to every Gettysburg man is indispensable. Think the matter over. Offer your opinions aud suggestions. Let us remember, no matter what our other attainments may be, we are deficient if we never learu to sing the praises of old Gettysburg. X. Y. Z. '98. THE JUNIOR KANES. We told 'em awl to keep 'er mum; "Let not a word be said 'Til after awl the sticks have kum, And ev'ry bil's bin paid; And then we'll kerry kaues the day The Seniors ware the gown ; Aud hear the things the people say About us, in the town. Aforehaud must each Junior lern, With kane to walk about." 'Twas sed;—but soon in tern The guarded kat got out. Of korse the reazon waz quite plane ; But others soon kame out To show why Juniors used the kane,— Sum sed we had the gout. The worst of awl, was sumthin' 'bout "The steep and rocky path," "Their beasts of burden, awl plade out,"— "They must now use the staf." Our reazou's true, the mind iz strong, But flesh iz mighty week, And so to help the week along, The walkin' stick we seek. To everyone who knows our clas, It goes without a sayin'; And so they let the subject pas, 'Bout '99's new kane. J. N. K. H. 99- 32 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. OUR EXCHANGE TABLE. The Yale Literary claims to be the oldest magazine of its kind in the United States, having been established in 1836. Its looked-for visits to our desk will strengthen more family the heretofore pleasant relations existing between our institutions. The Senate of the State of Michigan has passed a bill prohibiting all foot-ball playing in the State. In England there are no college journals. The University of Paris leads the world with 11,733 students last year. Berlin follows with 9,375. The highest salary received by any college professor is that of Prof. Tur-ner, of Edinburgh, $20,000 per year. The University of Chicago now offers 1,086 courses. The Black and Red, published by the students of Northwestern Univer-sity, Watertowu, Wis., is about equally divided between the English aud German languages. WISE AND OTHERWISE. "Homicide and verbicide—that is, violent treatment of a word with fatal results to its legitimate meaning, which is its life—are alike forbidden. Manslaughter, whieh is the meaning of the one, is the same as man's laughter which is the end of the other."—Holmes. I kissed the maiden on one cheek, Then thought she tell her father; Instead she quotes from algebra, "Treat one side as the other." Blest be the tie that binds My collar to my shirt, Beneath its silk or satin folds It hides a week of dirt. I'm sure that there is one (It is a woman's style) By whom her love is won,— 'Tis shown by pretty smile ; But who it is, perchance, Is more than I can see ; She tells, O heartless glance! Her love is not for me. V* THE GETTYSBUKG MERCURY. 33 If last century a maiden Wished to send her love away, When he'd popped the fatal question, She would quietly answer "Nay." But an ardent, wooing love Only fifty years ago, If he did not suit the sweet one Would be crushed by one short "No." Now, however, if a fairy Wants to give her flame the mit, When he asks her to be "his'n," She will softly gurgle "Nit." Ex. Every man lives somewhere on the main line between honesty and knav-ery, none being at the extreme end in either direction. HK—"My head's almost on fire with the heat of the sun." SHE—"I was sure I smelled burnt wood somewhere."—Comic Cuts. "Who wrote the most, Dickens, Warren, or Bulwer?" "Warren wrote 'Now and Then,' Bulwer wrote 'Night and Morning,' and Dickens wrota 'All The Year 'Round.' " A girl wrote to her best fellow: Don't phale to be thar." He replied at once, "I'll be thar. There's no sech word as phale."—Ex. They say a most peculiar thing Has happened here in town ; A woman took her watch upstairs, And then the watch ran down. —Wellington Post. "My good fellow," said the dude to the hatter, "how's trade?" "There's really nothing in hats now-a-days," replied the hatter, trying one on the head of the dude.— Yonkers Statesman. There is a man down town who never pays for anything. He even goes to bed on tick. "I tell you, sir," said the realist, "I don't believe in taking anything for granted. In other words, I don't believe anything that I can't see." "Am I to understand," returned the idealist, "that you never kissed a girl in the dark?" Thus we see that the theories of a realist may go down before the realism of a theorist. 34 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. According to Darwin and others it takes a monkey thousands of years to make a man of himself; but a man can make a monkey of him-self in a minute. We lead the world,—Ex. "Pa," said Willie "I guess I know why matches are made in heaven It wouldn't be safe makin' 'em in the other place."—Harper's Bazaar. Alice—"What a gallant person Mr. Dunkley is. He never addresses me without beginning 'Fair Miss.' " Doroty—"Oh, that's force of habit. He used to be a street car conductor. —Clevela?id Leader. Bill—"Be't still a raining, Sam?" Sam—"Ah, that it be ; and not like to give over, neither. Bin a-coniin' down powerful, it 'ave. Why, I did 'ear say it's bin so bad up in London thet they're a-celebratin' the longest rain on record."— 'lit-Bits. 2fou uji'/t ft'/ttt a fu/t Una of SPure 'Drugs ocia/?y. J. A. TAWNEY Is ready to furnish clubs and boarding houses with ffiread, J^olls, do., at short notice and reasonable rates. Cor. Washington and Middle Sts , Gettysburg. *David Uroxel, DEALER IN FINE GROCERIES AND NOTIONS. Lg==York Street.^! *M0TEL GETTYSBURG* BfttBEft SHOP. GO TO Centre Square. B. M. SEFTON. -^TIPTON & BARBEHENN* BAfiB£fiS, In the Eagle Hotel, Cor. Main and Wainingtos Sti. MUMPER & BENDER, FURNITURE, Cabinet Making, Picture Frames, Baltimore St., - - GETTYSBURG, PA. "SIMON J. CODORI, —DEALER IN— BEEF, PORK, LAMB, VEAL, SAUSAGE, York Street, Gettysburg, 49»Special rates to clubs. Subscribe for ^-"s Seitysburg Wfercury. %il ACCUMULATED WEALTH. Laying up of riches isn't the only thing in life, for frequently a sour disposition is Ihe result. You want to take comfort in life as you gnaloug, one of the best ways to take com-fort is to buy well-fitting clothing. My Fall styles tire now here and the selection is lufue and varied. Suits made to your order from $12 up. Pressing and Repairing done at short no-tice. J D. MPPY. Merchant Tailor, 13 Clumbsrttsrg St., - - Settysburg, Ft. & E. SPAJY©L~E1^ Successor to J W. Eichollz & Co. DEALEU IN PIANOS, ORGANS, MUSIC, MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS, STRINGS, Etc. YORK STREET First Square, Gettysburg. HOB CHESTNUT STREET, PHILADELPHIA. Wright's Gngravintj Jfcouso ^AS become the recognized leader in iJI- uniquestvlesofCOLUCUE and FRA-TKUMTV ENURAVINGS and STATION-ERY. College and class Day Invital ons. en-graved and printed from steel plates; Pro-grammes, Menus,-Wedding and Reception Invitations, Announcements, etc., etc K.V araiue prices and styles before ordering elsewhere. 50 Vlsltlne Birds f.-om How Eng-ivoi Plats $1.03. ERNEST A. WRIGHT, ma Chestnut Street, - PHILADELPHIA. JOHN L. SHEADS, NEW CIGAR STORE Next door to W. M. Depot, Gettysburg, Pa. P. F. HENNIG, Bread, Soils, Pretzels and Crackers, YORK STREET, GETTYSBURG. ^"Reasonable Rates to Clubs. L. D. WjlLLER, 10 Main St , Gettysburg, Grocer Confectioner f and Fruiterer. ICECREAM and OYSTERS IN SEASON. GETTYSBURG, PA, - Main St. City Motel, FREE 'BUS TO AND FROM ALL TRAINS, RATES $,150 and $2,00 PER DAY, Thirty Socoaar Will from Eithir Depot. Hiy.XER WITH DRIVE OVER FIELD WITH 1, OR MORE $1.35. JOHN E. HUGHES. Prop'r. GO TO. G. A. BLOCHER'S ftwtlff Stilt FOR Souvenir Spoons, Sword Pins, &c. All Kinds of Jewelry. Repairing a Specialty. Post Office Coreer, Centre Square. if~J-—- PHOTOGRAPHED, No. 3 MAIN STREET, GETTYSBURG, PA-Out new Enameled Aristo Pot traits are equal to Photos made anywhere, and at any pi ice. » FOOT BALL SUPPLIES. Spalding League Ball, Iffits, Masks, etc. Managers should send for sam-ples and special rates Every requisite for Tennis, Golf, Cricket, Track and Field Gymnasium Equipments and Outfits. Complete Catalogue Spring and Summer Sports Free. "THE NAME THE GUARANTEE." A. G. SPAIDING & BROS., New York, Philailelphia, Chicago. S. G. Spangler & Co. f©ine . >^o- Telephone 39. 102 E. Middle St. S. J. Codori, c -*^lc)puggist. DEALER IN 2)ruys, TtyedicineSj "Uoiiet Sfr-tie/ es, Stationery, S/3ianAr ttoo/csj jfmateur iPho-toyrahic Supplies, E^, 2!) BALTIMORE ST., GETTYSBURG. PA. SPECIAPAI-DTTTO'T,ON 60LLESE WORK. A Fine Collection of BATTLEFIELD VIEWS Always on hand. Mail Orders receive Prompt Attention. CALL OIM. F. N|4RK BREAM, The Carlisle Street Grocer, Who always has on hand a full line of fine Groceries. HOTEL * GETTYSBURJ UwAtoil no CVlitre Bqiuira win-re M,r|I Ian Hoitriu formerly Htond. j «£T7 iVIIUiG, FEX.vJM RATES $2 PER DAM It is the acknowledged I.ciidifl Hotel of Gettysburg. !k-agH througrnut with Sn inn ; hotTB cold Untlis: commodious Safl pie Rooms; liiiiiiig-riiiini cupgH ity, 2UU; has a I uisiue ofrM excellence. Headquarters ra| League of American tth.rlmeM Headquarters, commercial tijH elers. Headquarters, milituryiH civic societies. Free 'bus [c'ajfl from all trains. H. & D. K. MILLER, PROPRJ E'MER « flKIENP, Manufacturers and Importers of ^ ^ CHEMICALS *-» CHEMICAL 205, 207, 209 & 211 Third Ave., Corner 18th St., pinest Bohemian and German Glassware. Royal Berlin and Meissen Porcelain, Purest Hammered Platinum, Balancesand Weights, Zeiss Micro- scopes, and Bacteriologica Apparatus, Chemically Pure Acids, and Assay Goods. t_£—'Established 1876.—£J-> WAT6HMAKEF AND rlEWELER, Gettysburg Souvenir Spoons. College Souvenir Spoons. No. 10 Balto. St. - GETTYSBURG, PA. THE Lutheran! PUBLISHING H0US1 _^^No. 42 North 9U1 St.J PHILADELPHIA, PA.1 Acknowledged Headquarters [i .r in the way of BOOKS FOR CHURCHES, FAMILItM COLLEGES AND SCHOOLS, AXD I LITERATURE, FOR SUN-DAY SVAOOLS. PLEASE BEMEMBEB That by sending your orders to usyoS help build up and develop one of the] Churche's institutions, with pccmiiaifl advantage to yourself. Address HENRY S. BONER, SUP'T, No. 42 North 9th PHIL A BARBER ^SHC 3. Qharles (5-. Se/^or"» ^ Proprietor, BALTIMORESTEEBM The Place for Students to Go, Only First-class Tonsorinl norH

(J^JLMJAU!**-- MARCH, J899 oeTtneoo Qettysbmr erciury .CONTENTS. The Old Campus 1 Extracts from "Honor in Stu-dent Life" 4 A Page from Prof. Brede's Diary 6 Henry Louis Baugher 7 A Compiled Thanatopsis 10 Thy Speech Bewrayeth Thee 13 The Favorite Sport of Rome IS The Cultivation of the Dramatic. 18 Concerning the Inhabitants of Porto Rico 20 The Reconciliation of Orlando and Oliver 24 Editor's Desk 26 Kee Mar Reception 29 Success in Art 31 The Trip to Chambersburg 33 Athletics 35 jBURGreOLCEGE^LIiRARY GETTYSBURG, PA, r\Hiimmmmitimmmmsmm. FAVOR THOSE WHO FAVOR US. J. R. STINEk-> •*nd SON, Gents' Furnisher, CHAHBERSBURO STREET. C. B. Kitzmiller, Dealer In Hats, Caps, Boots and . A.—Shoes GETTYSBURG, PA. J. H. Myers, Fashionable Tailor, Clothier and Gents' Furnisher. The best place in town tohayeyourCloth-mg made to order. All workmanship and Trimmings guaranteed. No charge for re-pairs and pressing for one year. Dyeing and Repairing a specialty. Ready-made Clothing the largest stock in town. Up-to-date styles. Bicycle Suits and Breeches Headquarters. 11 Baltimore St., Gettysburg, Pa. S. B. ALCOTT, .Agent for. Browning, King 6c Co., Merchant Tailor, N. Y. Suits *12 up; Overcoats $12 up; Pants $4. r it and Workmanship Guaranteed. R. A. WONDERS, Corner Cigar Parlors. A full line of Cigars, Tobacco, Pipes, Etc. Scott s Corner, Opp. Eagle Hotel. GETTYSBURG, PA. EPH. H. MINNIGH, Manufacturer, Wholesale and Retail Dealer in Confectionery and Ice Cream. Oysters in Season. News Depot and Subscription Agency. Sole manufacturer of Dr. Tyler's Cough Drops. flain St., Gettysburg:, Pa. EDGAR 5. MARTIN, .Fine CIGARS AND SMOKERS' ARTICLES. Chambersburg St., Gettysburg. JOHN H. MINNIGH, Confectionery «*- lee Cream: Oysters Stewed and Fried. No. 17 BALTIMORE ST. .COLLEGE OP. Physicians and Surgeons BALTIMORE, flD. TIT The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Baltimore, Maryland, is a well equipped school. Four sessions are required for graduation. For full information send for the annual catalogue, or write to THOMAS OPIE, M. D., Dean. Cor. Calvert & Saratoga Sts. .THE. GETTYSBURG MERCURY Entered at the Postoffice at Gettysburg as second-class matter. VOL. VIII. GETTYSBURG, PA., MARCH, 1899. No. 1 Editor-in-Chief. J. FRANK HEILM AN, '00. Assistant Editors. LUTHER A. WEIGLE, '00. SAMUEL VAN ORMER, '01. Alumni Editor. REV. F. D. GARLAND. Business Manager. JOHN K. HAMACHER. Assistant Business Manager. CLARENCE MOOE. Advisory Board. PROF. J. A. HIMES, LIT. D. PROF. G. D. STAHLEY, M. D. PROF. J. W. RICHARD. D. D. Published monthly by the students of Pennsylvania (Gettysburg) College. Subscription price One Dollar a year in advance, single copies Ten Cents. Students, Professors and Alumni are cordially invited to contribute. All subscriptions and business matter should be addressed to the Business Manager. Articles for publication should be addressed to the Editor. Address THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY, GETTYSBURG, PA. THE OLD CAMPUS. HE was old. The snows of sixty winters had silvered the raven locks of sixty years ago. His figure tall and erect showed scarcely any signs of his four decades. Yet the expression of those sad brown eyes had hidden in them an experience rich and varied. The secrets, that those firm lips had guarded, surely were worthy of so kind and noble a character. But interest, sym-pathy, even love could not rob that soul of its hidden secret. The story of his life as known by his associates was without the touch of a romance. His parents having died when he was young, he was educated by his relatives. His course at College was very ordinary, with exception of a great interest in athletics. He was not exceptionally bright and did not graduate among the first ten of his class. There suddenly developed within him after his graduation a strong determination to make a name for himself in his profession. Then there was exhibited the strength of his will and ability. Gradually he rose until he stood at the head of GETTYSBURG COLLEGE LIBRARY GETTYSBURG, PA. |U,olM THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. his profession. Now, however, after having attained this much desired position there seemed to influence him, not that former spirit of determination but rather a mechanical direction of his powers to a certain end. He was never married and his life seemed to be very lonely. A peculiar fondness however for a small boy, whom he had employed about his office, grew up within him. The boy was sent to College and each year, as his strange benefactor came to visit him, a stronger bond united them. So then we can understand the feelings of these two men as they stood together upon the Old Campus on the eve of the young man's graduation day. It was early evening. A gentle breeze was playing among the the leaves of the trees. Sometimes they seemed to whisper of the days of happiness that were passed beneath their shade and then suddenly a low wail of sadness issued as a moan from their shadowy depths. To our two hearers the}' brought different feelings. Yet they had one desire in common and it was to unfold to each other the thoughts stirring for supremacy within them. The younger man was full of glad expectancy. All the world lay before him in which he might achieve great deeds. No longer would he be bound by the narrow circles of college walls and authority, but he would now be able to take his place among men. Everything would be sacrificed until he attained his high-est ambition. Life was long and sweet. He would make the most of it. The older man listened to his companion's enthusiastic re-marks with fast dimming eyes. After the youth had ceased speak-ing the older man said, "Listen my boy to the story I have to tell, and if you can profit by any of its lessons, do so. Men have called me morose and perhaps they are right. Women have said that I am heartless but they know not the depth of my love. Years ago I entered this institution with all the future spread in a glittering expanse before me. I was by no means a hard stu-dent. I was however an ardent lover of all kinds of sport. My means were limited so that I was not among the richer class of boys. My life passed along in its ordinary course until my com-mencement week—and then a change so sudden, so vast burst upon me that even to this day words fail to express it. I was playing on our ball team. How vividly it all comes back to me to-night, as though it were but yesterday. It was the THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 3 last inning with the score a tie. Was it chance that enabled me then to be the means of winning the game for our team? I do not know. But as the boys were carrying me from the field, my attention was called to a group of ladies who wished to congrat-ulate me. Suffice it, my boy, that among that group there was one, whose modest appreciation of my chance was more wel-come to me than the compliments of all the others. That night, just a few decades ago, I walked with her under these same old shade trees, which to-night whisper their sweet old secrets to me. Then I learned for the first time that my ideal of womanhood was approaching reality. I can but marvel at the depth of thought and feeling, at the richness of mind and intel-lect which existed in so beautiful a form. My child, words to-night are inadequate to express my feelings as they were then. I said farewell with the intention of realizing all the possibilities of her ideal of manhood. It was a chance acquaintance but it influenced my life. I entered the bustle of the busy world and was amply re-warded for my labors. But the originator of all my strongest ambitions and the shaper of my character had passed from my life altogether. For years I tried to trace her but all in vain. Then my profession seemed to lose its former glamour and I grew more reticent. I thought that so many years ago it might be but a passing fancy for the fair girl by my side, but all the years of my life since, have shown me the wonderful depth of my love and affection. So sacred has her memory been to me, that never would I enter society, and so have been misunderstood. I tell you this because you are the only one in all this wide world whose affection I believe is mine. To-night after long years of separation, I met her brother. He told me of her beautiful, con-secrated life. Numerous as were her suitors, she rejected them all. Could it have been possible that she cared for me, and I missed my happiness by delay? Those swaying leaves, which whisper to you in the fulfillment of your fondest dreams, murmur to me in an undertone, that she loved me as I loved her, with all the wealth of our new-born affections. Such are the memories that rise within me upon this dear old Campus to-night. Could these trees tell the tales that they have heard, could those rooms in yonder dormitory re-echo the thoughts of their many occupants, then truly could they reveal t THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. : secrets more joyous and perhaps more sad than mine. Go forth, my boy, and meet the world with that bright smile of yours. Keep that pure spirit untainted by any wrong to your fellowmen and God. But remember, by the moral of my life, this lesson, New hope may bloom, and days may come of milder, calmer beam, But there's nothing- half so sweet in life, as love's young- dream. —S. W. H., '99. EXTRACTS FROM "HONOR IN STUDENT LIFE." A WISE college president recently declared, after an outbreak of rowdyism in his college. I am of the opinion that unless the common tenden-cies toward irresponsible conduct in college life are checked, parents will begin to doubt whether it is best to send their chil-dren to college. The older I grow the more deeply I feel that it is the duty of all people charged with any responsibility for the guidance of youth to co-operate with all others having any share in that responsibility, to the end that the young may make the most of themselves. I know of nothing which would contribute to that end more largely than to require them to respect others and the established institutions of their country. I would permit the largest freedom of individual action, on the assumption that it would be within legitimate bounds. I would not only tolerate, but I would sympathize with, and, when agreeable to them, I would join with young people in all activities in which they may properly engage. The theory upon which university authorities commonly ab-solve themselves from all responsibility for offenses committed by students away from university grounds or not in the immediate presence of the faculty, is a very convenient one, but, in my judgment, it is a very unsound one. And they are particularly charged with doing all that in them lies to help parents attain the higher ends for which they sacrifice much in order to send their children to college. It is sad to see the extent to which college students think it unmanly for them to reveal the gravest offenses committed by their associates, and even to lie in order to shield them. Tattling about ordinary shortcomings, or any of the small affairs of college life, is to be scorned. But when an offense stains the character t^mmmmmmmaammm THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. ofan institution and violates the law of the state, the time has come for every true man's hand to be raised against the offender. And student and community sentiment upon this, as upon other matters, must be much influenced by university action or univer-sity indifference. The curse of college morals is a double standard—a shifting for the convenience of the moment, from the character of a respon-sible man to the character of an irresponsible boy. The admini-strative officers accept without question a student's word; they assume that he is a gentleman and that a gentleman does not lie ; if, as happens now and then, he is not a gentleman and does lie, they had rather, nevertheless, be fooled sometimes than be sus-picious always (and be fooled quite as often). Frankly treated, the student is usually frank himself; our undergraduates are, in general, excellent fellows to deal with; yet so much is done for them, so man}' oportunities are lavished on them, that the more thoughtless fail to see the relation of their rights to other people's, and, in the self-importance of early manhood, forget that the world is not for them alone. Students of this kind need delicate handling. They jealously demand to be treated as men, take ad-vantage of the instructors who treat them so, and excuse them-selves on the ground that, after all, they are only boys. This double standard is seen in both theme-copying and sign-stealing. Its moral effect is probably more insidious in the former than in the latter; for whereas persons more or less mendacious pass muster in all society but the best, no decent community outside of college will put up with a thief. In college, both offenses have been tolerated, through the pernicious doctrine, held by some re-pectable persons, that the life of every young man—or at least of every young gentleman—takes in a period of engaging anarchy, during which period almost anything short of murder may be winked at as boys' fun. Fun, and not crime, is doubtless the motive; and the fault is no more in the young men than in those staid citizens who boast their own early escapades, and are con-tent that their sons should behave no better than they did. Yet wherever the blame lies, the real nature of these acts is so plain to anyone, however young, who suffers himself to open his eyes, that the usual slow processes of education may, perhaps, be ef-fectually discarded. I 6 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. The rolls of our higher institutions contain our selected youth; and it should not be possible to say of them what Bismarck said of the German students, that "one-third destroy themselves by dissipation, one-third wear themselves out by over-work, and the rest govern the country," or as put by a distinguished educator, one-third go to the dogs, one-third to the grave and the rest are the strength of the republic. It is the supreme function if school and college discipline to merge the first two classes into the third —not, as we are all too prone to think, to eliminate or ignore them. The chief end of education should be to transform weak-ness into strength. If in a republic the man must outweigh the majority, then in a deep sense the whole body of our educated youth must outweigh the mass of our people. —JAMES C. MACKENZIE. A PAGE FROM PROF. BREDE'S DIARY. A VIEW from one of the peaks of the Black Forest of the whole chain of the Alps, reaching from Mt. Blanc, 140 miles away, to Tyrol in the east will not soon be forgotten, but the view from the Rigi, on Lake Lucerne, while restricted to the Bernes Alps, has probably no rival in the whole world. But the weather must be propitious. Our party ascended by the Rigi rail-way, which makes you feel as though rising in a balloon, so quickly do lake, and city, and lower hills recede; but as we neared the summit, a cloud enveloped us, a steady mist began to fall, and all hopes of having a view the following morning were apparently shattered. But let the traveler in Switzerland never despair, rise early, make the best of all his time, and carry out his programme, for when he least expects, there will be a rift in the clouds, and as ifby magic touch they will be gathered up, leaving him face to face with some sublime view, such as he had hardly hoped to see. We retired despondent, but rose to witness a glorious sunrise. The whole range of Alpine peaks stood out boldly against the blue sky, but dull and gray, when suddenly here and there a lofty peak, touched by the warm rays of the rising sun, glowed with the rosy hue of life. The snow-clad mountains, though the nearest was twenty miles away, seemed so near as to make one think the voice could reach them. The view to the south was bounded by this wall of Alpine peaks, to the west were the rugged outlines of the MMnonmaM THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. j Tura, while northward one hundred miles away, the outlines of the Vosges and Black Forest peaks could be traced, and to the east the Suabian and Bavarian ranges ; cities, towns, and villages were visible without number; the great lakes of Lucerne lay close at our feet in wonderful hues of emerald, blue, and purple, while at a greater distance on every side appeared other well-known lakes. From Lucerne we may explore the lake, or rather the series of lakes, and pass the places made illustrious by Schiller's drama of Wilhelm Tell. At Fluelen we take the railroad and pass, within the next hour, through the finest scenery of the whole St. Goth-ard route, climbing the mountains, winding about in looping tunnels, until it is utterly impossible to be certain of the direction. At the town of Geshenen we are near the head of the valley, and after seven miles of tunnel through the St. Gothard we speed along the banks of the Tessino to the shores of Lake Maggiore and the plains of Northern Italy. If we leave the railway at Geshenen, however, and go a-foot along the turbulent Reuss a few miles farther, we shall come to a wall of rock which the stream has pierced for itself—the Hole of Uri—and where the road has emerged from a tunnel, we hardly know whether to be-lieve our eyes, for before us opens a charming plain shut in on all sides by lofty mountains, this is the valley of Andermatt, and we are here at one of the most interesting points in the Alps. To our left, that is to the east, a road in sweeping curves climbs the mountain over the tunnel, which in a few hours would take us to the sources of the Rhine; opposite, a few miles along a similar road takes us over the Gothard Pass to the Rhone glacier. This rises in terraces a distance of six miles, and seems like an immense frozen cataract, while from beneath it rushes a lusty stream, the Rhone. HENRY LOUIS BAUGHER. ON the founding of Pennsylvania College in 1832, Rev. Henry L- Baugher—the father of our Prof. Baugher—was elected Professor of Greek, being transferred to the Presi-dency of the college in 1850, he continued his valuable services to the college and the church until his death, April 14, 1868. The third son of President Baugher, Henry Louis, was born August 6, 1840, and entered the Preparatory School of the college 3 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. in 1850, graduating with honor in 1857, being assigned the Greek Oration. During the next two years he taught in the schools of Uniontown, Md., Quakertown, Pa., and Washington, D. C, and in 1859-60 in the Preparatory School of Pennsylvania College. In i860, he was in the office of the Sergeant-at-Arms of the United States House of Representatives. During this troubled period in National affairs his duties required various journeys to the border and southern states. The year's 1860-1863 were spent in studies in the Theological Seminaries at Gettysburg and Andover. In 1863 he was licensed as a minister, serving for the next year as co-pastor with Rev. S. B. Barnitz in "Home Mission Work" at Wheeling, W. Va. From 1864-7 he was pastor of the Lutheran church at Norris-town, Pa. On leaving this charge he spent six months in travel in Europe, returning to take charge of the pastorate at Indian-apolis, Ind. From this work he was elected in 1868, about four months after the death of his father, President Baugher, to the Professorship of Greek Language and Literature in Pennsylvania College, entering on his new and congenial duties January 1, 1869; he continued in the professorship till 1880, when he resigned to enter the active ministry. At this time his Alma Mater in recog-nition of his services and abilities conferred on him the honor-ary degree of Doctor of Divinity. He served the Kountze Memorial congregation at Omaha, Neb., during the year 1880-1, when he returned to Gettysburg. After a short interval he was elected Professor of Greek in Howard University, Washington, D. C, serving in this position 1882-3. In x883 he was again elected Professor of Greek in Pennsylvania College, continuing till June 1896, thus completing twenty-five years of teaching service in his Alma Mater. During the periods he was teaching in the college, he also temporarily filled positions in the faculty of the Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, teaching New Testament Exegesis, 1870-4, and Sys-tematic Theology, 1883-4. For a number of years he was Vice- President of the alumni association of the college and served as chairman of the obituary committee. In 1874 when Dr. F. W. Conrad established the Augsburg Sunday School Teacher, he selected Prof. Baugher to prepare the lesson comments. On the transfer in 1875 of this publication, to the Lutheran Publication Society, Prof. Baugher was elected edi- ■H THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY tor of the Augsburg Series of Sunday School Lesson Helps—con-tributing the lesson comments and preparing the questions and aids given in the Scholar's Quarterly, continuing in this posi-tion till January i, 1894. He was a member of the International Sunday School Lesson Committee, from 1879 to 1897; and of the Board of the Lutheran Publication Society, 1877-1880. He was a trustee of Carthage College 18 80-1, and at the time of his death a director of the Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, hav-ing been continued in this position from his first election in 1889. Dr. Baugher was elected President of the General Synod in 1895, and of the Luther League of Pennsylvania, in 1896. In 1897 he was chosen editor of the Lutheran World, resigning this position in 1898, he was quietly residing in Gettysburg, having declined several pastorates and a Professorship in the Theological School of the United Synod of the South. During recent months his health failed rapidly, and he passed into rest at Philadelphia, at 10.30 P. M., February 11, 1899. Dr. Baugher was frequently elected by the West Pennsylvania Synod as a member of the General Synod. He served his Dis-trict Synod and the General Synod on many important commit-tees, he was a member of the committee which prepared Augs-burg Songs, Number One; chairman of the committee 011 the De-velopment of Luther's Smaller Catechism ; was for many years a member of the committee of Beneficiary Education of West Pennsylvania Synod ; a member of the Executive Committee of the Parent Education Society, and at the time of his death a member of the committee on revision of Hymns of the Book of Worship. The publications of Dr. Baugher consist of his editorial work. Numerous contributions to the church papers, several articles in the Lutheran Quarterly and the volume on the Gospel by Luke in the series of Lutheran Commentaries. April 3, 1872, Prof. Baugher was married to Miss Ida Smith, of York, Pa., who with one daughter, Miss Bessie, survive to la-ment a loving husband and father. The strong personality of Dr. Baugher was felt in every rela-tion in which he was placed, having strong convictions in the many matters in which he was interested, his urgency and forci-bleness in advocacy of his views always commanded attention and respect. In all public utterances as a preacher, teacher and writer IO THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. he was clear and impressive. As a teacher he was enthusiastic and deeply concerned for the welfare of his pupils. As a churchman he was interested in all Christian work—but specially in all things Lutheran—in her institutions, her missions, her theology. He was an advocate of central, responsible gov-ernment in the church and a leader in the recent movement for a more uniform and more extended liturgical service. He was strongly desirous of a union among the various Lutheran bodies in the United States, believing this could be attained by a con-formity to certain views as to historical Lutheran Theology. The large number of persons who had been attracted to Dr. Baugher in warm friendship will miss his genial company and his sympathetic interest in their welfare. —E. S. B. A COMPILED THANATOPSIS. "Pallida Mors aeguopulsatpedepauperum tabernas Regumque turris." THUS Horace (Odes I. 4, 13,) tells us that "Pallid Death with impartial tread at the hovels poor does knock and at palaces of kings," and echoes Solomon's words (Ecc. 3:20,) then centuries old, "All go unto one place; all are of the dust and all turn to dust again." Death above all others is impartial, laying low rich and poor, young and old. Nor does he long warn, nor is the day well known. Alfred Tennyson beautifully expresses this in the sixth poem of "In Memoriam:"— O father, wheresoe'er thou be, Who pledgest now thy gallant son, A shot, ere half thy draught be done, Hath stilled the life that beat from thee. O mother, praying God will save Thy sailor,—while thy head is bow'd, His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud Drops in his vast and wandering grave. Ye know no more than I who wrought At that last hour to please him well ; Who mused on all I had to tell, And something written, something thought. HMMMHriH I THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. II Expecting- still his advent home : And ever met him on his way With wishes, thinking-, here to-day, Or 'here to-morrow—will he come.' O somewhere, meek, unconscious dove, That sittest ranging golden hair ; And glad to find thyself so fair, Poor child, that waitest for thy love ! For now her father's chimney glows In expectation of a guest; And thinking 'this will please him best,' She takes a riband or a rose. For he will see them on to-night; And with the thought her color burns; And, having left the glass, she turns Once more to set a ringlet right. And, even when she turn'd, the curse Had fallen, and her future lord Was drown'd in passing: through the ford, Or kill'd in falling from his horse. "In an hour when thou thinkest not," thus he comes as Juvenal also shows (Sat. Ill, 261-267) in telling of the death of a father while his household was preparing for him the cena. We translate the passage in verse as follows:— * * Now his household secure the pans and the dishes Wash already, and kindle the hearth-flame by puffing their cheeks up, Flesh-scrapers oily they clatter, in placing by oil-flask the towels. These things among the slaves are hastened variously, but he Sits already upon the bank, as a newcomer hateful Charon he dreads, nor hopes for the boat of the muddy, dark river In his unhappiness, nor has the coin in his mouth there to offer. "The young may die and the old must," we, too, all say, yet feel an added pang when Death takes the life while in the bud or when its first soft petals are opening. He claims this right how-ever, says Longfellow in "The Reaper and the Flowers :" There is a Reaper, whose name is Death, And, with his sickle keen, He reaps the bearded grain at a breath. And the flowers that grow between. "Shall Ihave nought that is fair ?" saith he; "Have nought but the bearded grain ?" 12 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. Even more than we, the ancients felt this sad fate. They thought the old ought to die, and in their unmitigated selfishness urged them to die in behalf of the young when their death was necessary and even slandered them for not doing it. Just such a case occurred when, in behalf of King Admetus after all others re-fused, his dear wife, Alcestis, endured the pangs of death. Then when Pheres, the father of Admetus, brought love-tokens for the last rites and ceremonies he was met with some such gauling, shameful words as these from his son (The Alcestis of Euripides, vv. 629-672),—"Neither do you come to this funeral-feast invited by me, nor do I count your presence among the friends. These adornments of yours she shall never put on ; for she shall not be buried having any need of these your gifts. You ought then to have sympathized when /was just perishing. But you, who stood aside and let another die and she a young lady although you were an old man, do you bewail this death? Indeed you were not truly the father of this body, nor did she, alleging to have borne me and called my mother, bear me. * * Most certainly you ex-ceed all others in soullessness, you who, although being so far advanced in years and having come to the limit of life, were not willing nor had the heart to die in behalf of your son, but together with my mother let this strange woman die. * * Short for you at all events was the remaining time worth living; and I and she might have lived the remaining time, and I being left alone should not have bemoaned my misfortunes. * * But in vain are old men willing to die, finding fault with old age and a long period of life." Compare also Juvenal, Satire X, vv. 246-247. "The Stoics," said Bacon, "bestowed too much cost upon death, and by their great preparations made it appear more fear-ful." Yet how have men approached death, how should we ap-proach it? The ancient looked with greatest dread upon death. Alcestis died in a mad frenzy, heightened by Admetus' grief for his loss. Then too, it was very necessary that they die feeling as-sured of Horace's thought as found in his Odes I. 28, 36 : * * * licebit Injecto ter pulvere curras. How the old customs remain ! Thus died the ancient Greek but Juvenal again has something better. Among the things that man should desire above all others, above pleasures of time and THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 13 sense, he names a strong resolve, void of the fear of death, that reckons the closing period of life among the boons of nature. Fortem posce animum, mortis terrore carentem Qui spatium vitae extremum inter munera ponat Naturae. * * Sat. X. 3S7-3S9. Yet we would rather hear Bryant's injunction : Go thou * * "not like the quarry-slave at night, Scourged to his dung-eon, but, sustained and soothed By an unfaltering- trust, approach thy grave Like one who wrappes the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams." We all would know that '' the spirit shall return unto God who gave it," (Ecc. 12 : 7), and that as Milton says,— Weep no more woeful Shepherds, weep no more, For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead, Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor ; So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed, And yet anon repairs his drooping head, And tricks his beams, and with new spangled ore Flames in the forehead of the morning sky. So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high, Thro' the dear might of him that walk'd the waves, Where other groves and other streams along, With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves, And hears the unexpressive nuptial song. In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love, There entertain him all the saints above, In solemn troops, and sweet societies, That sing, and singing in their glory move, And wipe the tears forever from his eyes. Or as Jesus said of the maid, "she is not dead but sleepeth." —C c. G., '00. THY SPEECH BEWRAYETH THEE. Long years ago, one doleful night By pallid light of taper's dim, Our Savior faced a lawless trial Before the Sanhedrim. And while it took its course, there stood Behind the pillars of the court, A bosom friend, who now disowned A knowledge of his Lord. H THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. "I do not know the man," he said, With lying- and stentorian lip ; And e'en denied with cursing tongue, His own discipleship. But all his cursings went for naught, They would not listen to his plea ; A damsel stepping forth declared : "Thy speech bewrayeth thee." Ah, truant man ! art thou surprised, When through thy polished surface peer The deadly vices of thy heart, And conscience hard and seer ? Art thou surprised because thy word Is disbelieved by friend and foe ; While those of lesser learning find A fertile soil to grow ? Be not confused as to its cause, It is not difficult to see ; For, while thy culture hides the stain, "Thy speech bewrayeth thee." Thy smooth exterior may conceal The fount of stench that lies within, But through the labial orifice Will gush the streams of sin. Thou canst not hide from critic man The full abundance of thy heart; For out of it, the mouth we're told, Its issues will impart. Like as the pendulum, which makes From side to side its measured peace, So does the tongue of man explain The works behind the face. It is the signet of our God Upon his human beings placed, And gives them sure ascendancy O'er all beneath them based. If used with love, it yields a balm More healing than on Gilead grew, And will restore the saddest heart To life and health anew. When used against a wicked foe From Satan's vast and mighty horde, It's finer than Damascus steel, And sharper than a sword. IHMHHIIi^H THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 15 But rest assured, when secret sins, Their taints upon the owner leave, His tong-ue will not belie his state, His lips will not deceive. Ah ye, with records yet unstained By baneful blots of sin and doubt, Be sure before you step awry, Your sins will find you out. And thou with vain deceitful heart, Which thine own maker best can see ; Remember that by man thou'rt known, "Thy speech bewrayeth thee." —J. B. BAKER, 1900. THE FAVORITE SPORT OF ROME. THE favorite form of athletic amusement of every nation is usually characteristic of its populace. The United States has her "baseball," England her "cricket," and Germany her "bowling,"—games showing a tendency in these nations to encourage that which will develop strength of body and alertness of mind for the purpose of performing the duties and enjoying the blessings of life. Russia's great love for fast driving indicates the excitable natures of her people. The occupation of the "kite-fly-ing" Chinaman well portrays his sluggishnes of both mental and bodily action. Until recently "bull-fighting'' was the chief amuse-ment of the Spanish, whose bloodthirsty and treacherous nature is evidenced by the delight with which the spectators behold such torture as is inflicted upon each other by the matador and his mad-dened antagonist. And just as modern nations have their characteristic muscular pursuits, so also had the ancient nations. Greece and Rome both attained to great excellency in the sports of the arena. But the character of the games of each betrays the difference in the char-acters of the two peoples. The Grecian government endeavored to increase the love of its subjects for such sports as foot and chariot-racing, boxing, wrestling, discus-throwing, and such other friendly contests as would increase not only physical strength, but that grace and perfect form of body for which the Grecians were noted. But Rome, on the other hand, fitted her youths only for military service, forgetting to pay atttention to human grace and i6 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. beauty. For she committed the serious error of adding to her en-nobling and health-producing sports that of the' 'gladiatorial show.'' This institution had its origin about two centuries and a half before Christ, when two young men arranged a series of mortal combats at the burial of their father, a prominent Roman. They believed the spirits of the departed delighted in the shedding of blood. These combats were called a ' 'gladiatorial show,'' and the combatants "gladiators;" that is, "sword fighters." For many years these contests took place only at funerals, the deceased often having willed a sum sufficient to defray the expenses of the show. L,ater, they were held in the "Circus Maximus" of the "Forum" at Rome ; but as these places were inadequate, amphitheatres were built especially for the purpose. Of these amphitheatres, the most nearly perfect one extant is that at Rome, called the ''Coliseum.'' It is an elliptical structure consisting of many rows of marble seats built in tiers, to a height of over one hundred and fifty feet. The space in the centre, called the "arena," where the contests were held is also elliptical, and over two hundred and eighty feet long. The Coliseum is still com-plete enough for us to observe how magnificent it formerly must have been, when it had so many dens for holding animals to be slain, so many attendants, such beautiful decorations, cushioned seats to accommodate eighty-seven thousand spectators, and its arena large enough for ten thousand participants and large enough when flooded with water to hold many war-ships. This building has since been damaged by lightning and by being used as a for-tress in time of war and a quarry in time of peace, several large palaces have been built of the marble taken from it. The Coliseum has been called one of the "seven wonders of the world." Those who fought in the arena ofthis amphitheatre were formerly slaves who were condemned to die, or malefactors who were allowed to earn their liberty by fighting. But later, Roman citi-zens and even senators went into the arena. Commodius the Ro-man Emperor fought in a contest. These gladiators, however, did not enter combats without training. For this purpose they had schools or gymnasiums where they were trained in a similar manner to that in which gymnasts are to-day trained, and their diet was regulated just as the diet of our modern football players is regulated. But unlike our practice, everything was done at the schools to increase brutality and thirst for blood. Before entering THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 17 here each gladiator was obliged to take an oath, which lowered him to the rank of a slave as long as he remained there. From this fact arose the rebellion of Spartacus, which threatened for a time to overthrow the Roman Empire. For, fifty-seven gladiators, escaping from a school, took him for leader, and with the help of other slaves conquered almost the whole of Italy. Crassus, how-ever, came to the rescue of his state by defeating Spartacus. So, the show-bills being posted and the gladiators so well pre-pared for their dreadful work, the contest began. The person giving the show, or "editor," held a place of honor at the middle of one side of the arena. The combatants entered from doors at the sides. Animals to be slain were raised by elevators from their dens beneath the seats and urged into the arena. The men fought each other in different manners and with different arms. Some wore full suits of armor, frequently without eye-holes, to amuse the spectators with their ill-aimed thrusts. Some were entirely naked and carried swords. Others were on horseback and often pairs of men fought against each other. The chariot combats were very exciting. A noose was sometimes used by one gladiator to catch another. But the most interesting was the con-test between those who carried the net, tridens, and dagger, the first to entangle an opponent and the last two to kill him when caught in the net. Having cast the net and failed, the gladiator would be obliged to retreat to a corner and try to gain time in which to readjust his net for another throw, at the same time warding off the blows of his antagonist. When a gladiator was overpowered, whether he should live or be killed was determined by the wishes of the spectators. If he had fought nobly, they held up their thumbs, and he was set at liberty, If not, thumbs were turned down and he was put to death. Unlike the Greeks, besides the customary wreath ofpalms, they presented prize money to the conqueror. With the abolishment of such barbarous practices ended the greatest of the degrading influences upon the Roman mind. By these practices the people were fast becoming idle, lazy, licen-tious, and dangerous, and when Spartacus needed persons to carry out his plans, he found them among that class of people who were habitual attendants at the gladiatorial show, a class whom the Roman government had unwisely been feeding and furnishing with free amusement. Such was their desire for games THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. that they cried in the streets, "Give us bread for nothing and games forever!'' With the discontinuance of such sport came a lessening of im-purity in politics. It cost at that time about thirty-five thousand dollars for an office-seeking politician to give a show respectable enough to bring him popularity and votes. Such a sum very few men could afford to spend, and so in order to obtain such re-sources they were obliged to practice extortion upon their poor rural tenants, and to undermine the Roman government by profit-able intrigue in the city. The effects of such an institution as the gladiatorial show cause us to be glad that in our times and in our nation there are no such abominable practices to be done away with, no athletic sports that degrade to such an extent as did this Roman folly. Truly, the character of a nation may be known by the character of its athletic pursuits. c^, -D. C. B. '01. "THE CULTIVATION OF THE DRAMATIC." 1. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.—2. THE EXTENT TO WHICH IT IS CULTIVA-ATED.— 3. ITS INFLUENCE UPON SOCIETY.—4. REMARKS ON AMATEUR PLAYERS.—5. SHOULD WE TRY TO CULTIVATE THE SPIRIT.—6. CON-CLUSION. THE drama is one of the most interesting and instructive productions of the Literary Art. Its origin dates back to the ancient Greeks and Romans. A large portion of their literature is connected withthedrama. In its two forms, comedy and tragedy, it covers a large range of subjects. It seems to have grown up naturally with the people; and while it has changed somewhat from the original, yet in its fundamental principles and meaning it is still the same. The drama represents the pursuits and events of daily life, and when these are studied, and acted, they are made the more interesting, because they are then brought more vividly before the mind. We may inquire now : "To what extent is the dramatic spirit cultivated at the present time? " I cannot say whether or not it is cultivated as much now as it was many years ago ; but it cer-tainly is cultivated to a large extent. We are continually receiv-ing new plays, which rank well with the older ones, although they differ from them in some respects. Such plays as those of THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 19 Shakespeare, Goldsmith and others, will never lose their place in literature. They are being played everywhere by the best pro-fessional troupes. During the winter months especially, the theaters are crowded, and people will go again and again to hear these plays. Many of the magazines give long accounts of the stage, including descriptions of the most famous actors, and an ex-planation of the plays that have been, or will be, given. It is evident that the people have not lost their love for the drama, which still holds a high place in literature. Some people are very bitterly opposed to the stage and will not allow any of their children even to see a play. They have some very good reasons to think as they do. In the early history of the drama, the highest classes of people took part in it. But later, many disreputable people went into the plays, and to-day we have troupes made up of that class. It is not to be wondered then, that many people are opposed to the stage. But in every profession we find people with whom we would not associate. Although the stage is a profession which I would not think of choosing, yet it is a profession that many very excellent people choose, and who attain to high hon-ors. There is a class of plays which have a demoralizing effect and these plays should not be exhibited. Besides the number of professional troupes, we have a number of amateur players. Almost all the colleges and smaller institu-tions have their dramatic associations. This has been done re-cently by many of the colleges. It seems to be a necessity, and both the students and friends of the institutions, take a great deal of interest in them. They give plays at home and in neighboring places, and some of them have been doing excellent work. Our association is just in its childhood, and it is making earn-est efforts to rise. It started about two years ago with but a few members and has kept on increasing until at this time it has reached a number which is able to do some good work. There seems to be a great interest taken in it, and it will not be long, if we do hard and faithful work, until we will rank well with the other colleges. This is something which should be of interest to all students, because, as some go out of the association when they are gradu-ated from college, others will then be ready to go in. s 20 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. But we say, "what is the necessity of cultivating the dra-matic?" It is of the utmost importance, for several reasons. Here one receives instructions which he cannot get as well any-where else. It is a splendid cultivation of the voice, because one is re-quired to articulate distinctly; otherwise the audience would lose interest. Then in order to become successful actors, every movement must be studied, so that we may be graceful and pleasing. We must get into the spirit of the play, and study it carefully be-fore we can render it correctly. It also gives one ease and grace in the society of others. Not every one has the ability to become a good actor, but those who have, should cultivate and use it. This is a part of our education as well as anything else. Plato says: "A good education is that which gives to the body and soul, all the beauty and all the perfection of which they are capable." Those who are studying to be successful actors, should al-ways remember that "they are playing/or the audience and not to them. They make a part of a living picture." We must for-get ourselves, so to speak, and enter into the plays withheartand mind. We shall have reached an advanced stage of development when we are able to please our audience. **&> CONCERNING THE INHABITANTS OF PORTO RICO. FOUR centuries of Spanish civilization seem to have done little for the uplifting of the primitive race of Porto Rico. Spain gave the island nothing, but took all. She pretended to administer a government, which was both arbitrary and despotic, with no thought of other than her own interest; but she demanded and required for this both the liberty and the land of the people. She corrupted their simple life and taught them vice and crime. It was seldom that they murmured. They endured their fate with scarcely a hope. They were more than long-suffering and patient. So that when a better day began to dawn, they were scarcely ready to realize it. But when the fullness of time had come and the Cas-tilian banner of oppression was forced to retire to make way for •Mam THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 21 the hallowed emblem of liberty, there was not found one to shed a tear, but a multitude to cry from the very depth of their hearts " Viva Americano." I never shall forget how an intelligent, gray-haired citizen of Ponce, with tears in his eyes, tears of honest joy, but several days after the surrender of that city, told me how seemingly impossible it was for him to believe that what he saw, was real ; then he told me how, when he was a child, he had been taught to cherish a hope of freedom and to look toward the United States for it. And how he had instilled that same doctrine of love of freedom into the minds of his own sons; and now how at last in a single night, when it was not expected, it had all come to pass,—the hope of ages realized. It was all like a dream to him, could it be and was it really true,—had God indeed heard their secret prayers ? And the tears trinkled down his careworn face. Nor less impressive to me is this instance, that when a school boy, fifty years ago, Mr. Rivera, (late one of the secretaries of the new autonomic govern-ment granted the island by the Sagasta ministry) should have written a poem, one stanza of which, translated, is that "Someday the great Eagle of Liberty from the north shall swoop down upon this island, and bear away the monstrous brute bleeding in his talons." And it was, strange as it may seem, Mr. Rivera's re-ward to have the honor as well as the privilege to be among the first Porto Ricans to swear his allegiance to that country in the North from which in time the "Eagle of Liberty" came. We might go on and multiply instances to show how the love of the Porto Ricans for our flag and nation ever manifested itself; we might continue to tell of mothers, who have brought their chil-dren miles that they might only see the flag of the free, and how reverently their daughters have tenderly caressed and kissed its folds, how also on the field of battle men and women have followed that flag with water for our famished soldiers, but are these not sufficient for the credulous ? But who are these inhabitants of Porto Rico ? They are of two classes, viz., the rich and the poor. The rich own the land and the poor live on it. The rich are of Spanish descent, and the poor are descended from the aborigines and the negro slaves, but still the rightful owners of the soil. The poor are indeed very poor and the rich very few. The poor were too poor and the rich too few to promote any enterprise of particular consequence upon I 22 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. ■ the island ; so that the condition of the people under the Spanish regime was most deplorable in every phrase. The little capital that did manifest itself upon the island was largely from without. For the few rich, who did by chance pos-sess any means beyond their land, were fearful to invest; because a successful business was only so much plunder for the unscrupu-lous agents of the so-called government. Thus were the inhabi-tants by the very nature of their government driven to and held in a condition solely dependent on the product of the soil. There-fore in the soil lay the hidden wealth of the island beyond the reach of the Spanish vandal. And it was a great wealth ; for a benign Providence had made the island rich and fertile. I '00. EDITOR'S DESK. THE late staff of the MERCURY has done work worthy of Get-tysburg, and we cannot let the members of the staff pass from service without thanking them, in the name of the friends of the MERCURY, for their sincere, hard work. During the last year they surmounted disheartening obstacles and have given into the charge of the new staff, a paper which ranks with the best college publications in the state. The present editors and business managers take pride in controlling the GETTYSBURG MERCURY. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 27 The committee in charge of the annual parade did not forget Washington—they simply remembered the blizzard. The condi-tion of the streets on the 22nd, proved the good judgment of the committee. As for the town youngsters who, had the parade been held, very likely would have caused some trouble, there is a gen-eral understanding in college, that the baseball and football men assisted by all other students, keep the youngsters where they be-long during the games on Nixon Field. We are glad to know that the parade was missed, for the celebration of Washington's birthday by a parade is an annual event of Gettysburg which cus-tom has made dear. During the recent blizzard, Gettysburg was practically cut off from the rest of the world ; but college work went on. It was not an uncommon thing, while the trees on the campus were wrestling with the raging storm, to see the form of some student or professor, bent at an angle of 45° to withstand the blasts, slowly wending his way over the pathless plain toward Recitation Hall, which, be-cause of the blinding sheets of snow, appeared in dim outline. Occasionally refractory hats would leave their accustomed places and accompany the gale; these would be hotly pursued by the owners, and sometimes by words "that would never do to tell." The storm passed by. Snow plows were welcomed at the de-pots, and mail trains were eagerly awaited, and when they came, many letters, long delayed, caused good cheer to return to the despondent hearts of numerous students. Soon the pavements of the town were cleared, leaving long channels through the deep snow ; and in due time we were permitted to walk on the concrete (?) avenues of the campus. On the evening of Feb. 21, Mr. Beck, a Lutheran missionary from Siberia, delivered an address to the students of Seminary. All pronounced the address interesting and highly profitable. On the afternoon of the following day, Mr. Beck gave a short but in-teresting talk to the "Volunteer Band" of college. The plain, child-like manners of Mr. Beck are a sure testimony to the nobility of his character. —,Ji:i,LJ.L:lii±i!li±LilJ^. 28 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. The staff is highly gratified at the readiness with which the contributors of this issue, offered their productions. We notice in college, a perceptible increase of what we might term, "literary-courage. '' Until last year our students were timid about publish-ing their work because they hesitated to face the guying of their fellow students. Now, however, no one is guyed for an honest attempt in the literary line, but he is rather commended by all for his "good work." Although some articles published by the MERCURY from time to time may not be the very best, the editors desire to publish them for the much needed encouragement of literary work. Heretofore the MERCURY has published home talent in preference to other, and the present staff intends to pursue the same course. As for this issue, although there was but a week to prepare it—we have endeavored to turn out a GETTYSBURG MERCURY. The late trip of the College Musical Clubs was an exceedingly pleasant one in more ways than one. Despite the bad weather, which interfered materially with the audiences, the boys express themselves as having the most enjoyable trip in the memory of any man on the club, and all are loud in the praises of the yonng ladies they met in the different towns of the Cumberland Valley. The college girls especially seemed to appeal to these college boys of ours. There is a quick twinkle of pleasure in every man's eye when Irving is mentioned. By far the best concert of the trip was given there, and it certainly must have been the inspira-tion of so many charming hostesses that enchanted the boys, even to the extent of falling up the steps, and losing some other fel-low's pennants. Then there was the reception afterwards and chapel the next morning, and finally the matinee in Harrisburg on Saturday, and many large square envelopes at the post-office after the blizzard was over. The Glee Club men will not forget Irving soon, and wish for some pretext to go back this year. We bespeak a big audience for the Irving Club if they ever come to Gettysburg. 'Rah for our sister ! THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 29 KEE MAR RECEPTION. GETTYSBURG has many excellent young people but not enough to go around. As a result many of the college boys fail to secure the social culture they are expected to have when once graduated. A consciousness of this lack of social training added double interest to our anticipations when we as a senior class were invited to Kee Mar college to a reception. Our most sanguine expectations were realized. A warm welcome was extended to us by members of the faculty and students and we soon felt that we were among friends. The spacious halls were decorated with the Maryland colors, and adorned with plants. And while the patter of light feet kept time to the sweet music, other lads and lassies strolled up and down the corridors, or al-lowed cupid to drive them into a secluded spot where the side-long glances of glinting eyes pierced the armor of the hardest heart. Appropriate toasts were given and responded to, refreshments served, when the laughing moon slowly setting warned us to de-part. His warnings were seconded by the college authorities, else some of the boys had been there yet. Saturday morning we college men were invited to a concert given by the College Glee Club. A very few minutes served to show how much easier we felt in this home of the nymphs. Formality was absent. After an extended program of excellent music which charmed us all, the boys from Gettysburg responded with a few impromptu verses and various yells which had a strange echo in those halls. But the unfeeling hands and expressionless face of the clock pointed to the hour of final departure, Kodaks, handkerchiefs, mementoes, were in evidence, and a fierce struggle between love and duty was fought in many hearts. But though the time was too short for one of our number to pay his respects to our land-lord, we all caught the train. It was a long way home, and many fellows have been longing ever since. A reunion is being wished for soon. Some of the crowd see nothing but Kee Mar to this day on every page of every book, while pretty faces are seen even when their eyes are closed. Not a little of the pleasure of the trip was owing to our hav-ing with us Miss Menges, formerly a classmate, now at Irving ; and Miss Welty, our class poet, who, though she never was a boy 3° THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. in all her life, yet gave expression to the common feeling of the boys whose thoughts were too deep to beset down even in poetry. This promises to be the only song sung around here until after June 15. TO KEE MAR. TUNE—"Jnanita." Swift o'er the mountain Speed the boys of ninety-nine, White gleam the snow fields In the bright moon-shine. To fair Kee Mar College Where the lovely maidens dwell,' As the train moves onward Hear the joyous " yell." Kee Mar, lovely Kee Mar, Full of hope we came to thee, Kee Mar, kindly Kee Mar, Thou wilt gracious be. Slow o'er the mountain Back returneth ninety-nine, Each eye a fountain Shedding drops of brine. For some hearts are broken How it happened none can tell, And the word now spoken Is a sad farewell. Kee Mar, lovely Kee Mar, All our heart we leave with thee, Kee Mar, loyal Kee Mar, Ever faithful be. When in our dreaming / Eives again that happy night, We'll catch the gleaming Of those eyes so bright. Hear the low, sweet music, Tread again the stately hall, With the girl we worshiped At the Kee Mar ball. Kee Mar, well-loved Kee Mar, In the years that are to be, Kee Mar, darling Kee Mar, We'll remember thee ! ma THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 31 SUCCESS IN ART. EVERY artist strives for success. But this word "success" admits of several definitions. In the mind of one artist it means money or fame or both; to another, it means a knowl-edge of his art and ability to enjoy it. Success, then, can be true or false. True success in art is attained when art is studied for art's sake and the product is real art. An essential in attain-ing such success is that the artist himself be true. That is he must be "heart, head and hand" an artist. The desire to create is natural, but besides this, knowledge and complete mastery of materials and implements is indispensable. An artist must first be completely grounded in every detail of his art before he should begin to produce. In every trade among artisans, ignorance under this heading is unknown; badly constructed articles of merchan-dise find no market. So it should be in art. Knowledge must be the absolute foundation or else the creation will be as faulty and unbalanced as a house of cards and will fall to pieces at the first shaft of intelligent criticism. In all good works on harmony the very last chapters are reserved for the treatment of composition of melodies. This in itself teaches a lesson, and one which is very evident; it says, "Now after you have the foundation laid you may safely attempt the superstructure." Technique and method guided by intelligence, are absolutely required. Then the successful artist must be industrious, patient, and persevering. We gaze in rapture at a beautiful painting or hear an exquisite piece of music and we forget that back of it all lay a long, steep and toilsome road, tediously climbed. Constant and tiresome was much of the labor. An artist must essentially have what has been called the "artistic temperament"—*. e. imaginative and sympathetic power. Ruskin says, "The qualities which distinctly mark an artist with-out which he must be feeble in life, forgotten in death—with which he may become one of the shakers of earth and one of the signal lights in heaven—are those of sympathy and imagination." Imagination is the strength of all art, of everything beautiful in architecture, sculpture, painting, poetry or music. The Venus of Milo, in all its beauty was seen in the rough marble shaft by the sculptor, long before the releasing chisel touched the stone. And sympathy, too. is necessary in order that the creations should 32 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. be properly interpreted and understood. So strong should this temperament be in every artist that the artist himself will lose sight of the "ego" in his work, while to others his individuality shines out in every one of his creations. How many engaged in some art have been so eager in anticipation of artistic success that they have forgotten the soul in the wealth of splendid tech-nique they exhibit in their works ! They do not live their art and hence are not true to themselves. Study well any of the classics in literature, painting, sculpture or music and see how easy it is to recognize the productions of the same brain. So every true artist will imprint on each piece of his work a certain indescrib-able something which makes each resemble the other and dis-tinguishes it from the creations of other artists. And then the artist must do his best. No half-hearted attempt will be successful. Simple productions should be attempted at first; nothing elaborate, as for instance, in music, a Grand March or an Overture ought to be undertaken,—but some little theme, well and faithfully worked out. These should be the characteristics of everyone engaged in art; and one of the reasons why this is not so is because so many of the art public do not understand art sufficiently to demand better creations. In the construction of articles used in everyday life, there is no necessity for especial education to detest frauds, it only requires common sense; but with art products, however, it is different entirely. One often meets with highly intelligent people who cannot distinguish between a colorless daub and an original work of art, filled with atmosphere and light. They have not yet educated their eye to see wherein lies the difference; again, we see many who prefer an everyday, popular song, superficial and light, to the beautiful melodies of an Abt, a Schubert, or a Verdi. Education in art is evidently not sufficiently general to enable everyone to make these distinctions. Ignor-ance of beauty of form, or structure, undeveloped imagina-tion, unappreciation of beauty of symmetry are too general. Suc-cessful attempts are being made to remedy this, especially in literature, by the University Extension Movement. People are discovering that they need not necessarily be college graduates to become cultured and appreciate the best. This is a condition, then, for which some allowance can be made but what shall be done for the individual—and he is one of a large family—who IHHH I THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 33 I while admitting his ignorance of the principles of art, yet cooly in-forms you that he can "tell a fine painting when he sees it, or a good piece of music when he hears it?" This is the class of peo-ple who open the way for those would-be artists who make "suc-cess" and "money"synonyms. They are both pretenders. The public, eager to be gullied, thinking that money will purchase everything, aims at seeming to be well-versed in art; the artist, with little real knowledge, and less imagination, too insincere and full of pretence to live his own life aims at the money or social position his apparent art productions will procure for him. Each deserves pity. They may gain their respective ends, but neither can ever know the delights of one who has developed a taste for art, or who has consecrated his life to it. They cannot, with all their wealth buy the wholesome, pure and rapturous thrill of delight, for one second, that another can invoke at will from such as Bach, Beethoven, Horace, Shakespeare, Raphael, or Wagner. Success in art, then, cannot be measured by the money one gains; a true artist will live in his art long after millionaires have passed away. Michael Angelo, Dante, and Palestrina still live while the names of their contemporary moneyed men are dead. And let us bear in mind, too, that the road to success is always one of toil and weariness. —P. '00. THE TRIP TO CHAMBERSBURG. ABOUT forty of the boys took advantage of the recent good sleighing and went to Chambersburg to attend a concert given by our Glee and Musical Clubs. The party was divided into three sled loads and got started after an hour's delay in waiting for our Proctor (who decided to accompany us about the time we were ready to start) to get a hair-cut and shave in or-der to be presentable to the sight of the Wilson girls. Soon after leaving Gettysburg it started to snow hard, so we had to break our own road, which soon told on our horses. When we reached the top of the mountain we were informed that we were favored if the horse would be able to get us to Chambersburg that night, much less bring us back. The boys got scared and decided to wade the snow when a steep hill was reached rather than spend the rest of l^uMmmmmmummMwmm 34 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. the night so far from friends. All the other sleds, which were lighter, passed us on the mountain except the fourth one, which was a cutter with two freshmen in it. They heard of the fellows going, so the}' went up town and after much persuasion, and many promises in case the horse and sleigh were lost, they started out in pursuit of the other three sleds. The heavy snow covered all traces of a trail, yet by the aid of matches and sign-boards they reached the top of the mountain where the road was rough, the trees close on either side, no full moon to light the way, in fact there was nothing there but a team and two scared freshmen. One was positive that there were bears in the mountain because he knew of one having been shot recently. The other tried to con-vince him that they were perfectly safe so long as they staid in the road, but after a few strange sounds were heard in the woods and a few dark stumps were seen in the direction of the noise, they were both positive of the presence of bears, so they turned and lost no time in getting back home, where they related their ex-perience to their friends. Our last through sled reached its desti-nation after a long six hour's drive. The only amusement on the way over was giving yells, singing songs and telling stories. We went immediately to the concert, where we were greeted by the presence of about thirty Wilson girls who showed their appreci-ation for our yells and songs by their innocent cousinly smiles. After the concert we had supper, a thing we looked forward to after we walked the second steep hill. About 11 p. M. we were informed that it would be impossible for the horses to make the return trip that night. Well, the common topics of conversation among the boys who went financially prepared to return the same night, were as follows: Where are you going to sleep? Have you any money to lend ? Do you have any relatives in town ? And do you think we can stand the proprietor off? It happened that some went prepared to stay a week, so the money soon became equally divided, and the boys spent a pleasant night but by no means a quiet one, if you can believe the report of the proprietor. The next morn-ing we were allowed the privilege of visiting the Wilson College and attending chapel with the girls, a privilege which seemed to be enjoyed mutually, judging by the interest they took in showing us through the college buildings. On our way back the only stop made was at the big hotel on the top of the mountain where we THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 35 did justice to a good dinner. The trip was enjoyed by all who took it and the same crowd could be easily induced to repeat the trip, especially if the Wilson girls were at the other end of the line. —H. M. C. ATHLETICS. THE Sons of Hercules have gotten down to systematic work, and expect to hold their exhibition about the third week in March. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings are devoted to this branch of athletics, basket-ball occupying the floor on other days. A number of old men are candidates, includ-ing Koser, who is leader, Traub, Bottinger, Stock, Straw, Brum-baugh, Smith, Smyser, Jr., and Bickel. These are all men whose work is well-known. Among new men who are showing up well may be mentioned Stock, Jr., McClean, Claney, Koser, W. W. Hartman, Smyser, Jr., and Ketterman. In general, the work is of a high standard and promises a good exhibition. Beside the usual features, it will include this year, boxing and wrestling ; and the programme will also be varied by performances of the glee and mandolin clubs. A game of basket-ball will close the evening, which is certainly one to look forward to with pleasure. There is plenty of good material yet dormant, however. Let every man come out and do his best to make this year's gym team a success. Manager Weigle has completed his schedule for the coming season with the exception of one date. It is as follows: April IS—Franklin and Marshall at Lancaster. April 20—Susquehanna at Selinsgrove. April 21—Bucknell at Lewisburg. April 22—State at State College. April 26—Dickinson at Gettysburg-. May 5—Susquehanna at Gettysburg. May 6—Indians at Carlisle. May 13—Dickinson at Carlisle. May 20 -Franklin and Marshall at Gettysburg. May 27—Indians at Gettysburg. June 3—Open. June 10—Bucknell at Gettysburg. It will be noted that we meet Dickinson again for the first time in five years and other old rivals are on the list. All the teams ^mmmmmmm 36 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. are about our strength and there is no reason why we should not have a successful season. Let every man come out and get down to hard work and we will make the season of '99 one to be re-membered. EDITOR'S SCISSORS. That New Year resolution, Unlike most things of earth, Grows ever small and smaller; It was biggest at its birth.—Ex. HEARD AFTER THE BLIZZARD. " Don't you throw that at me, kid ! " " Gwan, I'll lick the whole college." —W. The boys came over the mountain, The boys came over the mountain, The boys came over the mountain, To see the Wilson girls, To see the Wilson girls, To see the Wilson girls, The boys came over the mountain, The boys came over the mountain, The boys came over the mountain, To see the Wilson girls. We won't go home till morning, We won't go home till morning, We won't go home till morning, For we've seen the Wilson girls, We've seen the Wilson girls, We've seen the Wilson girls, We won't go home till morning, We won't go home till morning, We won't go home till morning, We've seen the Wilson girls. -Sled No. 1. When you leave college without permission, always take the Proctor along. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 37 Old Dorm to New Dorm ; "You may be pretty, but you're terribly cracked." New Dorm to Old Dorm ; " Cork it off ! You've been full ten years." I saw an old man in a funny old wig Go dancing- along-, jiggity gig. Behind him there capered and gambolled a dog And a donkey that ambled, joggity jog. They jigged and they jogged and they gambolled in glee To the tune of a fiddler, fiddle dee dee. They went till they came to the volcano's top, And down they went into it, hobbity, hop. And then I didn't see them any more. —Castalian. ,t^^ri:sjr~s->r-s5jr*sis->t4r-»r~s>jr^-> RINTING WE PRINT THIS BOOK ^ and BINDING MT. HOLLY PRINTING COMPANY. The Mount Holly Stationery and Print-ing Company does all classes of Printing and Binding, and can furnish you any Book, Bill Head, Letter Head, Envelope, Card, Blank, or anything pertaining to their business in just as good style and at less cost than you can obtain same elsewhere. They are located among the mountains but their work is metropolitan. You can be convinced of this if you give them the opportunity. MT. HOLLY SPRINGS, PA. ^«_r^_jr-M^--w~jr^r^:r^r^:kJc^jr"5^rT^r-^^r-5«j H. S. BENNER, ■-^--ib tEroxel. Dealer in ^irte (groceries anb Itottons *_x_4}orfc Street. Teachers. Union Teachers' Agencies of America REV. L. D. BASS, D. D., Manager. Pittsburgh Pa., Toronto, Can., New Orleans, La., New York, N. Y., Washington, D. C, San Francisco, Cal., Chicago, 111., St. Louis, Mo., Denver, Col. 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The Name the Guar-antee." a. ©. SpalOlng & JSros. New York .•. Philadelphia V Chicago S. G. Spangles & Co., Piitc >IfW 102 EAST MIDDLE STREET. Telephone 39. S. J. CODORI, Jr. *H Druggist*** Dealer in Drugs, Medicines, Toilet Articles, £ Stationery, Blank Books, Amateur Pho-tographic Supplies, Etc., Etc. .Baltimore Street. R. H. Gulp, PAPER HANGER, Second Square, York St. COLLEGE EMBLEMS. EMIL ZOTHE, ENGRAVER, DESIGNER AND MANUFACTURING JEWELER. 19 S. NINTH ST.PHILADELPHIA. PA SPECIALTIES: Masonic Marks, Society Badges, College Buttons, Pins, Scarf Pins, Stick Pins and Athletic Prizes. All Goods ordered through C. H. Tilp. Gotrell # Leonard, 472-474 Broadway, Albany, N. Y. makers of CAPS, GOWNS and. HOODS To the leading American Colleges. Illus-trated Manual, etc., upon application. Meneely Bell Co. TROY, N. Y. MANUFACTURERS OF SUPERIOR BELLS The 2000 pound bell now ringing in the tower of Pennsylvania Col-lege was manufactured at this foundry. mK^^m^mt^^mmm PATRONIZE OUR ADVERTISERS. You can't expect to create the im-pression that you are well dressed unless your clothes are MADE FOR YOU. Equivocate as you may, the fact remains that ready-made g-arments lack that air of exclusiveness which custom work possesses. J. D. LIPPY, Merchant Tailor 39 Chambersburg St., Gettysburg-, Pa. G. E. SPANGLER, j» ( Successor to J. W. Eicholtz & Co.,) Dealer in Pianos, Organs, Music, Musical Instruments, Strings, Etc. YORK STREET, 1ST SQUARE. GETTYSBURG. II08 CHESTNUT ST., PHILA. Wright's Engraving House HAS become the recognized leader in unique styles of COLLEGE and FRA-TERNITY ENGRAVINGS and STA-TIONERY, College and Class-day Invita-tions, engraved and printed from steel plates Programmes, Menus, Wedding and Recep-tion Invitations, Announcements, etc., etc. Examine prices and styles before ordering elsewhere. Fifty Visiting Cards from New Engraved Plates $1.00. ERNEST A. WRIGHT, 1108 CHESTNUT ST., PHILADELPHIA. JOHN L. SHEADS, New Cigar Store Next Door to W. M. 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OCTOBER, J899 ooTheoo Gettysburg CONTENTS. The Character of Macbeth 1S3 Success in Business 160 A Mirror's Reflections 161 Pen Sketches from Nature 163 Editor's Desk, 168 College Y. M. C. A 169 Two Mischievous Fallacies in Education 172 Why we should be True and Honest 17S The Relation of Commerce to Missions 176 The United States as a Coloniz-ing Nation 179 Advantage of Studying the Classics 182 Athletics 186 G'SURG C. LIB. DUPLICATE FAVOR THOSE WHO FAVOR US. For Fine. Printing go to e Jo I. Wi M Hovf CARLISLE ST. GETTYSBURG, PA. C. B. Kitzmiller Dealer in Hats, Caps, Boots and Douglas Shoes GETTYSBURG, PA. J. H. Myers Fashionable Tailor, Clothier and Gents' Furnisher. The best place in town to have your Cloth-ing- made to order. All workmanship and Trimmings guaranteed. No charge for re-pairs and pressing for one year. Dyeing and Repairing a specialty. Ready-made Clothing the largest stock in town. Up-to-date styles. Bicycle Suits and Breeches Headquarters. 11 Baltimore St., Gettysburg, Pa. EDGAR 5. MARTIN, F^CIGARS AND SMOKERS' ARTICLES. Chambersburg St., Gettysburg. translations Literal—Interlinear—135 Volume* Dictionaries German, French, Italian, Spanish Latin, Greek tutorial Series JOO vnls. specially designed for coaching i^i exams, in all college studies Binds & noble Sehoolbooks of all Publishers 4 Cooper Institute, NewYork City 1 R. A. WONDERS, Corner Cigar Parlors. A full line of Cigars, Tobacco, Pipes, Etc. Scott's Corner, Opp. Eagle Hotel. GETTYSBURG, PA. JOHN M. MINNIGH, Confectionery, lee, • andIee Create Oysters Stewed and Fried. No. 17 BALTIMORE ST. .THE. GETTYSBURG MERCURY Entered at the Postojjice at Gettysburg as second-class matter. Vol. VIII. GETTYSBURG, PA., OCTOBER, 1899. No. S Alumni Editor. REV. F. D. GARLAND. Editor-in-Chief. J. FRANK HEILMAN, '00. Assistant Editors. LDTHEK A. WEIGLE, '00. S. A. VAN ORMER, '01. Business Manager, Assistant Business Manager. JOHN K. HAMACHER, '00. CLARENCE MOORE, '02. Advisory Board. PROK. J. A. HIMES, LIT. D. PROF. G. D. STAHLEY, M. D. PROF. J. W. RICHARD, D. D. Published monthly by the students of Pennsylvania (Gettysburg) College. Subscription price One Dollar a year in advance, single copies Fifteen Cents. Students, Professors and Alumni are cordially invited to contribute. All subscriptions and business matter should be addressed to the Business manager. Articles for publication should be addressed to the Editor. Address THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY, GETTYSBURG, PA. THE CHARACTER OF MACBETH. [FIRST GIES PRIZE ESSAY.] SHAKESPEARE was not only the greatest po.et and drama-tist that the world has known, but also a psychologist in every phase of human thought and action. Character has been nowhere more perfectly depicted than in many of his plays, and his art is most clearly seen in the painting of a man's soul through his words. This is especially exemplified in many of his tragedies. There is a wealth of psychological study in the char-acters of Hamlet, the brilliant student and noble prince whose life is wrecked by revenge; of Othello, the high-minded warrior whose soul is racked by jealousy; of Macbeth, the brave general who attained a throne, "In blood Stepp'd in so far, that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o'er." 154 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. Hitherto Macbeth has been thought of as a man of weak reso-lution who was led astray by the dominant will of a wicked wife. This opinion has been mainly due to the fact that for years the only powerful rendering of the part of Lady Macbeth was that of Mrs. Siddons, whose strong personality easily lent itself to such an interpretation, while the only objections were raised now and then in a scholarly treatise which never reached the public. But several years ago Sir Henry Irving and Miss Ellen Terry pre-sented the play before American audiences in an entirely new in-terpretation, which at first surprised the theatre-going world, but eventually won its approbation. Under their treatment, Macbeth became, next to Iago, the worst of Shakespeare's villains, a man who brought about not only his own but his wife's moral down-fall. An impartial investigation of the text of the play will clearly show which of these views is correct. It may be well to begin, as the play does, with the objective element in Macbeth's soul, for it will show more distinctly the characteristics of the subjective. Macbeth is at first seen as the brave general. "Bellona's bridegroom lapp'd in proof," who successfully fought his country's enemies, winning glory for himself and his king. This quality of physical courage is in truth one which is part of Macbeth's real character. His por-trait does not lack in valor, from the first, when "brave Macbeth (well he deserves that name) Disdaining fortune, with his brandish'd steel, Which smoked with bloody execution, Like valour's minion, carv'd out his passage, Till he fac'd the slave ; Which ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him, Till he unseam'd him from the nave to the chaps, And fix'd his head upon our battlements," till the last, when, betrayed by every portent which the witches had given him, he sees the end to be inevitable, yet plunges into battle with Macduff. "I will not yield. ***** Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane And thou oppos'd, be of no woman born, Yet I will try the last. Before my body I throw my warlike shield : lay on, Macduff, And damn'd be he that first cries, 'Hold, enough.' " THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 155 Another objective view of his character is that of his wife her-self: "Yet do I fear thy nature ; It is too full o' the milk of human kindness, To catch the nearest way." Bearing these two views of his character in mind, the student is prepared to pass unbiased judgment on the subjective, the real ele-ments of Macbeth's soul, as seen in the text itself. The first fact which may be established is that he had thought of murdering Duncan before meeting with the witches. Macbeth is not a good man fallen under the spell of witch-craft, which im-pels him to his bloody deeds. The first suggestion of murder comes from him soon after the approach of Ross and Angus: "Why do I yield to that suggestion Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair * * * * My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical." Murder had been mentioned by no one—not even the witches— up to this time, and the prophecies of the witches were not such as to encourage or arouse the thought. They addressed him as Glamis, Cawdor, and "King that shalt be." The first he was by his father Sinel's death. With regard to the second: he was returning from a victory over the traitorous Thane of Cawdor, and it was in accordance with the customs of the time that the forfeited estates and title should be bestowed upon the victor. With regard to the last: Macbeth was next in succession to Dun-can, being his fiist cousin, and next of kin who was of age, as Malcolm and Donalbain were minors. His chance of becoming king was so apparent that the prophecy did not surprise the loyal and honest Banquo: "Good sir, why do you start and seem to fear Things that do sound so fair?" It was but natural for Macbeth to dream of kingship, but there was no need of crime to attain it. But one reason can be as-signed for the tumult which the witches aroused in Macbeth's mind—his former thought of murder. But we may go further: it is clearly stated that he had broached the subject to his wife before this occasion. When Duncan is in his castle, after he has definitely made up his mind to commit the murder, he tells her that he will not go on, and she replies: I56 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. " What beast was't then That made you break this enterprise to me ? » * * * Nor time nor place, Did then adhere, and yet you would make both." There is nothing here to support the theory of a good man gone to ruin through the evil influence of his wife. Macbeth himself was the originator of the murderous plan. Assured by the early fulfilment of part of the prophecy, Mac-beth seems inclined to drop his thought of murder and let matters take their course. "If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me Without my stir." He seems content to await what may happen. But, unfortu-nately, the very thing happens within an hour which is needed to again arouse his wicked purpose. The king, happy in success, lavishly bestows honors, and among them, makes his son Prince of Cumberland, which was the title assumed by the successor to the throne. While this act of Duncan's was not constitutional, it was not objected to, and Macbeth sees two men in his way in-stead of one. The barrier between him and the throne is in-creasing. Accordingly, announcing that he will go before to make ready for the king at his castle, he adds: "Stars, hide your fires Let not light see my black and deep desires; The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see." This is the pivotal point in the play. Macbeth had a vague in-tention of murder before, but now he has made up his mind to commit the deed, and on that very night. Duncan's fate is set-tled. It is quite possible that Macbeth led his wife to believe that she was impelling him to the murder. It would be in entire ac-cord with the hypocrisy of his nature to bring about her moral downfall in such a way. Having made up his mind to the murder, he enters his castle. "Macbeth. My dearest love, Duncan comes here to-night. Lady Macbeth. And when goes hence? THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 157 Macbeth. To-morrow, as he purposes. Lady Macbeth. O ! never Shall sun that morrow see, Your face, my thane, is as a book, where men May read strange matters." And so later he says that he cannot do it, then yields little by little to her representations of the ease of the murder and of their escape from blame. We are impelled to pity this wife, who, guilty in her own ambition and assent to his plans, is dragged farther and farther down the road to ruin by the false dealing of her more wicked husband. This hypocrisy runs through the entire play and is manifested toward all, till his consciousness of his own false nature leads him to distrust everyone else. But the strangest element in Macbeth's character is seen in the beautiful imagery which he employs in pondering over the worst crimes. He loves to play with his conscience ; to set forth his crime pro and con; to conjure up its consequences, and he does it in language which one must admire. He is the greatest poet Shakespeare has shown the world and his genius rises as his deeds are darkest. He weighs and ponders the murder of Duncan and discusses it with his wife, until the phantom of his brain seems to be projected into space—he sees a dagger. For a moment he has a qualm of superstitious fear, but dismisses it quickly. "It is the bloody business which informs Thus to mine eyes." Then he promptly loses himself in rapt revery, and ushers in his crime with a beautiful soliloquy : "Now o'er the one-half world Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse The curtained sleeper: witchcraft celebrates Pale Hecate's offerings ; and withered murder, Alarumed by his sentinel the wolf, Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace, With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth, Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear Thy very stones prate of my whereabout, And take the present horror from the time, Which now suits with it." Nothing can be more awful than this portrait of a murderer reveling in mental images of what he is about to do, and causing riteUMmmmiwimmMmiMMmMB 158 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. wave after wave of emotion to pass over his sensibility, for the sake of the intellectual pleasure it gives him; yet never swerving from his inexorable purpose. With what poetic beauty of lan-guage he later describes the scene in Duncan's room : "Here lay Duncan His silver skin lac'd with his golden blood; And his gash'd stabs look'd like a breach in nature For ruin's wasteful entrance." Absorbed with the pathetic words in which he has painted his picture, he never sees that they have caused his wife to faint. He is not the man to care for a matter of such small moment as his wife's feelings. He has been spoken of as a man of moral coward-ice. This may be true to some degree, but his fears were never more than superstitious, and never stood in the way of his pur-poses for an instant. He amply paid for any such weakness in his absolute lack of feeling. The influence of the supernatural upon Macbeth's course is a most interesting point of investigation. Was Macbeth responsible for his actions, or did the witches impel him to all he did? He certainly acted for himself in the beginning of his downward path. The first meeting with the witches contained nothing to compel into the course he took, but rather discouraged it. Banquo had as much reason as he to commit murder—even more, for the throne was promised to Macbeth himself, but to Banquo's descendants only. Had Banquo not been the loyal, honest soldier that he was, he would have planned death for both Duncan and Macbeth, that he might rule in person. Macbeth had only to wait, to become king honorably. But in his second consultation with the weird sisters, he surrenders himself to them; they advise him wrongly, and in his after deeds he seems impelled by a supernatural power— he has fallen into the net of Ate. In preparing the charm, Hecate tells us "He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear His hopes 'bove wisdom, grace, and fear; And you all know, security Is mortals' chiefest enemy." There are two side-lights thrown on the character of Macbeth which may be of interest. The first is the opinion of Hecate con-cerning him, expressed when she upbraids the witches for giving him any knowledge of the future: THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. "How did you dare To trade and traffic with Macbeth, In riddles and affairs of death ; 159 All you have done Hath been but for a wayward son, Spiteful and wrathful; who, as others do, Loves for his own ends." We must remember that this comes from a supernatural being, and, as such, must be Shakespeare's estimate of Macbeth's real character. The second is the hypothesis that Macbeth was the third mur-derer who took part in the slaying of Banquo. This is not plainly stated, but may be argued from several standpoints. So intelli-gent a man as Macbeth would hardly entrust such a thing to two parties who did not know one another ; the third man displays a most intimate knowledge of Banquo's affairs, and is most eager for the murder. It is he who brings complete instructions; who first hears Banquo's horses; he when the others wonder that they seem to be going away, explains what Banquo usually does, re-calling himself by the quickly uttered "so all men do;" he rec-ognizes Banquo; he demands why the light has been put out, and first notices the escape of Fleance. Macbeth was not at the ban-quet, for it was appointed for seven oclock : but, as the ghost ap-peared and the guests were sent away before it had really begun, and it was then midnight, it could not have begun before eleven. This leaves four hours to be accounted for, These facts, then, seem to prove that Macbeth was a man who was not content to command the_ murder of a faithful friend, to gratify his jealousy, but must do it with his own hands—in truth, murder incarnate. A poet of the highest intellectual power, who expressed his blackest deeds in the most beautiful language; a man who de-lighted in exploring every phase and consequence of his action, for the sake of the emotional waves which would pass over his soul; a man of great sensibility, but no feeling, who could weep at his own portrayal of his sins, yet never think of pausing in their committal; a selfish, hypocritical, cold-blooded villain, with the physical bravery of the devil himself, and just enough moral weakness to superstitiously shudder for a moment—what a soul-study is presented in Macbeth ! —L,. A. W., *00. i6o THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. SUCCESS IN BUSINESS. ASUCCESSFUL business man exercises a great influence in a country, both morally and financially. The requisites for this success are many. To be success-fully engaged in financial business, the old saying applies very well, that, "you must drive your business, and never let your business drive you." To do this one must be punctual in fulfilling all business en-gagements, laying aside all else, and especially keep his mind away from all worldly pleasures, attending to business first, pleasure afterwards. One must have a foresight in his pecuniary affairs. His experience in his past business must teach him to look for-ward, as to how the market stands, whether it indicates an ad-vance or a decline. His experience will teach him how to judge the market to a great extent. Then he should not be forgetful as to the standing of his bank account, and a favorable one will generally add to his prospects of success. On comparing the two, the one who drives his business, and the other who lets his business drive him, we find a vast differ-ence. The one driven by his business never looks forward, and is always in the dark as to how he stands in his affairs, until the time is reached when it is too late to make the necessary changes, which if they had been made in time would have saved him from a financial distress. His creditors come on him and he is unable to make up a sum sufficient to pay them all and consequently be-comes bankrupt. The other man, driving his business, always keeps posted as to his financial condition and is always prompt in meeting all his business obligations, and therefore is respected by all the commu-nity and is happy and prosperous. At times circumstances arise which cripple a business man through no fault of his own. The successful man will rise above these, commence anew and build a second reputation. The un-successful man will sink down, prostrated by the storm and never will rise again in business life. To be successful morally one must show by his business trans-actions that he has the welfare of his patrons at heart, as well as his own financial success. The unsuccessful man is generally of the kind whose time is nearly all given up to idle pleasures for THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 161 his own amusement, and who cares not for the welfare of his pa-trons. He has for the most part no religious tendencies and con-sequently can not have any influence for the good in the locality in which he resides. But the successful man by his integrity wins the esteem and confidence of his patrons and associates. By his industry, energy and perseverance he sets a good example to those employed by him. He is generally a man who possesses some re-ligious tendencies, and experience teaches us that this is the most essential characteristic for success. Probably nothing can be given to prove this more forcibly than the fact that the most prominent business men in our coun-try to-day are industrious, energetic, persevering, and drive their business instead of allowing their business to drive them. —D., '00. A MIRROR'S REFLECTIONS. [SECOND GIES PRIZE ESSAY.] IT had been fitted into the marble mantlepiece years ago, when the house was built, that large square of beveled glass with its back-ground of mercury, and year by year it rested there in its place against the wall, with wide, unsleeping eyes, noting all that went on in the room. At first the only sight that met its astonished gaze was the blank, white wall opposite. That was when the house was new. But soon objects and persons appeared on the scene, to attract the attention of the observant mirror, when, the house completed, families moved in. For this was one of those large houses, built in great cities, for the accommodation of many families, and it fronted on a busy street where all day long numberless feet hurried to and fro, cars whizzed by, and carts and wagons rattled over the pavement. But of all this the mirror knew nothing. It could see only what was going on in its immediate vicinity. One day a dainty covering of pale blue and gold appeared on the bare wall opposite, and a graceful picture of St. Cecilia hung there. Chairs were scattered about, and the white keys of a piano shone in the glass. Some potted plants added to the beauty of a picture already pleasing to the mirror's curious eyes, but the sight that delighted it most was the vision of a happy face, peeping in a dozen times a day to arrange a curl or set a ribbon right. Some- 162 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. times a man's dark face bent over the woman's fair one, and formed a perfect picture, but only the mirror saw it. Once in awhile a third and smaller face appeared, and a pair of tiny hands were stretched to "catch the baby in the glass." These same pictures the mirror saw, day after day, and never tired of reflecting. But one day a new and strange sight greeted its eyes. Near the opposite wall stood a tiny white box, in which was hid the baby form, now cold and still, while over it pale flowers were strewn. No happy face peeped into the mirror in those days, and soon after the chairs and flowers disappeared, the room was left empty and desolate. But not for long could the mirror mourn over lost faces; new scenes came into its field of vision. Great heaps of books were piled up on a table against the opposite wall, and beneath the light of a green-shaded lamp a boy sat with his head resting on his hands. Often the mirror saw him thus, for hours at a time, turn-ing pages earnestly, and, all the while running restless fingers through his hair. Sometimes his head dropped down upon the table, and he fell fast asleep. Sometimes he got angry and threw a book across the room. Now and then a whole troop of boys came rushing past the mirror, pausing occasionally to adjust a tie, or part their hair exactly in the middle. How long the students came and went before its shining sur-face the mirror did not know,—but it seemed a long time. One day, however, the room was again deserted, the opposite wall a blank. And thus it remained for many a weary month, until the mirror grew tired of staring at the bare walls, and longed for the sight of a living face. At last it came, a gentle patient face, framed in snowy hair, a woman's face, yet one that seldom paused before the mirror's answering eyes, a face lined by suffering, yet deeply sweet. On the walls no pictures hung, no elegant bits of furniture brightened the room, just plain chairs, and a table on which stood a single red geranium plant. The woman seemed to be quite alone, except at long intervals, when a handsome, bold-faced man staggered by the wondering glass, and brought tears to the eyes of the sad mother. One night when a little lamp burned on the table, a still form was carried into the room by stranger-hands. Soon after that the opposite wall was blank again. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 163 Many years had passed, and the busy street was no longer fashionable as a residence. Well-to-do folk sought other parts of the city, and the poorer class took possession. This the mirror did not know, so it looked with startled eyes upon the troop of ragged little ones, who next sought shelter within range of its gleaming surface. Hungry-looking children they were, who played all day long with simple toys in the bare room, and at night crept softly into corners to hide from the eyes of a cruel man. But one evening as the shadows began to fall, and obscured the view of the mirror, a sudden tumult arose, the children ran hither and thither, some-thing crashed against the mantlepiece, a blow shivered the glass, and the mirror's reflections were ended. -A. R. W., '99. PEN SKETCHES FROM NATURE. [THIKD GIES PRIZE ESSAY.] I DO not wonder at the ancients who peopled the earth, sea and air with gods, and then lest some one should be omitted and offended, built altars to both the known and the unknown ones. For even to-day, with all our minute knowledge of nature and revelation, her mild moods fills the breasts of the most in-telligent with fear and awe. Clouds assume monstrous and fore-boding forms and go scurrying, like martial hosts, across the sky, or hang like smouldering mountains on the distant horizon, hurl-ing bolts of fire at each other the while they are lit up by lurid flames and are rolling forth volley upon volley of artillery, whose concussions shake the very earth. Nor is there less to marvel at, even if there is less to fear, when the rain comes down in cata-racts, when the whistling sleet drives swift and sharp, or when the crystalline snow silently changes the bare fields into acres of diamonds. To the ancients, all these agencies in nature were persons or represented personalities. Beautiful conceptions they were, in-deed; but how much grander are ours. We have studied cloud formation and movement; have discovered sufficient of the laws by which electricity acts to harness it for our use, and have di-vested all nature of the personal element. But though we have thus removed Heaven from our surroundings as we have emerged 164 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. from the infancy of our race, we have made it a far higher and nobler conception. In learning that God is not in the whirlwind, we have subordinated it as a manifestation of Him to that gen-eralized and centralized Force, which is all powerful to create and all sufficient to preserve in equipoise the energies which are continuously working in nature. Nature is no longer manifesta-tions of persons, but of a Person. * * * * A little knowledge of nature often reconciles us to workings which otherwise seem only destructive. Many a man whose buildings lie in ashes, the result of a "hot stroke" of lightning, questions the utility of lightning, and is disposed to attribute it to an angry God, useful only to Him as an instrument of revenge, even as the ancients placed the thunder-bolts in the hands of angry Zeus. The following fact sought to receive our consideration and help to reconcile us. The air which we breathe is a mixture of three gases, possessing no particular affinity for each other. They are continually being used up by animal and vegetable growth and from the same sources again given off free. In an unmixed condition they would not serve their purpose. The mixing is pro-moted by electric discharges, and knowing thoroughly how essen-tial this process is to vegetable and animal growth, and especially to one's own life, it is easier to be reconciled to temporary loss and even to suffering, than when one is ignorant of these workings of nature. Not so destructive are meteors. Only occasionally does one read of a house being crushed and a family destroyed by their fall. Of what use are they? Any one who has lived in a city whose atmosphere is foggy of mornings, will attribute the same to the smoke, and so it is. The air is capable of holding a great deal of moisture, and were it perfectly free from dust particles, very little of the moisture would be precipitated. A heavy dew would likely fall nightly, but no showers, though the air be al-ways damp and laden to the point of saturation. The little dust particles are helpful to the formation of drops of rain. Meteors are the chief source of this microscopic dust. Coming from way out in space, millions and millions of miles from us, cold as space, they make a start for the sun. However, some of them in their eagerness to start on their journey, do not calculate for our earth and the power she has of influencing small bodies, and coming too near, they get caught in the atmosphere and only oc- THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 165 casionally does any such escape. Even if anyone does, it is only after it has been so singed by the friction of the winds that it is scarcely to be recognized again by its most intimate friends. Its path can be traced by its long trail of dust, a memento of its visit. These dust particles become the recruiting points of the invisible moisture and the clouds are formed, and when they fall as rain or snow they bring the dust with them. But there are generally more of these particles than the moisture can use up, so the little sunbeams use these in a game of hide and seek and dash in and out among them so swift and in such varied ways that all we can see is the region in which they play, which seems a large city of fairy palaces painted in orange and jasper and gold, and we wish their morning and evening play hours would last all the day. Science in its infancy saw only facts; it is now discovering re-lations, and more and more tracing all phenomena to a central force which is causal for all events and existences. In this uni-fying and classifying process, there are some points which must remain for some time yet on debatable ground. The exact line of demarcation between the plant and the animal kingdoms is not fixed; in the lowest orders they merge insensibly into each other. As we rise above these low forms, the differences are more marked and charasteristic, physically ; but we never reach a point where they are not dependent and related, virtually. Beyond my window is a field of clover. Odor and color at-tract the bee. The pollen and nectar gives him a double burden to wing hive-ward. Both these are essential to his life. Neither does the clover yield them without being blest in the giving. Unknowingly the bee fertilizes the ovary and the plant is perpet-uated. This is only one link in the great chain of united and de-pendent relations. The clover roots penetrate into the soil, and air and water follow, disintegrating rocks and forming soluble compounds of the inorganic elements. These latter cannot sup-port animal life; but transformed into clover, they become, through the agency of the bee, honey—delicious and wholesome; or, con-sumed by the herds, flesh—invigorating and sustaining. Thus does the thinking man discover that in thousands of ways are nature's forces united and working for the sustenance and happi-ness of him, who is the crown of her products, and the best ex-pression of earthly existence. IHH^HHHmm 166 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. I remember as if 'twere yesterday, how, when a child, I was used to bend over little cone-shaped cavities in the soft soil under a thick-leaved tree or shelving rock and cry, "Rolly-bolly, come up your hole, come up your hole, come up your hole." I usually succeeded in getting "rolly-bolly" to respond, for soon the little grains of soil would move as though he were coming up. I never could get him to come clean out, though; and, angered at him on this account, would order him, "down your hole," or dig him out with a stick. I never once thought they had any other mo-tive for making pits or living than to come out when called unless they were stubborn. Alas, for all such childish fancies! I have since watched them and found that those are real treacherous pit-falls, formed with a malicious purpose,—to catch the innocent ants. And so voracious and cruel are these "rolly-bollies" that they deserve the name given them—ant-lion. The surest way to get them to come up is to throw a struggling ant into the little pit. The ant is at once conscious of its danger and immediately begins a pitiable and frantic effort to get up the incline. But the little grains of sand roll down beneath the struggling feet, and, trembling, sink into the treacherous quick-sands below at whose centre there is already a vigorous pushing up. Soon the ant is being helplessly pulled down by its leg into the dining room of its superior and hungry foe. You cruel rolly-bolly, what are you good for anyhow ? Do you do anything but kill the industrious ants ? What are you here for ? If rolly-bolly could answer I know he would say that life is as sweet to him as it is to the ant or to me. A sad and unpleasant law this seems at first: "And that a rose may breathe its breath, Something- must die." Humanity rebels against it. Man uses the power given him to exercise dominion over the earth, air, and sea, and even wages war against his kind, to prolong his little life which disease and death soon terminate. Could not God have peopled the earth with a limited number of immortal beings and prevented all this merciless warfare between kingdoms and races and species, and the shameful survival of the bloody strongest ? Doubtless it could have been done. But if the ant-lion and the ant could speak, they would likely prefer to live as they do, foes indeed, but each one enjoying life with all its dangers and uncertainties. And surely we can learn a lesson. The sum total of happiness is THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 167 greater when many enjoy life a short while that if a few should live always. It is our duty to live as long as nature permits, "to husband out life's taper to its close" ; to be unselfish for the sake of those who are living now; to be virtuous for the sake of those who shall live after us. Just as one meets with surprises in observing nature, finding unlooked for beauties and new adaptations, so there also await us disappointments. Birds, flowers and minerals which have been idealized by painter and poet are always disappointing when they are seen in reality, and this is especially true of those things which have been used as symbolic of the celestial and spiritual. St. John's description of the walls of the New Jerusalem is so sub-lime that one builds them of imaginary stones more exquisite than ever were found. For if built of our real amethyst, jasper and topaz, their combination would be exceedingly disappointing. But what better could be done ? Alone on Patmos, surrounded by rocks and sea and sky, conscious of the povetry of language and the inadequacy of terrestial objects as symbols, he fills in the picture with these colors, with a feeling identical to that expe-rienced when in the midst of the book-learned world he tells us, at the close of his beautiful gospel, that the world could not contain the books that should be written. These are only symbols. The music for the ears, the colors for the eyes will be such as hath never yet been conceived by the heart of man. # * # ^ There is but one way to Nature's soul, accessible to all ages and conditions ; it is found by those who love her with a sympa-thetic heart, for herself alone. The scholar who has habituated himself to scientific analysis of every object he meets, fails to se-cure that best knowledge of her tempers and strivings. A poor comforter indeed would he be who was so scientifically inclined as to think of the proportion of water and salts of sodium and potash in the tears of his weeping.friend. Is he any more worthy of Nature's confidence who sees in every bird an ornithological specimen, in every flower an addition to the herbarium, in every stone a mineral for his cabinet ? To see her best we must look at her sometimes with simple childlike eyes, even as we did when every object was for us a living personality. i68 T THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. "Siisse, heilige Natur, Lass mich gehn auf deiner Spur, Leite mich an deiner Hand Wie ein Kind am Gangelband 1 Wenn ich dann ermiidet bin, Sink' ich dir am Busen hin, Athme siisse Himmelslust Hang-end an der Mutter Brust. Ach, wie wohl ist mir bei dir! Will dich lieben fii and ffir ! Lass mich gehn auf deiner Spur, Liisse, heilige Natur ! " —F. L. Stolberg. —W. B. C, '99. EDITOR'S DESK. HIS word from the MERCURY comes late but it is sincere: Welcome, thrice welcome to the Freshmen ! The Gies prize of seventy-five dollars has been offered again to the students of Gettysburg. The object of the generous and loyal alumnus who offers it is to develop literary talent among our students and to afford the best possible material for the MER-CURY. As this prize gives so fine a chance for a convenient pocket-full, every one with a spark of ability should compete. Since the number of students competing for the prize last year was small, of course the articles of value for the MERCURY were few. This prize money is divided between the three best contributors, into parts of thirty-five, twenty-five, and fifteen dollars. Last year the successful contributors were Luther A. Weigle, 'oo; Anna R. Welty, '99; and W. Bruce Carney, '99. The paramount object of an institution of learning is mental training and consequently one would suppose that those intending to enter such an institution would be influenced more by its facili-ties to develop mental power than by anything else. Yet such is by no means the case, for the high record of a college in ath-letics is found to be its best drawing card. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 169 Whether this incentive is one that friends of a college may be proud to use or whether it is disgraceful that superiority in con-tests of skill and physical strength should be made the basis of appeal to those desiring to enter college is not for us to answer. What we must meet is this fact, that not to fall behind its class, a college must make a good record in athletics. The sizes of Freshman classes in institutions making a good name in athletics last year seem to indicate that successful athletics means success-ful colleges. We rejoice that Dr. McKuight is living in the present and is doiugall in his power to stimulate athletics in Gettysburg. Many of Gettysburg's best friends little think how vital the question of athletics is to our college. L,oyal alumni, Gettysburg calls on you for support! Remember the Athletic Association of your Alma Mater! COLLEGE Y. M. C. A. DURING recent years the work of the Young Men's Chris-tian Association has been forcing itself steadily before the gaze and the admiration of the public and to-day it must be recognized as a mighty power in the world. It is our duty therefore to look at it as such. In its growth it has had great obstacles to overcome and one of them has been the great lack of interest and aid given it by the Christian people. In fact many have been positively antagonistic to the movement. This should not be and I feel that if the work in all its departments were fully understood there could no longer be this antagonism. It is our purpose therefore to show to you a little of the inner life of the association. It might be well to look first at the aims and purposes of this movement as a whole and also at its divisions of work. L,et me state here that the Y. M. C. A. is not apart from the church, that it is not a separate and distinct organization, but a part of the church, reaching out its hands unto thousands of young men and bringing them into active church work. Its fundamental purpose then is to bring men to a saving knowledge of their L,ord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It is to help them to successfully battle against temptations and bring them into vital connection with the church. No other part of the church seems so ably 170 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. adapted to carry on this work among young men. In that it is a movement distinctly for men, we are able to reach many whom otherwise it would be almost impossible to save. The association work is non-sectarian and therefore should appeal to every branch of the evangelical church. As most probably is known to all, the work is divided into three distinct branches, the town, the railroad and the student. As we see how the many young men who are swarming our cities and towns are kept from yielding to the temptations peculiar to these places, and how many more are led to an acceptance of Christ, and as we see in the railroad circles the real earnest en-thusiasm in the cause of Christ and winning of souls to Him among those who have found the Life, we cannot but feel God is with us, and if He is with us, we know that souls must be saved and this is the fundamental aim of all our work. But we cannot dwell longer on these departments, but must turn our attention to that branch which is of vital importance to the student world. It is a recognized fact that the men who are to rule the world are the men who year after year are crowding out of the doors of our institutions of learning. If therefore we wish our government to be under the control of Christian men, men who will not flinch at doing their duty no matter what the consequences may be, it is of the most extreme importance that these men be won to Christ in their youth while they are within the college walls. To this end we are striving. It is almost impossible for anyone who has not been on the ground for himself to realize the awful need of Christian work in the colleges of our country. It fairly makes the heart break as time after time we see fellows coming from Christian homes where every helpful influence has been thrown around them and where possibly they have been looked up to for nobleness of character, and then come to college, sepa-rated from home and launched out into an entirely new life with its peculiar temptations, and amid fellows, some loving and some not knowing Christ, and then to see them fall little by little. It is pitiable in the extreme. And then there are those who have never known Christ, and what an awful influence they have on the weak Christians. It is for this that those who are Christians may be kept from falling and kept in touch with Christian work and that those who know Him not may be brought to Him that the Y. M. C. A. stands in college. I THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 171 In order to accomplish this we do not depend alone on our re-ligious meetings which we hold twice every week, but we have regularly organized Bible, Missionary and Personal Workers classes. If we wish to broaden our spiritual life we must employ those means which God has distinctly made known to us, and these are secret prayer and Bible study. The importance of this can not be too strongly urged. It is the backbone of all Chris-tian work. The International Committee of the Y. M. C. A. has furnished us with a most excellent systematic, devotional course of Bible study. Through it in the four years of college life a man has had a bird's eye view of the entire Bible. The Fresh-men take up the life of Christ; the Sophomores "Studies in the Acts and the Epistles" ; the Juniors, Old Testament characters ; and the Seniors, the crowning truths of the Bible. The Senior course will not be ready, however, for another year. The classes meet once every week and are entirely under the control of the students. Four years ago in the colleges throughout the United States and Canada there were eight thousand students banded to-gether in Bible study. Last year that number was increased to twelve thousand who continued in the work at least two months. The Morning Watch is urged for the most successful Bible study. This is the setting apart of about fifteen to thirty minutes to Bible study and secret prayer at the very beginning of the day when we can give our best thought to God. How can we afford not to give God this little time that we may hold sweet commun-ion with Him. Missions are brought prominently to the front in our work. Here again we use the course prescribed by the International Com-mittee. The class meets every week. Besides the class work, contributions are solicited from the students for Missions. In connection with the class is a volunteer band for the foreign field. The great need of missions is becoming to be more and more felt and where can there be a better place to stir up the mission spirit than right among college men ? Another most important part of our work is the personal work done among the fellows. A class is formed for the best methods of doing personal work and for discussion of the work to be done. Personal work is something every Christian ought to do and for which there is no excuse for not doing but rather condemnation. Another feature of the work is the work among the new stu- 172 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. dents, meeting them at the train and doing whatever we can for them to help in making them feel at home. An information bureau is also conducted. Especial efforts are put forth at the opening of the term to enlist men in Christian work before they form any evil associations. A reception is also held at the open-ing of the term for the new students that they may all become acquainted with each other and with all the men in college. May this brief sketch of the work of our association but move us on to a more earnest and prayerful appreciation of these privileges which we now enjoy, and may its success be the con-stant prayer of all who are interested in the cause of Christ. —WM. J. MIMJER, Jr., '00. TWO MISCHIEVOUS FALLACIES IN EDUCATION. EDUCATION, as we now understand the meaning of the term, must accomplish its purposes in the face of two mis-chievous and prevalent fallacies. The first of these is the fallacy of the short cut, the desire to avoid a long course of study and discipline; the disposition to make our culture consist in a few phrases and in merely superfi-cial knowledge of a great many things. Especially is this the case with the young people. While a boy is at his studies, his acquaintance, who is doing something that can be rated in dollars, measured with the yard-stick or weighed upon the scales, seems to him to be getting on, while he seems to be standing still; so he chafes and frets at his studies and longs to be in active business. How much better it would be for the world if such a boy could be made to understand that it is no gain, but a fatal loss of time to undertake to have a hand in the world's work before he can do anything that the world really wants; that if he wants a place he must first become such a person that the place will want him. The impatient boy ought to understand that so far as he is con-cerned the world is entirely patient, that it is quite willing to wait for him until he has mastered himself and some department of knowledge or industry, but that when he has done that the world is so impatient for him that it will at once find him out and set him at work. If however, he undertakes to participate in the world's work before he has fully prepared himself, what-ever he seeks he will find at his elbow some better man seeking THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 173 the same thing—some man who did what he failed to do ; a man who made the most of himself; who did not strive to do four years' work in three; a man who made the utmost of all his op-portunities. It is true not only that the trained man wins, but that the trained man is about the only one wanted to do any kind of work. In ordinary conversation we find ourselves referring to the young graduate as having "completed his course" or "finished his education," and yet if we think soberly of the matter we know that if the school or college has done its work properly for him it has only prepared him to be educated. The idea that education is a thing to be concluded definitely within a few of the earlier years of life, then to be regarded as forever over and done, and that it consists of some disagreeable preliminaries of syntax, Latin, grammar and rhetoric, to be gotten out of the way as speedily as possible; this idea of education we understand to be thoroughly obsolete. Rather do we understand that education, if it means anything, means the continual enrichment of the re-sources of the individual. How foolish then to think that an education can be "completed" or "finished" by taking a shortcut. The president of a certain college on being asked by a young man if he could not in two years probably get all the good that the college could give him, said: '' Well young man, when God wants to make a squash He takes about six weeks, but when He wants to make an oak He takes a hundred years." Another difficulty against which we must strive in the educa-tion of others or of ourselves is the alluring fallacy about the self-made man. Some one has wittily said that the chief char-acteristic of the self-made man is that he is much given to the worship of his Maker. Doubtless this is more witty than it is just. By a self-made man we generally mean one who has achieved distinguished success without the aid of schools, and if we think soberly about the matter we are in no great danger of saying too much in praise of such men. America, of all countries, should speak respectfully of the self-made man. In no other country has he achieved such splendid things; no other country probably owes so much to the self-made man. But what does he prove? In every case where a man has achieved great success by his own unaided efforts, he has been a man of extraordinary abilities, 174 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. and he has succeeded by means of these abilities in spite of and not because of the lack of other aids. We are now beginning to recognize the fact that the self-made man is one who has made the most of his opportunities. Every-man in the world who amounts to anything is a self made man. It is simply a question of using one's actual opportunities. Abra-ham Lincoln was a self-made man. So just as truly was William Gladstone. The opportunities of the one were those of narrowness and poverty; of the other, abundance and comfort. Each made the most of his opportunities, and for each equally this was the condition of success. We ought to understand that self-culture is not a term to be applied only to those who have not the advantages of assistance from the schools, but that the term self-culture describes the personal enrichment of every individual who simply makes the best of whatever opportunities he has. What great mischief has been wrought in the past by the fal-lacious idea that the man who takes advantage of the training which our schools and colleges offer is not a self-made man. Such a man is, indeed, the highest type of a self-made man. If we wish to be thoroughly prepared to engage in the active duties of life, and if we wish to give to the world the fullest reali-zation of our possibilities, we must be fully aware that there is no short cut in education and that the self-made man is that man who has made the most of his opportunities with or without the aid of the school or college. —' 'PROMETHEUS. '' Who reads Incessantly and to his reading- brings not A spirit and judgment equal or superior, (And what he brings, what need he elsewhere seek ?) Uncertain and unsettled still remains. Deep versed in books and shallow in himself. —Milton. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 175 WHY WE SHOULD BE TRUE AND HONEST. TRUTHFULNESS and honesty go hand in hand. Truth alone may not constitute a great man but it is the most im-portant element of great character. It gives security to those who employ it and confidence to those who use it. It is an essential to every man no matter who he is, the king on his royal throne or the slave in the galley. In fact it is one of the first re-quisites for true manhood. Lying, common as it is, is denounced by the liar himself. He protests that he is speaking the truth for he knows that truth is universally respected and a lie universally condemned. He who tells an untruth is not only dishonest but a mean coward. Fear-ing the consequences of making a true statement, he cowers be-neath a lie or probably, what is even worse, just keeps on the verge of the truth, for a lie which is half truth is the worst of lies. Exaggeration is but another name for falsehood. To exaggerate is to pass the bounds of truth and surely these bounds cannot be passed without entering the limits of falsehood. There can be no middle point; what is not true must be false. Not only may one be dishonest in the words he utters but also in his doings. Actions have as plain a voice as words. The sin-cere man speaks as he thinks, acts as he professes to act and does what he promises to do. All phases of society are permeated by this most common of vices, from the highest to the lowest. A lie is a lie, no matter if it is a little white one or a big black one. Ruskin says, "Lies may be light and accidental but they are an ugly soot from the smoke of the pit and it is better our hearts should be swept clean of them without our care as to which is the largest or the blackest." Truth and honesty show themselves in many ways. They characterize the men of just dealings, the faithful men of business and those men who will not deceive you to their own advantage. Full measures, just weights, true sample and a strict fulfillment of engagements are indispensable to men who would succeed. We are always complaining of adulteration of the goods we buy. We pay for one thing and get another. In the study of Chemistry, we learn for instance, how cotton goods is very often treated so as to bring more money into the manufacturer's pocket. The cotton is loaded with china clay, starch, magnesium or zinc. 176 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. When such goods is washed, the clay and starch are removed and it becomes a rag. Recently an engineer crossing the Indian Ocean was decorating his turban with a piece of muslin. "Is that English?" he was asked. His answer was, "No, it is from Swit-zerland. The English makes my fingers stick. It's too gummy." This is the way the dishonest Englishman would eventually lose his trade by forcing this inferior, shoddy stuff on his customers. Why not be honest and sell goods for what they are ? Thus in all walks of life one may find falsehood and deception. But why ? Is it not always easier to tell the true straightforward story than to go to the trouble to invent a lie ? At first it is, but like all other habits, lying increases with practice and an experienced liar often finds difficulty in telling the truth. Very many times he tells a crooked story where the truth would have served his purpose even better. —J. C. M., '00. e^j THE RELATION OF COMMERCE TO MISSIONS. WE are living in an age of great commercial activity. The remarkable progress of science within the last century has afforded surprising facility in international commu-nication ; distances have been annihilated, and those parts of the globe most widely separated may now be said to be in compara-tively close touch with one another. The printing press, the railroad, the telegraph and the steamboat have brought into ex-istence an international community of interests as well as of thought. Along with this there has naturally sprung up great commercial rivalry, and nation now vies with nation in seeking new markets for its products. Vast as the world's great market is, the gigantic proportions of our modern manufacturing industries demand new openings. Nor would it seem a difficult task to find such openings when we but consider the hundreds upon hundreds of millions who need but be raised from their present state of savagery and barbarism to the light and life of our modern civilization to create new de-mands for the world's supply of commodities. With this object in view trading posts and colonies have fre-quently been established in the midst of savage peoples in order to awaken among them the wants peculiar to civilized life by THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 177 bringing them, as much as possible, into contact with the products and institutions of civilization. However, the results of such undertakings have not,as a rule,been of a nature calculated to recom-mend the system to us. Evidently the principle was wrong; our sav-age brothers need something more potent than the mere veneer of our modern civilization to bring them into a condition in which there will be a demand for the commodities of commerce. It is evident to the most casual thinker that between commerce and missions there exists a natural relation; but the remarkable closeness and strength of this relation is recognized by compara-tively few. We all agree with the statement that missions ma-terially promote commercial activity; but many of us shake the head, or at least want time to think it over, when we hear the statement that the founding of missions is essential to commer-cial success in a heathen land. That the latter statement is true however, we believe a careful study of the subject will prove. Reference has already been made to the efforts put forth to re-claim the savage from his degraded state and create in him new wants by familiarizing him with the manners and institutions of civilized society. The utter failure of such efforts has also been referred to. Experience has shown that the savage man may come into frequent contact with civilized men and the products of civilization without being in any way prompted to change his own mode of life. To him civilization, with its multifarious wants, is sheer foolishness, and contrasts very unfavorably with his own life of indolence and general simplicity. What then is the "Open Sesame" whereby commerce may gain entrance to this great market? The answer is plainly, the Gospel of Christ,—not civilization, as we have learned, for gen-uine civilization, with all its requirements must be preceded by the Gospel; whenever the order is reversed failure results. We might cite numerous examples to substantiate this statement. That civilization alone is insufficient is proven moreover by the fact that savages, after having been separated from their na-tive tribes and degraded life for years, given a good education and brought under the influence of the highest civilization, have fre-quently been known to relapse again into savagery. For a very significant illustration of this fact permit us to quote from Rev. J. C. Bryant, who, in writing in the Missionary Journal, says: "Of fourteen young meu who have left my employ within two i78 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. years, one has since been converted, and of course clothes him-self; the rest go naked as before, showing how impossible it is to civilize men without first converting them. Wash a pig and shut him in a parlor, he may stay clean for a while, but as soon as free he will return to wallowing in the mire. Make a lamb of him, and at once he gives up his filthy ways. To try to civilize heathen without converting them is to try to make lambs of swine by washing them and putting on them a fleece of wool." Thus we see that the only way whereby the world's savage and degraded millions may be brought into the full light and en-joyment of civilization and thus be made important factors in commerce is the way of the Gospel. It is only when the Gospel enters the hearts of men that they awaken to the great possibili-ties of life. New wants are created. The former savage no longer lives in tents and covers his body with the skins of beasts but dwells in a house and dons the garb of civilization. Instead of the few and primitive wooden implements by means of which he formerly cultivated the soil, he now uses modern implements of agriculture. And in every department of life this inward transformation gives rise to a demand for the various products of civilization. And thus it ever is, the Gospel opens the way, and in its wake comes the commerce of civilized lands. For another illustration of the great value of missions to commerce, let us briefly consider the missionary development of the Sandwich Islands. Less than three-quarters of a century ago these Islands were utterly valueless from a commercial standpoint. The inhabitants, who were most ignorant and lazy, lived in sav-age simplicity. The Gospel was carried to those Islands, with the result that a wonderful transformation followed. Civilized com-munities sprang into existence; churches and school-houses were built; agriculture was given new life, and the fertile soil of the Islands was made to yield bountiful harvests; various industries were created, and a steady and profitable trade with the Islands began. And at the present time the entire cost of christianizing the Islands is more than paid back in less than a year at the port of San Francisco alone. Many similar instances might be cited but we believe that sufficient has been said to show that Chris-tianity is essential to real commercial success and activity in those lands now in heathen darkness. Wherever it goes it exerts a quickening influence, it actuates men to living a more exalted, THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 179 more useful and more industrious life. It elevates the general character of society, and firmly establishes the power of civiliza-tion. It is essential to real progress and growth, being to human-ity what the sun is to the world. In view of these considerations it is a matter of surprise to note the comparatively slow progress which is being made in the world's evangelization. The very nature of foreign missions enti-tles them to the zealous support and encouragement of all civi-lized peoples. Christianity stands for the very highest type of civilization. Like an everflowing stream of purest water, it vivifies, purifies and transforms all with which it comes in con-tact. Christian missions constitute the only agency whereby men may be reclaimed from darkness and destructive indolence, and brought to a full realization of all the benefits of civilization. Their every advance gives a new impetus to commerce, for they bring about industry and fruitfulness. Under their divine in-fluence the earth is made to yield to men its richest treasures, and those places once desolate and unfruitful become the abodes of prosperity. "The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose." —R. D. C, '00. THE UNITED STATES AS A COLONIZING NATION. EVERY nation that has ever been a factor in the development of the human race has had some strong characteristic which has given life and form to its civilization. Among the Greeks it was culture; among the Romans it was law; among the Hebrews it was purity; among the Americans this one central idea is liberty. For it, and for scarcely any other cause, thousands of them have shed blood in battle, and sacrificed their lives. From our earliest existence as a nation we were the best representative, if indeed not the only one, of pure civil and religious liberty. Two other representative characteristics of the nation are the unequaled energy and the undaunted perseverance of its people. There is scarcely any doubt that to-day the American people are the most aggressive, the most expansive and at the same time the best champions of liberty in the world. These characteristics of the people of the United States account largely for their being at i8o THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. once the most extensive and the most successful colonizers the world has yet seen. "A colony is a territory, not forming, for political purposes, a part of the mother country, but dependent upon her, and peopled in part, at least, by her emigrants." According to this definition there was no time in its history that the United States has not had colonies. The small country along the Atlantic sea-board had scarcely been organized before it launched out upon one of the most extensive colonizing schemes in the history of the world. In a few years the great Northwest Territory was settled largely by colonists from the mother country and new states were formed from it. This territory was not fully developed until the vast tract known as the Louisiana Purchase was also added. This domain, large enough in itself for a strong kingdom, was thrown open for colonization and in seventy-five years scarcely less than a dozen states have been developed from it. Since then the terri-tory of the United States has been extended by the Gadson pur-chase, the Oregon cession, the annexation of Florida, the Mexican cession, the Purchase of Alaska, and the annexation of the Ha-waiian and Philippine Islands. In the colonization of this vast territory the government had no trouble with the slight exceptions of the quarrel introduced into Kansas from the states and the Mormon power in Utah. This may in part be accounted for by the contiguity of the colonies to the parent government. Since we can go no farther west but must spread out to the islands of the sea we encounter more diffi-culties; but with the schooling we have had during the last hun-dred years we need not fear for our future success in colonizing or civilizing. When we consider with our great energy and deep love of liberty, our advantageous position, our immense wealth, our mar-itime power, our extensive commerce, our enlightened civilization, and our religious enthusiasm, colonization seems to be the work for which we as a nation are especially fitted. And when we compare our colonizing policy with that of Spain we can still further see why we have thus far had so successful a career and will likely have in the future. We find that throughout her career as a colonizer her ruling passion was jealousy; that her primary objects were subjection and and self-enrichment. Everything that could possibly tend to ac- THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 181 tivity, education, enterprise or independence was sedulously dis-couraged . The government of her possessions in the New World, extending at one time from 37° N. to 41 ° S., was administered entirely by foreigners who cared only for their own and the parent government's welfare. The original inhabitants, instead of be-ing raised to a higher plane of living, were reduced to a state of abject bondage and imbecility. At the beginning of the 18th century her annual income from her colonies was about ten mil-lion dollars. What do we behold as the result of such a course of colonization ? Her vast possessions in North and South Amer-ica have long ago slipped from her control, and now even Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands, her last colonial possessions, are lost to her forever. Spain's colonial policy was a failure. Examining more closely our past career we find instead of our controlling policy being jealousy it was first a desire of improve-ment in the domestic condition of the colonies and second the strengthening of the entire country. Instead of discouraging ed-ucation, enterprise, study, and independence, schools were organ-ized and encouraged, capital was sent into the territory for indus-trial development, railroads were built, and independence was en-couraged by extending to the colonies the privilege of becoming states as soon as they were capable of self-government. Instead of being ruled entirely by the parent state the colonies selected their own officers and administered their own local affairs, the national government reserving to itself only a veto power. In short the territories were held in a state of tutelage until they could manage their own affairs and then were admitted into the Union on an equality with all the rest of the states. In our new possessions many new conditions confront the government. They are thousands of miles away ; they are mostly in tropical latitudes; and they are more thickly settled than were our former colonies. In our new venture of crossing the seas to find colonies many of our old principles will still serve us well. We have become more philanthropic in our policy: we no longer expect any strength to the home government, nor any great com-mercial advantage, and certainly no increase of wealth. Our guiding hand, liberalizing influence, and generous sympa-thies have been extended solely in the effort of raising the inhab-itants to a higher political, social and religious plane of life. Our great aim here will doubtless be as it has been in the past to train 182 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. the colonists in the habit of self-government. This will be done by letting them, so far as possible, manage their own affairs to their own advantage and interest. It is now our duty to give them peace and order, the foundation of a beneficent government, and afford them every opportunity of prosecuting their lawful pursuits. —"GEORGB." ADVANTAGES OF STUDYING THE CLASSICS. OBSERVATION and the personal experience of many have proved that the classical department of an institution is the one least appreciated by the majority of the students. That such should be the case is due, perhaps mostly, to the fact that in this department we find some of the most difficult labor. It is, therefore, natural that the minds of some of the students should be prejudiced on this subject. It has often been a surprise to see men of experience argue that the study of Greek and Latin will never benefit a man. To say the least of the majority of such men, we can only say that they expose their ignorance by speaking on the subject. To convince such men that there are really benefits and advantages derived from studying the classics, is not the original idea of this produc-tion. But if they are patient in following while we speak of at least some of the advantages derived from studying the classics, they may be induced to lay aside their "Cui boni" criticism in regard to this subject. That advantages are derived from studying the classics has been proved conclusively by the past. While the world has had some powerful intellects who were not classical scholars, we can, never-theless, say that the most powerful minds of the past and the present are those which have been developed by classical culture. Let it be understood, however, that by studying the classics in this production we mean true, honest and earnest study. Not such studying as the majority of the students pursue. To say nothing of the dishonesty and injustice of such studying both towards the professors and towards the few of the class who are honest enough not to use translations, let it suffice to say that such a course of study will never secure true and lasting good to the scholars. All are willing to acknowledge that a student while at college THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 183 is laying his foundation for future usefulness in active life. And while the body must not be neglected, the mind is after all the important factor to be developed in the student. Now while the study of all the different branches has the tendency of developing the mental faculty, we hold as the first advantage derived from studying the classics, that they have the tendency more than any other branch to develop the mind of the student. The develop-ment of the mind may be a subtle point to discuss ; but what we mean by it, without bringing into consideration mental philosophy, is the cultivation of the mental faculties so as to expand the mind, thus making it stronger and more capable of grasping and prose-cuting other studies. It is the brain power that the student stands in need of, and as the muscles of a man are developed in propor-tion to his muscular efforts so the mind is developed and expanded in proportion to the exertions made. We find that in all institu-tions of learning much attention is being paid to the classical de-partment. The recitations are about as two to one compared with the recitations in any of the other departments, and frequently we find the professors in this department the most competent men of the institution. It is known that the recitations in said department are for the most part difficult. Taking, therefore, into consideration the time occupied in studying the classics and also the hard work em-ployed in solving many of the dark and mysterious passages of the same, we can come to no other conclusion than that classical training will develop the mind. In the second place, studying the classics will develop and en-large our thinking and reasoning faculties and our judgment. These are the faculties which place us so high above the brute creation, and if properly developed give to man his true dignity. The less these are developed the lower will be the standard of our manhood, but the more they are developed the higher will we as-cend towards that position intended by the Creator for all rational creatures. The man who cannot reason and think for himself is at best a poor and insignificant being. The above named faculties are the ones which should be par-ticularly developed in the student. Let him pursue the study of Greek and Latin diligently and he can not fail to improve him-self. I ATHLETICS. THE opening of the football season this year has been more encouraging than for some years. The material is better and heavier, the spirit of all the boys is higher, and the scrub team is larger and stronger than at any time within the knowledge of any man at college. There has been one great disappointment, however,—in the matter of a coach. Money is already secured to defray the expense, and a man was practically engaged, but at the last moment he went back on us, and we were left in the hole. Manager Imler THE GETTYSBURG MERCURi. 187 has been making strenuous efforts to secure a man, but has not succeeded as yet. Captain Dale has been doing all the coaching, being ably assisted by White, '97, a well-known former captain and half-back, who has been coaching the backs, and Ott and Menges, '97, former tackle and guard, who have been coaching the line men. The most attention has been given to defensive work, recognizing that there is no hope of winning the first two games—Indians and State—and the wisdom of the coachers was shown in the low score made against us by the Indians. Hickman is back at his old place as center. He plays the same good defensive game as formerly, and has improved greatly in offensive work. Nicely, our well-known big guard, is showing the same good form which always characterizes his work. Hoff-man has rapidly learned his place at left guard, and is playing an aggressive game. The guards-back is very effective as played by these men, they tearing big holes in the opponent's line. Gilbert retains his place at right tackle, with Williams, our former center, at left tackle. Gilbert's ability is well known, and Williams is fast getting on to his new place. Minuigh, a former Gettysburg High School player, is holding left end, and Emmert the "little sub," who was so much praised by Dickinson and Susquehanua last year, is playing left end. Both are speedy and manifesting excellent tackling ability. Rugh, a half on last year's team, is filling the position at quarter very acceptably, being quick and sure. Captain Dale at right half is so well known that nothing need be said concerning his ability. Koller, left tackle for two years, is filling left half. He is learning the position rapidly, and with a little experience at the place will be all that can be desired. The biggest surprise of the year is the ability displayed by Young, last year's captain and end, at full-back. He plays a fierce game, both offensive and defensive, his line-bucking being the hardest seen here for some time. Dale does all the kicking, and is prac-ticing hard at goals from the field. Other good men are Henry for the line; Krout, quarter, McClean, end, and Weaver, back. The Scrub, captained by Bottiger, 'oo, has been unsually strong, and is giving the Varsity good hard practice. The first game was played Saturday, September 23d, against the Indians at Carlisle. The result was encouraging in the highest degree, our men holding the Indians down to twenty points. In addition, but one of their tallies was a touchdown, the other three i38 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. being goals from the field kicked by Hudson. Our men played a fine game both offensive and defensive, and Young and guards tore great holes in the Indians' line. We clip from a comment on the game in the Philadelphia Times, September 25th: "Gettysburg did finely, and should rank somewhat better, it seems, than Swarthmore, Dickinson, Haverford, or Franklin and Marshall, who may usually be ranked with her.'' Now let everybody do his best to prove this prophecy true. —W. C F. SOLT MERCHANT TAILOR Masonic Bldg., GETTYSBURG Our collection of Woolens for the coming- Pall and Winter season cannot be surpassed for variety, attractive designs and general completeness. The latest styles of fashionable novelties in the most approved shades. Staples of exceptional merit, value and wearing durability. Also altering", repairing-, dyeing and scouring at moderate prices. .FOR UP-TO-DATE. Clothing, Hats, Shoes, And Men's Furnishing- Goods, go to. I. HALLEM'S MAMMOTH CLOTHING HOUSE, Chambersburg St., GETTYSBURG, PA. ESTABLISHED 1867 BY ALLEN WALTON. ALLEN K. WALTON, President and Treasurer. ROBT. J. WALTON, Superintendent. flummelstomn Bromn Stone Company Quarr3Tmen and Manufacturers of Building Stone, Sawed Flagging and Tile Waltonville, Dauphin Co., Pa. Contractors for all kinds of Telegraph and Express Address. Cut Stone Work. BROWNSTONE, PA. Parties visiting the Quarries will leave cars at Brownstone Station on the P. & R. R. B. ii1 j PATRONIZE OUR ADVERTISERS. The Century Double-Feed Fountain Pen. Fully Warranted. 16 Kt. Gold Pen, Indium Pointed. GEO. EVELER, Agent for Gettysburg College. PRICE LIST. No. 1. No. 1. Chased, long- or short $2 00 Gold Mounted 3 00 No. 3. Chased 3 00 No. 3. Spiral, Black or Mottled $2 SO Twist, " " 2 SO Hexagon, Black or Mottled 2 50 Gold Mounted 4 00 Pearl Holder, Gold Mounted S 00 THE CENTURY PEN CO. WHITEWATER. WIS. Askyour Stationer or our Agent to show them toyou. Agood local agent wanted in every school' ■ 'J^^^i^fi^jff^^-iixiJrmE CENT!) Printing and Binding We Print., 'The Mercury' THE MT. HOELY STATIONERY AND PRINTING CO. does all classes of Printing' and Binding-, and can furnish you any Book, Bill Head, Letter Head, Envelope, Card, Blank, or anything pertain-ing to their business in just as good style and at less cost than you can obtain same elsewhere. They are located among the mountains but their work is metropolitan. You can be convinced of this if you give them the opportunity. Mt. Holly Stationery and Printing Co. "SPRINGS, PA. SJ I H.S. BENNER, .DEALER IN. Groceries, Notions, Queensware, Glassware, Etc., Tobacco and Cigars. J7 CHAMBERSBURG ST. ■■■■■^i^^HHiH WE RECOMMEND THESE BUSINESS MEN. Pitzer House, (Temperance) JNO. E. PITZER, Prop. Rates $1.00 to $1.25 per day. Battlefield a specialty. Dinner and ride to all points of interest/including the three days' fight, $1.25. No. 127 Main Street. MUMPER & BENDER Furniture Cabinet Making, Picture Frames Baltimore St., O.ETTYSBURCI, PA. You will find a full line of Pure Drugs and Fine Sta- People's Drug Store Prescriptions a Specialty. .QO TO. l?otel (Gettysburg Barber Sfyop. Centre Square. B. M. SEFTON J, A. TAWNEY ,. Is ready to furnish Clubs and Bread, Rolls, Etc. At short notice and reasonable rates. 'Washington & Middle Sts., Gettysburg. W.F.CODORI, Bi2E5S£d Dealer in Beef, Pork, Lamb, Veal, Sausage. Special rates to Clubs. York St., GETTYSBURG. Davib Croxcl, Dealer in ^tne groceries anb Hottons e4*_4Jorfc Street. .GO TO. CHAS. E. BARBEHENN, Barber In the Eagle Hotel, Cor. Main and Washington Sts. YOHN BROS. Agents for the Keystone State, Waldo, Washburn, Groupner & Meyer. Highest Grade Mandolins, Guitars, Banjos, Mandollas and Mandocellos. Headquarters for Phonographs, Graphophones and supplies. Trimmings of every description. All sheet music one-half off. Large discounts on Books and studies. 326 Market St., Harrisburg, Pa. I FAVOR THOSE WHO FAVOR US. I Baseball sSapplies, .Spalofng's Xeaguc Jfiall, /kits, flbaefte, Etc. Managers should send for samples and special rates. Every requisite for Cennte, Oolf, Grlcftet, ttracft ano ffielo, ©Btnnasium Equipments ano ©utfite Complete Catalogue Spring and Summer Sports Free. The Name the Guar-antee." a. ©. SpalOing & JBroe. New York .•. Philadelphia '." Chicago ROWE. YOUR GROCER Carries Full Line of Groceries, Canned Goods, Etc. Best Coal Oil and Brooms at most Reasonable Prices. OPPOSITE COLLEGE CAMPUS. S. J. CODORI, **Druggists Dealer in Drugs, Medicines, Toilet Articles, J- Stationery, Blank Books, Amateur Pho-tographic Supplies, Etc., Etc. BALTIMORE ST. R. H. CULP PAPER HANGER, Second Square, York Street. COLLEGE EMBLEMS. EMIL ZOTHE, ENGRAVER, DESIGNER AND MANUFACTURING JEWELER. 19 S. NINTH ST., PHILADELPHIA. PA. SPECIALTIES: Masonic Marks, Society Badges, College Buttons, Pius, Scarf Pins, Stick Pins and Athletic Prizes. All Goods ordered through C. H. Tilp. Gotrell Leonardi 472-474 Broadway, Albany, N. Y. /lakers of CAPS, QOWNSand. HOODS To the leading American Colleges. Illus-trated Manual, etc., upon application. Meneely Bell Co. TROY, N. Y. MANUFACTURERS Of SUPERIOR BELLS The 2000 pound bell now ringing in the tower of Pennsylvania Col-lege was manufactured at this foundry. PATRONIZE OUR ADVERTISERS. You can't expect to create the im-pression that you are well dressed unless your clothes are MADE FOR YOU. Equivocate as you may, the fact remains that ready-made garments lack that air of exclusiveness which custom work possesses. J. O. LIPPY, Merchant Tailor 39 Chambersburg St., Gettysburg-, Pa. G. E. SPANGLER, Dealer in Pianos, Organs, Music, Musical Instsuments, Strings, Etc. YORK STREET, 1ST SQUARE. GETTYSBURG. L. D. Miller, GROCER Confectioner and Fruiterer. Ice Cream and Oysters in Season. 19 Main St. GETTYSBURG City Hotel, Main St. Gettysburg. 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Issue 21.3 of the Review for Religious, 1962. ; International Congress on Vocations In the spring of 1960 His Eminence, Valerio Cardinal Valeri, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Religious, announced that there would be an international congress in Rome of the two hundred most famous vocation spe-cialists of the world from December 10-16, 1961. From the discussions and resolutions of such competent men would be formulated a program which subsequently would be put into effect by the Pontifical Organization for Religious Vocations. A year was spent in selecting the speakers and partici-pants and arranging topics for discussion. Then in Au-gust, Father Godfrey Poage, C.P., Director of the Reli-gious Vocation Clubs in America and Delegate of the Conference of Major Superiors, was summoned to Rome to undertake the directorship of the Congress. The Domus Mariae, a beautiful new convention center in west suburban Rome, was chosen as the site of the Congress, and contracts were let for building the displays and exhibitions. Twenty-six nations through their Con-ferences of Major Superiors agreed to demonstrate their materials and techniques used in the promotion of voca-tions. Also the most prominent publishers of vocational materials were invited to participate. The two companies in America so honored were George Pflaum Inc., of Day-ton, Ohio, publishers of the Catholic Messengers and the Paulist Press of New York City, publishers of the zldult Education Program for Vocations. As arrangements progressed, His Eminence, Cardinal Valeri, decided to increase the number of participants in order to extend the effectiveness of this great meeting. Invitations, therefore, were sent to all superiors general in the world as well as to seven hundred and sixty-one selected fathers and brothers provincial. All Conferences of Major Superiors, likewise, were asked to send delegates. 4- 4- 4- on Vocatlo~ VOLUME 21, 1962 Congress REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Specialists in sociology, psychology, pastoral theology, and allied subjects were invited from the principal universi-ties of the world. National directors of youth groups and vocation associations were also welcomed. Thus.during the days of the Congress there were in attendance 7 cardinals, 't2 bishops, 18 abbots, 179 supe-riors general, and 1'~89 delegates and auditors from '[1 nations, making it the largest gathering of authorities in the history of the Church to study one specific problem; namely, the recruitment of more priests, brothers, and sisters. One month prior to the Congress all religious com-munities in the world and all dioceses with vocation office:; were asked to make a spiritual contribution. Over one' million Masses were.offered for this intention, as well as innumerable prayers, sacrifices, and good works from both religious and faithful. Five special Masses were prepared by the Sacred Con-gregation of Rites and released just before the Congress for insertion in the Roman Missal. They are: 1) For the Seeking and Fostering of Religious Voca-tions; 2) For the Seeking of Ecclesiastical Vocations; 3) For the Preserving of Vocations; 4) For the Day of Profession Of Religious Men; 5) For the Day of Profession of Religious Women.1 The solemn opening of the Congress took place on Sunday evening, December 10, 1961, at the Basilica of St. Mary Major. His Eminence, Valerio Cardinal Valeri, offered the special Vocation Mass, assisted by officials of the Sacred Congregation of Religious. Since thousands of posters had been distributed throughout the city ask-ing the laity to participate with prayers and attendance at Mass, the Basilica was filled to overflowing for the func-tion and sermon. As the prelates, superiors, delegates, and specialists ar-rived at Doraus Mariae on Monday morning, December 11, they were directed by a corps of professional ushers to registration desks, identified by position, tagged, given lapel flags of their various nations, programs, and copies of the addresses in the language of their preference. An-nouncements were made in six languages, seating was in order of ecclesiastical dignity, and multi-lingual tran:;la-tors were on hand for discussion periods. All sessions be-gan and concluded promptly at the designated times, .and the addresses of the principal speakers were carried by Vatican Radio. In his opening address Cardinal Valeri pointed out that a generation ago Europe furnished eighty-five per cent of 1 C~opies of these Masses may be obtained from local church good stores or from the Vatican Polyglot Press, Vatican City. the foreign mission personnel. Now European dioceses and communities are not able to maintain their own in-stitutions, much less send out missionaries. "To find ways and means of remedying this situation," he explained, "all present have been invited to discuss the problems involved and suggest a program for the PontificaiOi~gani-zation for Religious Vocations to promote." The first speaker was Dr. Francis Houtart, Director of the Brussels Center for Social Research. He pointed out that while there is a slight increase in the numbers of priests and religious being currently recruited and trained, it is not sufficient to keep pace with the progres-sive growth of the world's population. The annual birth-rate of the world is now forty-seven million---or approxi-mately the total population of Ita!y or Great Britain. Of this number the Catholics are able to reach or influence only eighteen per cent. In the discussion that followed, Father James Forrestal of England, author of a number of statistical studies on priestly and religious vocations, gave the 'percentiles of priests and religious in various parts of the world. In the past year, for example, there were 4,238 priests ordained in the world. Exactly fifty per cent of that number were in America (2,119) and just slightly over half of all the priests ordained in the American Continent were in the United States (1,149). Reports were then made by delegates of all the nations represented. Particular attention was given to the reports of the South American delegates, where Mexico has 4,663 Catholics for each priest; Central America has 6,332 for each priest; and South America, 4,461. To obtain the desired ratio of priests to people, which is one priest per 800 souls; there is an immediate need" for 130,000 priestsl In the afternoon the address was given by Father God-frey Poage, C.P., on the subject "Recruiting and Re-cruiters of Religious Vocations." He explained not only all the means that have been used in the different coun-tries by various recruiters to obtain prospects, but also how to develop new techniques---how to "brainstorm" for more effective recruiting procedures. This was the first time a major address was ever delivered by a Vatican Official before a Roman Congress in English. Afterwards the superiors and delegates present expressed their ap-preciation of the American method with a standing ova-tion. The discussion was led by Father Bertrand de Margerie, S.J., Secretary of the Conference of Major Superiors of Brazil. He pointed out that two great handicaps of the recruiters in South America are ignorance and prejudice. These can be overcome only by proper advertising and public relations. Some of the more conservative delegates ÷ ÷ ÷ Congress on Vocations VOLUME 21, 1962 felt there was no place for "Madison Avenue" techniques in winning souls for Christ and a very spirited debate ensued. The Italians were confident that they would carry the vote at the end, but were dismayed to find they had only the delegates of their own country,. Malta, the North Countries (Norway, Sweden, Denmark), Spain, and South Africa on their side. On Tuesday morning Father Raymond Izard, Director of the Vocation Center of Paris, spoke on "Pastoral Prac-tice and Religious Vocations." He explained the role of the diocesan priest in fostering vocations and the respon-sibility the pastor has in developing the various religious apostolates. He then explained the French system, where direction of vocations is under the guidance of the repre-sentatives of the Bishops' Conference, while the work of the office is shared mutually with representatives of the Conferences of Major Superiors. In the discussion, directed by His Excellency, Joseph Carraro, Bishop of Verona, emphasis was put on how to achieve greater collaboration between diocesan and re. ligious recruiters. The Archdiocese of Chicago, repre-sented by Father ~]ohn Kennelly, the Archdiocesan Voca-tion Director, was singled out as one of several in the world deserving special praise for being areas in which religious recruiters, as coadjutors of the diocesan clergy, work for the common good of all vocations. In the afternoon began a series of theological discus-sions, which was like a dress-rehearsal for the ecumenic~ll council in that the foremost theologians of the world joined in debate with one another, bishops, major su-periors, and cardinals. On Saturday morning, December 16, at nine o'clock all participants in the Congress assembled in the Hall of Benediction at the Vatican to hear a special allocution by His Holiness, Pope John XXIII, on the subject of religious vocations. The text of the allocution is given elsewhere in this issue of the REviEw. The final session of the Congress was devoted to the business of the Vocation Office and to resolutions which will be implemented by the Pontifical Organization for Vocations in the coming year. Congress on Vocations REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS JOHN XXIII Religious Vocations Beloved sonsl Today's meeting1 and the pleasure it evokes in Our heart dispenses with any introduction. Let Us say only this--and We think it sufficient to prove the intensity of Our interest--from the very beginning Our prayers have followed the preparation and realization of this First In-ternational Congress on Religious Vocations. It now gives Us great pleasure to thank the Sacred Con-gregation of Religious and especially you, Cardinal Valeri, for wanting to undertake such an enormous em terprise, a work which the competence of many experts has brought to a successful conclusion. Sublimity o[ the Religious Vocation This Congress has accentuated a very delicate and urgent problem; namely, the increasing of vocations to the states of perfection in the world today. The simple merition of this theme of the Congress conjures up many images in which there are reasons for profound joy and hope, and at the same time reasons for apprehension and uncertainty. On the one hand We see the different reli-gious families being constantly renewed with young as-pirants because of the fascinating attraction of their in-numerable forms of ordered life. On the other hand, We see the obstacles which the spirit of the world raises against producing vocations-~obstacles of the ever-recur-ring attractions of the threefold concupiscences (1 Jn 2:16) which are diametrically opposed to the vows of re-ligious perfection. Suffice it to refer to the lax mentality which today makes use of the press, radio and television, to defile even the sanctuary of the home. This state of affairs, however, is not something new. It is only more noticed today because of its diffusion and gravity. Moreover, it poses new problems and difficulties for the director of souls and for those who are concerned with recruiting, directing, and safeguarding vocations. ~The following is an English translation of the allocution deliv-ered on December 16, 1961 to those attending the First International Congress on Vocations to the State of Perfection. 4. Religious Vocations VOLUME 21, 1962 179 ÷ ÷ ÷ John XXIII REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Accordingly, We salute with special praise and en-couragement this important undertaking of the Sacred Congregation of Religious. This problem of religious and priestly vocations is the daily worry of the Holy Father; it is ~he intention of his prayer, and the ardent aspiration' of his soul. This is the intention for which We offer the fourth joyful mystery of Our Rosary as We contemplate Mary giying the Eternal Priest of the New Law to the heavenly Father. As We said in the beginning of October: "It is beautiful to see in that mystery our highest hopes regarding the priesthood perennially fulfilled: young students in seminaries, religious houses, missionary col-leges, whose expansion, despite difl~cuhies and obstacles in the present day, is a consoling sight, evoking exclama-tions of admiration and joy" (L'Osservatore Romano, Oct. I, 1961, p. 2). Regarding the training of vocations to the religious and priestly, life, We have already offered paternal sug-gestions in Our discourse to the rectors of major and minor seminaries of Italy on July 29 of this year. We con-sidered at that time the great respon.sibility of this work. We treated the spiritual formation of the young seminar-ians for the priestly and religious life as well as their in-tellectual training (AAS, v. 53 [1961], pp. 559-65). Today, therefore, We wish rather to emphasize the beauty of the vocation to the priestly and religious state. Moreover, the religious congregations of women repre-sented here widen the scope of this meeting. There are countless numbers who through their example show a life hidden with Christ in God (Col 3:3), a life of abnega-tion, of zealous service, of following the dictates of God's will. They offer to the world, which is scarcely able to appreciate it, the living example of perfect virginity o~! heart and supreme generosity. This evokes a joyous re-sponse from so many good daughters of cities and towns, who, coming mostly from Catholic Vocation Clubs, are attracted by these ideals and wish to follow them in live~ lived solely for God and neighbor. Many Forms of Total Consecration o[ Self to God Such is the wonder of a vocation that We anxiously and confidently praise those wholesome and virtuous Christian families in which flower the new generation, "the new olive plants" (Ps 127:3) of tomorrow. Particularly do We praise the young men and women who are more aware of the needs for the expansion of the Kingdom of God and are consequently thinking of their own perfec-tion and the salvation of souls. We remind them that the voice of Christ resounds continuously throughout the world, gently persuading those habituated to prayer, apostolic service, and sacrifice to become hunters of souls. Jesus calls invitingly: "If you wish to.be perfect, go,. sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come, follow Me" (Mr 19:21). This is losing oneself in order to find; it is a giving to Him Who is able to reserve for us in eternal life a hun-dredfold more than we now give on. earth of our energies, talents, and abilities. The innumerable religious families which exercise their apostolate throughout the world give to youth a most complete ideal for which they can well live and die. In these families the Church offers many modes of conse-cration to God, ranging from the ancient monastic orders to the most active modern congregations, all of which in one way or another prolong in time some particular as-pect of Christ's mission. To joifi one of these groups, when called, means to find again His life and imitate it for the spread of the Gospel (Mk 8:35). Sometimes contemplative communities are misunderstood and do not seem to contribute to the apos-tolate. But as Our predecessor, Pope Pius XI, explained: "Much more is contributed to the growth and develop-ment of the Church by contemplative groups than by those who perform the actual labors, for it is they who call down from heaven the vivifying graces to irrigate the plowed fields of the other apostolic workers" (Bull Um-bratilera, AAS v. 16 [1924], p. 389). The fields of religious perfection are almost limitless, since the impulse for the apostolate derives its motivation from the constant seeking after God alone, from fidelity to His grace, and from continual efforts for greater in-terior recollection. Now the fields are ripe for the harvest, needing apostolic hands and helping hands. There is the missionary apostolate which needs many vocations in order to meet the increased contingencies of spreading the gospel throughout the world. Then there is the care of souls in parishes of our large cities where so many re-ligious families are already working with great success. There is also the very speEialized work of the moral and intellectual instruction of youths whose parents with a confidence that will not go unrewarded entrust them to religious men and women. Moreover, there are the in-numerable forms of charity and works of mercy in which so many orders and congregations distinguish themselves, all perpetuating on earth the charity of our Lord, of whom it is written, "He went about doing good and healing all" (Acts 10:38). New Horizons Ior the Harvest o[ Christ These tremendous needs for more workers for the harvest oblige all of us to study and do our utmost that from our modern society, as in the days of the famous ÷ ÷ Religious Vocations VOLUME 21, 1962 ]8] 4. ]elm REV;EW FOR REL;G~OUS 182 founders and reformers, great numbers of youths will respond to our Lord's invitation. New horizons are open-ing in the very near future during the celebration of the ecumenical council. Moreove.r, history teaches that there is always a period of extraordinary spiritual fecundity after an ecumenical council, for the Holy Spirit evokes generous vocations and gives to the Church the right and necessary men. This promise of faith and hope stirs Our heart with a divine yearning. Continue, therefore, your combined efforts to encour-age reIigious vocations by every means, presenting to the youths the beauty and attraction of your life in ways that are more appealing. Make use of the extraordinary means which the press, the radio, and television offer for spread-ing these great ideas. Moreover, remember it is necessary. to work together with order and mutual respect, having always in mind the greater welfare of the universal Church in which there is room for all. Study how. to dis-tribute both priests and religious to those places which have the most need, overcoming understandable preoc-cupations. In a word, exert every effort to increase voca-tions everywhere. The activity which will commence at the Sacred Con-gregation of Religious and in each of your institutes at the conclusion of this Congress will be multiple and de-manding. But We shall be with you in spirit, in blessing, and in prayer. 0 Jesus, send laborers into Your fields, which are await-ing holy apostles, saintly priests, heroic missionaries, gentle and indefatigible sistersl Enkindle in the hearts of young men and women the spark of a vocation. Grant that Christian families may desire to be distinguished by giving to Your Church cooperators in the work of to-morrowl Anxiety [or the People o] the Congo Beloved sons and daughtersl Since We are speaking under very opportune circum-stances in that you represent all the countries of the world; let Us, your Father, share with you a deep sorrow, as if to garner encouragement and renewed confidence from the common sharing of this sorrow. The considerations which We have made have opened. before your eyes promising horizons for a fruitful apos, tolate and generous, charitable service in all countries without distinction, even beyond those barriers where Christianity is not acknowledged. News reports which reach the Holy Father are not all joyful. You know what has been happening for the past fifteen months and especially the past few days in the Congo. In the act of reaping from the tree of political in- dependence those hoped-for fruits of prosperity, prestige, and works of peace, the earth of that blessed country is now bathed in bloodl The people, and especially the youth, are suffering so acutely that the outlook for the future is most uncertain. Having daily contact with the Blood of Christ ~in' the mystery of the Eucharist, We cannot remain unmoved at the sight of so much suffering, such ruin of the moral and social order. The consequences produced by this state of affairs greatly distress Us. Even as you understand my words, beloved sons and daughters, so We are certain that others cannot do other-wise than understand them, wherever Our sad message may reach. The affliction caused by this evil oppresses Our soul. Therefore We turn beseechingly to those who can and ought to intervene, so that with disinterested counsel, ob-jective information, and an appreciation of rights, they may cooperate in reestablishing peace in that country and bring about peaceful and serene days for all. This is the fervent prayer, which We raise to the om-nipotent God through the intercession of Our heavenly Mother. We would like to see all here present and all those of good heart and soul, who would like to be united with Us, to join in this prayer. These paternal desires are accompanied with a special Apostolic Blessing, first to you, Cardinal Prefect, and your collaborators in the Sacred Congregation; for the of-ficials of the Pontifical Work for Religious Vocations; for all here present; for all your religious institutes; and for your own families; and, finally, in the spirit of good-will, to all youths in seminaries and houses of formation, who are preparing to consecrate themselves totally to God, to the Church, and to the service of their fellowmen. Religious gocatiom VOLUME 21, 1962 ]83 GODFREY POAGE, C.P. Recruiting Religious Vocations ÷ ÷ ÷ God[rey Poage, C.P., is the Director of the Religious Voca-tions Clubs in America. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 184 For1 the past eight hundred years Dante Alighieri has brightened men's mind~ and stirred their hearts with the profound and wholesome message of his Divine Comedy. In this great poem the Italian master tells how he was per-suaded to undertake a long journey, first of purgation. then purification., and finally union. His guide the most important part of the way was the incomparable Beatrice, and the closer he approached to Divine Union, the brighter and more beautiful became the face of his guide. Somehow this journey is analogous to the work of re-cruiting religious vocations. We, like Beatrice, are called upon to lead others on a difficult way. First we must take our proteges through a period of purgation and trial-- then we must develop in them habits of virtue and purify them for a new life. Finally, we must bring them to the th~:eshold of the seminary or novitiate and there say, as Beatrice did to Dante, "Turn now and look, for here is found Paradisel" First Step: Setting Objectives To succeed in such important work, we must have clear-cut objectives and practical means of attaining them. To help us the Holy See has outlined the principles and norms that must be followed. The experience of prudent and capable recruiters has shown the practical applica-tion of these directives. If only we combine the two with prayer, success will follow. In the General Statutes accompanying the apostolic constitution of Pope Pius XII, Sedes Sapientiae, we are told that three things are needed to increase vocations: 1) Fervent. prayer to the Lord of the harvest that ]-Ie send laborers into His harvest (Mt 9:38); 1 This is the text of an address delivered to the First International Congress on Vocations to the State of Perfection. 2) the resplendent example of religious sanctity; 3) the ardent and perpetual exercise of apostolic zeal. (Art 23, ¶ l) Through prayer we win for the youths the grace of a vocation and the generosity to respond. Through advertising and .various promotidnal"tech-niques, we acquaint youths and their parents with the na-ture of our life. Seeing our happiness and the good we are accomplishing, they are forced to the speculative judg-ment: "The priesthood or religious life is goodY' But before anyone can make the practical judgment-- "The priesthood or religious life is good for mel"--it is necessary that he see the intrinsic good of the religious state. This good is not immediately evident in itself, so the will must be induced by some force outside itself to make the choice. Helping a youth to make this practical "judgment is the most important work of the recruiter. Sometimes we hear it said that every priest or religious is a recruiter ex officio. The pastor in his pulpit is a re-cruiter. So is the brother in the classroom, the nurse at the patient's bedside, or the missionary in foreign lands. The truth of these statements depends on what we mean by recruiting. The ability to recruit--to inspire and direct youths-- is not something every priest or religious has instinctively. It is a skill that is developed--something a person is trained to use expertly. It is based on knowledge; knowl-edge of how God calls an individual to His service; knowlo edge of how the Church calls a person to the religious life or priesthood; and knowledge of human nature. All this, however, is matter for other sessions of the Congress. Here we are confining ourselves to techniques and pro-cedures in recruitment. Second Step: Contacting Suitable Youths Once our objectives are determined, we then proceed to the most effective means of contacting suitable youths. Recently a report, entitled "Methods of Recruiting," was published by Father Leonard P. Stocker, O.M.I., at the Catholic University of America. It was a compilation of one hundred replies from seminaries and novitiates re-garding the methods they had used to obtain their pres-ent enrollments. Here, in summary, are his findings: Techniques Groups Using Literature: Pamphlets, folders, etc .8.1 Visits to elementary schools .6.5 Visits to high schools .5.6 Magazine advertisements .43 Response from "Vocation Sundays" . .43 Publicity in diocesan papers .35 Faculty preaching on vocations .30 ÷ ÷ + Recruiting VOLUME 21, 1962 ÷ ÷ Godfrey Poage, C.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ]86 Other paid publicity programs .30 Visits to ho,nes of likely candidates .30 Vocation exhibits . 29 Posters . 26 "Open-House" days at the seminary for prospects . 18 Vocation retreats . 11 Vocation movies . . 9 Vocation correspondence courses for prospects . : . 6 Missions . 4 Seminary bulletin or newspaper .3 Picnics at the seminary for altar boy groups . 2 Vocation talk by bishop at confirmation . 1 Ordination held in home parish . 1 Essay" contest . l By studying how other seminaries and novitiates have obtained candidates we learn what has been done. Some of the techniques we can use; other ideas we can develop. But our vocation work should be more than a simple imi-tation of others. Each one of us should contribute some-thing new to the vocation movement. There should be some way of utilizing the wisdom and experience of all our members, that more effective means of meeting our vocation problems might be found. More El~ective Recruiting One of the great secrets of progress in science and dustry has been the fact that scientists and manufacturers have joined in associations of creative research. The~ have studied not only the how and why of things, but they have also exerted a conscious creative effort to discover new lacts, arrive at new combinations, and find new ap-plications. Our problem as recruiters is not the improvement things, but the improvement of personal relations. We want to obtain better response from youths, greater co-operation from parents, and a deeper understanding the religious life in the laity. But how can this be achieved? Only by prayerful reflection and diligent exer-cise of our God-given facultiesl When we exercise our memories and imaginations in prayerful meditation, the gift of understanding--under the excitation of grace--becomes operative. We see things in a different light; we go deeper into the problem. Some spiritual writers call these insights and inspirations the "lights of prayer." This same method should be used in tackling our voca-tion problems. After prayer to the Holy Spirit for better understanding, we must set about exercising our natural faculties. First of all, we should read as much on the subject as possible. We should fill our memories with the facts and statistics of vocational research. We should study re-cruiters' reports and analyze their surveys. We should visit exhibits to observe the techniques and procedures that have been found most successful by prudent and learned recruiters in various areas. Then in association with our fellow recruiters .we should give our imagination priority over judgment and let it roam around our objectives. We might even mal~e a conscious effort to think up the most unique ways of in-spiring and motivating youths .towards our own state of life. At this point we are simply trying to separate imagi-nation from judgment. With most of us there is a strong tendency, as a result of education and experience, to think judicially rather than creatively. In consequence, we tend to impede the fluency of ideas by applying our critical judgment too soon. On the other hand, if only we defer judgment, we can think up far more alternatives from which later to choose. In his book, Applied Imagination, Alex F. Osborn, President of the Creative Education Foundation in Amer-ica, warns: It is most important to guard against being both critical and creative at one and the same time. Inevitably, if we let our judgment intrude prematurely, we tend to abort ideas which could prove to be the most valuable of all. Therefore, we should consciously defer evaluation until a later period. Thus we can think up more and better ideas. Then later we can screen and weigh these ideas more judiciously. This in no way belittles the value of judgment, for imagination-without-judgment is even more deplorable than judgment-without-imagination. The warning is sim-ply that we use both faculties., but one at a time. This technique has come to be known in America as "Organized Ideation," or more popularly, "Brainstorm Sessions." The system is aptly named, for those who par-ticipate in such a session use their brains to storm a prob-lem, with each participant audaciously attacking the same objective. "Brainstorming" ]or Vocations At a Vocation Institute for the Franciscan recruiters of the United States, held at San Juan Bautista, Califor-nia, in 1958, this "brainstorming" technique was used. Six of the recruiters present were selected as a core'group, and a seventh was chosen as recorder or secretary. This latter religious stood at a large, portable blackboard which had been set off to the side. The conference began very informally--the core group at a table in front, the others sitting in a semicircle. The host provincial began with a prayer. Since I had been asked to serve as moderator of this group, I reminded the participants that, if they tried to get hot and cold water out of the same faucet at the same + + + Recruiting VOLUME 21, 1962 ÷ ÷ Godf!'cy Poage, C.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ]88 time, they would get only tepid water. "If you try to criti-cize and create simultaneously," I said, "you don't turn out enough cold criticisms or enough hot ideas. You are simply lukewarm. Accordingly, I ask you today to stick to ideas. Tomorrow you will do .the criticizing. Conse-quently, if I hear a belittling or derogatory remark, I will ring this bell before me. Whoever is speak.ing will thereby be reminded either to thinl~ up or shut Earlier in the day we had considered the contribution that motivational analysts can make to our understand. ing of why people think and act the way they do. We had attempted to explore the new science of psychodynamics, known popularly as the "depth approach." Could the insights gleaned from psychiatry and the social sciences, we asked ourselves, give clues to some the problems facing the modern recruiter? How, for ex-ample, with the complexity of orders and congregations in the Church can we account for a young man having a strong preference for one particular group of religious, though he may never have met one of them in person? Why do some good Catholics praise a parent who lets a son go of[ to the brotherhood and in the next breath com-ment: "That boy certainly doesn't love his homel" The use of mass psychoanalysis to guide campaigns persuasion, we know, has become the basis of a multi-million dollar industry. Professional persuaders have seized upon psychological techniques in their groping for more ef[ective ways to sell .us their wares--whether prod-ucts, ideas, attitudes, candidates, goals, or states of mind. The recruiters present were'well-primed and ready to go. A time limit from five to eight minutes was set for each subject. The secretary was instructed to write down on the blackboard all the ideas suggested. The list was to be reportorial, rather than stenographic. This was a good provision, for at times the ideas tumbled out so fast that even a short-hand expert would have given up. The first problem considered was the finding of a "key-factor" for Franciscan advertising. In five minutes the core group suggested fifteen themes, ranging from the glorification of the "capuche" to a description of their "soup-kitchens for the poor." In the eight minutes devoted to the problem of how they might get more boys interested in their community, forty-one proposals were given. They ran the gamut from publicizing the "flying friars" to "Franciscan firsts--like Christmas cribs and credit-unions." Since one ef[ective strategy of merchandisers is to have personages of indisputably high status invite others to join them in the use of some product or service, I next risked the panel to name all the prominent national and international ~gures who would willingly give an en. dorsement to the Franciscan way of life. In three minutes they tallied eighteen names. When we took up the problem of how to get more lay brothers, we first admitted that domestic work and clean-ing of monasteries, which is the principal employment of these men, is not an appealing work for modern°youth. It implies servility, meniality, and drudgery. Accordingly, how could the propaganda for the brotherhood bring out a sense of worth and esteem? In five minutes eighteen new approaches were sug. gested. None of them were in direct praise of housekeep-ing, but indirectly they brought out how essential the lay brother is to the life and work of the Order. He is "God's marine in the fox-hole of the cloister," the "hands and feet of Christ," and so forth. Evaluation o[ the Session In just a little over an hour this "Brainstorm Session" covered ten different problems and produced one hun-dred and seventy-eight new ideas. The provincial then recessed the meeting with a prayer of thanksgiving. Later each recruiter present was given a mimeographed copy of all the ideas mentioned, each listed under its proper heading. He was asked to study the suggestions, discuss them with others, add or subtract as he wished. The next day we met for an evaluation of the ideas produced. After the opening prayer, the secretary read off each proposal under its proper heading. All the recruiters now participated: Some suggestions they dismissed with a laugh. Others they tore to shreds and then tried to sal-vage. Some ideas they combined and came up with hy-brids. It was a most interesting discussion and the older and wiser heads seemed to dominate. Constantly we heard re-marks like: "That was tried once before . " "Let's not overlook the effect such a thing will have on other groups," and so on. In the end, the fathers were asked to vote on which suggestion they considered the best in each category. After the merciless screening and discussion that had been given every good proposal, one idea invariably domi-nated. When the votes were tallied, it was found that most of the fathers wanted to put this idea into effect. Thus they gained an unanimity of judgment and a more imaginative approach to their recruitment. Third Step: Conditioning Prospects During the first six months of this year through various recruiting programs, an estimated twenty-six thousand Catholic boys in the United States signed vocation "in-terest- cards" or wrote to a religious seminary or novitiate Recruiting VOLUME 21, 1%2 189 ÷ ÷ Go~ey ~.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS for further information. Of this number just a little over two thousand eventually made application and entered upon their religious training last September. Why were there so many who did not even try the life? As all re-cruiters know, it was due principally to a loss of enthusi-asm. At first the youths were most interested. Then they found out what was expected of them and their enthusi-asm waned. If you had asked these young men why they gave up, they would have replied: "I didn't know it was so hard," or "It wasn't what I expected." Perhaps if we had given more of these promising youths a proper conditioning, greater numbers would have signed up. Many of them needed to be prepared for the life. They needed to be initiated into what would be expected of them in a seminary or novitiate. This conditioning, however, is something very few re-cruiters can handle personally. Besides the fact that those recruiters who are not priests are unable to hear con-, fessions or undertake personal spiritual direction of pros-pects, there is the matter of time and distance. A good recruiter is rarely found at home, waiting for youths to come calling. He is out visiting schools and homes where they are to be found. This often means weeks "on the road." Spiritual direction to be effective must extend over several months prior to the youth's acceptance into a seminary or novitiate and it must be continued with a measure of regularity. Practically the only one capable of giving this time and attention is the youth's pastor or some zealous priest stationed in the area. Recruiters who recognize the importance of this spirit-ual direction invariably refer their prospects to one 0f these priests. They urge the youth to go regularly to this director for confession and counsel. At their Vocational Congress, held at De La Salle Nor-mal in Lafayette, Louisiana, the Christian Brothers drafted a "Recruiter's Rule," which has since become the standard practice for the recruiters in their five Provinces of the United 'States. In this "Rule" they insist that each boy applying to their community have his own spiritual director. The brothers also drafted a plan of spiritual formation which each of their teachers is required to follow. It con-sists of five points: 1) Mental Prayer: After giving the youth instruction in how to make mental" prayer, urge him to devote at least ten minutes to it daily in ~hurch. 2) Spiritual Reading: Recommend reading of the Cos- pels, the Imitation o[ Christ, the Life of Christ, biog-raphies of the saints, and so forth. 3) Examination o[ Conscience: Have the youth make this examination daily and stress the importance of con-trition. 4) Virtue o[ Religion: Inculcate it by daily Mass and Communion, rosary, visits, aspirations, and all other forms of consciously acknowledging God's supremacy. 5) Virtue o[ Generosity: Urge the young man to cultivate it in school and at home, by. pointing out. how he can give himself for others. Vocation Clubs One of the best systems for achieving these purposes is the Vocation Club. It not only strengthens the interest of younger prospects, but also dispels the ignorance and overcomes the timidity of older boys. Through its activi-ties suitable youths are given a systematic indoctrination on all aspects of the priesthood and religious life as well as the regular motivation needed to develop habits of piety and devotion. At every meeting of the club there is some new instruc-tion on what a religious vocation is and how the members can best respond to God's call. Talks are given; round-table discussions are held; and vocational films are shown. On special occasions there are trips to religious institutes in the area, where the youths observe at first-hand the life and work of the religious. At the regular meetings, moreover, there is ample op-portunity not only for group encouragement to more fre-quent prayer and faithful reception of the sacraments but also for private counseling and regular spiritual direction. Thus, as habits of virtue are developed in the youth, he is gradually disposed to' the supreme act of religion; namely, giving himself completely to God. At present in the United States there are affiliated with our National Office for Vocational Clubs over six hun-dred elementary school units and approximately three hundred and seventy secondary school groups-~having a combined membership of approximately thirty-eight thousand boys. There is an even greater number of girls enrolled in similar clubs conducted by sisters. Handbooks on both groups can be obtained at the booth exhibiting American materials. Final Step: Developing a Sense of Vocation During this period of preparation or formation all re-cruiters agree that the youth should be encouraged to go weekly to the spiritual director for confession. Then every two or three weeks there should be a spiritual conference. ÷ ÷ ÷ Recruiting VOLUME 21, 1962 ]9] 4. 4" 4" God,roy Poage, C.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS During these conferences the director should treat of the love of God, the necessity of sacrifice, purity of intention, the nature of temptation, devotion to the Blessed Mother, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and the like. Life in the seminary or novitiate should also be ex-plained. Special emphasis should be given to the possible problems of homesickness, dryness at prayer, fear of studies, and difficulties with companiqns. At the same time the director should try to deepen the youth's aware-ness of the uniqueness of his vocation and elicit a great willingness to make any sacrifice to follow it. During this time, too, the youth should be encquraged to disclose any doubts or fears. The director might ask: "Who put this idea of a vocation in your mind? Where did it come from? Did it come from the devil? Nol Do you think the devil wants you to be a leader in Christ's army? Of course not! The inspiration, then, must be from God, and if He has chosen you, He doesn't demand anything beyond your strength. He simply offers you an invitation. You can accept or reject. What will it be?" It is particularly important that the spiritual director develop in these youths a sense of vocation. Each one should think: "If God is really calling me, then I should prepare myself immediately so as not to lose time in giv-ing Christ the benefit of my capacities, my faculties, my love. I am going to continue in this conviction, until my spiritual director or a religious superior in Christ's name tells me that I have no vocation." Once a boy has reached this degree of conviction, problems of a different nature arise. Sometimes the pros.- pect will say, "I never had any worry about purity until now. Just when I want to do something worthwhile and enter religious life, I start getting all kinds of temptations. I never realized I was so weak until now." This should be a cue to the spiritual director to bring in a thorough explanation of' the reason for temptation. Many youths have the erroneous notion that the moment they put on a cassock or habit, they will become immune to any rebellion of the flesh. The director, therefore, should point out to them that when the devil sees one erl-tering religion he only renews his assaults the more fiercely. Mortification and prayer, however, will quickly rout him. The director s.hould constantly emphasize that what-ever comes, it is but a test of one's love for God. It is a test of one's trust. It is a test of one's absolute abandon-ment to God's holy will. Many of us would have given up the struggle years ago, if we had not been schooled from the very beginning to ask ourselves, "What am I here for? Is it not for God? I expect to suffer like Christ. The more I can take for Him, the more generously I can give in return." With these same thoughts our prospects should now be prepared for the seminary or novitiate, lest they become disheartened later when trials and temptations beset them. Making the Decision ¯ To the inevitable and final question of youths, "Do you advise me to enter?" most experienced recruiters think it best to say, "You must make the decision. It is yourself and your will that you are offering to Christ." Others would go a little further and say, "I give my approval to your decision to enter. You have shown a love of Christ, a desire to please Him and live for Him, a gpirit of sacrifice, of humility, docility, and obedience. Why not offer yourself to Christ saying, 'Here I am, if you can use me'? Trust Him to give you the right answer through your superiors, His representatives. Even if you should leave, your doubts will be settled for all time. You will have gained immensely by the spiritual training and Christ will bless you always for having offered yourself." Most recruiters never have to go this far. Long before they reach this point, they notice that the love for God in the genuine prospect has reached such an intensity that the response is almost instantaneous. There is a generosity that wants to sweep away all obstacles, a willingness that brooks no rival and needs no apology or defense. It is something hard to define, and yet you can see it filling the heart of the youth with an eager desire to do that which is so dit~icult to human nature. It prompts such a one to give up heroically all that the world offers that the divine life within the soul might be brought to a greater perfection. This phenomenon almost defies description. For lack of a better explanation, I can say only that it is like a "light in their eyes." It is something found in every generous prospect for the seminary or novitiate. Our responsibility in all this is very clear. We must encourage, nourish, and protect, this manifestation of grace. For once we have said, "This boy has a vocation," then we mean that we have seen in such an individual an act of devotion in a degree which is superlative. We have found a soul in whom there are strong, firm habits of vir-tue, and that soul now shows a prompt,, eager willto serve God. Like Beatrice with Dante, we must be both guide and guardian to such a favored youth, leading him on to the threshold of the seminary or novitiate. That, in a word, is the role of the recruiter and the purpose of our recruit-ing procedures. ÷ ÷ ÷ Recruiting VOLUME 21, 1962 195 BROTHER JOHN JOSEPH, C.F.X. Challenging Youth to Follow Christ ÷ ÷ + Brother John Jo-seph, C.F.X., is the general counsellor and the general vo-cation director of the Xaverian broth-ers. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Therex is a joyful ring in the word challenge that evokes a responsive echo in noble hearts. This response would almost appear to be a natural reaction of the human heart, for we note it even in the very young. Watching them at play you see how eagerly they respond and "follow the leader" in whatever dangerous exploit he may devise to challenge their bravery. This reaction is equally dis-cernible in the growing youth when he engages in ath-letic competition or similar activities. The recent example in the United States of the call for youth to join the Peace Corps furnishes another proof of the eagerness of young people to respond to a challenge When the purposes are clearly set forth. Likewise, a brief glance down the page of history reveals how responsive men can be when they have found a leader in whom they believe, a cause they really value, or an emergency that brooks no hesitation. Consider the legions of Alexander,, Hannibal, Caesar, or Napoleon, or any other great leader and you will see how men accept a challenge with utter disregard for personal sacrifice. Note, too, the power of men of ideas. Men like Plato and. Aristotle, Mohammed and Marx, have left their imprint on the countless indi-viduals whom they have challenged. In each case we find a forceful man with. a special message which he has suc-ceeded in getting others to spread. Now in our case we find the ingredients for the most attractive and inspiring challenge in the world's history. For the Leader who brings His challenging ideas is no passing general or philosopher but the Son of God made man. And the message which He has brought, the Gospel which He asks men to spread abroad contains the greatest doctrine and the happiest news of all ages. Its purpose is the eternal happiness of all men. But this purpose will be ~ This is the text oI an address delivered to the First International Congress on Vocations to the State of Perfection, achieved only in the measure that the challenge of Christ is accepted and His gospel made known. This achievement demands that men and women be fully prepared to do more for God than Communists or other misguided per-sons are prepared to do for the spread of their causes. With this in mind we ~ish, first, to stress the character-istics which are essential, we believe, both for the re-cruiter and the one who is recruited. Secondly, we wish to explain one proven method of actually reaching our young people. Then, in the discussion to follow, the dele-gates may tell us of other methods equally effective. The method of which I speak is the result, no~ of the study and thought of any one person or congregation, but rather of the efforts and experiences of many different communities over a period of years. The various congre-gations of teaching brothers in the United States, using an adaptation of the general program, have made aston-ishing progress during the past ten years. From the year 1950 to 1960 every community of brothers in the United States has shown a remarkable growth, ranging from twenty-four and two-tenths percent to an almost incredi-ble ninety and three-tenths percent. As a result of this expansion they have established additional provinces and houses of training, opened many new schools, and now find themselves poised for another period of growth which is expected to outstrip that of the last decade. This is the type of progress that is desired and needed everywhere, but it can be achieved only by planning and hard work. Recruits are obtained only by recruiters and the best recruiters for the religious life are certainly those who have themselves lived that life best and found it to be all or even more than they had anticipated. Now since the primary purpose of the religious life is not some activity like teaching, nursing, preaching, or the like, but rather the perfection of the individual religious, those men and women will be the best recruiters who have best lived the religious life. This explains why some of the saints found it so easy to attract the youth with whom they came in contact. Great souls like St. Francis of Assisi, St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Theresa, and Mother Cabrini drew numei'ous young people to the religious state, because the very fire of their own love for God made this state seem desirable. The Blessed Brother Benilde left hundreds of religious to carry on his work after his .death, all his former pupils. Don Bosco, too, was a tremendously suc-cessful recruiter, attracting hundreds of previously neg-lected children to the holiness of the priestly or religious state. We can conclude, therefore, that the better we follow the example of the saints, the more successful we shall be in helping to fill our monasteries and convents. ÷ ÷ Challenging Youth VOLUME 21~ 1962 195 + + 4. Brother John Joseph, C.F.X. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 196 If we wish to attract idealistic youths to Christ we must let the love of Christ shine out through our own eyes. As one successful moderator of boys in New York City wrote me: "The religious himself must personify Christ to the students. Modern psychology reveals how much youth needs a model, a hero. It is easier for a boy to see Christ as a model, if he sees Christ in the religious. To do this the religious must be Christ, not just a spokesman for Him." And if he is an Alter Christus he will be kindly, polite, and understanding, demonstrating without hesita-tion a personal interest in each individual, allowing Christ to appeal through his mediation. Again, a successful recruiter must be the very epitome of enthusiasm. He is, in a way, a salesman, and he will make very few sales if he doesn't believe in his product. His own happiness and satisfaction with the kind of life he is presenting to others must be at the bottom of hi,,; appeal. And this-must be based upon his personal faith in Christ and the divine cause. His basic contentment must never appear dimmed by the minor happenings of a par-ticular day, by a temporary indisposition, a disappoint-ment over some failure, or the dissatisfaction with his current superior. While his feet are on the earth, his head must be above the clouds where the source 6f his enthusiasm never changes. Finally, the man who appears before a group of modern youngsters or who must pass the more severe test of giving personal interviews, must be representative of the kind of person our young people would like to imitate. Surely a poorly dressed salesman for wearing apparel would ap-pear ridiculous. Likewise, a recruiter of future clergymen, educational leaders, missionaries, or nurses must, by his professional appearance and speech, make these callings and the noble religious state itself appear in all their in-nate dignity, as states of life attractive to youth and their parents. But no matter how holy, understanding, enthusiastic, and professional the recruiter may be, success will largely depend upon the qualities he finds or develops in the potential candidates he contacts. I need not enumerate the usual qualities of mind and body required for ac-ceptance. But before considering how to challenge our youth, I must stress the fact that the success of any re-cruiter depends in equal measure on the extent to which the potential recruits are blessed with a love for Christ, solid faith, and a willingness to make sacrifices to prove their love. To begin with, why should anyone give up all pros-pects of success in life, the chance of a happy marriage and family? The only possible answer is that such a one has perceived a greater good. He has realized that Jesus Christ is God and worth following no matter what natu-ral attractions must be sacrificed. This demands faith. Of course, every Catholic has received this theological gift, but unless it is nurtured and strengthened by the solid food of doctrine, it won't support one in a time of crisis, such as when making a choice of one's vocation. This faith must be fed on catechetical instruction, good read-ing, and prayerful thinking on such topics as God's great-ness and goodness, the happiness of others who have served Him, the vanity of earthly achievements, and the like. If our youths have a strong faith, their souls are pre-pared for the encouraging words of the recruiter~ who must never stress the secondary aims of his particular con-gregation to the neglect of the primary purpose of all chosen souls, which is to see God, their end. However, believing is in itself only the basic ingredient of vocation. For it is love that will give the unction and desire to follow where faith points the way. Love removes the thorns from the rose. The lover considers no pain un-bearable, nor any sacrifice too great, if only he can please his beloved. In fact, the more he can suffer for the beloved the greater is his joy that he is privileged to prove his love. And in this fact lies the answer to our principal question: How can we challenge modern youth to follow Christ? The answer lies in the development in youth of a fer-vent love for Christ. But they don't see Christ as they see others whom they love. They discern Him only with the eyes of faith. Accordingly the teacher must introduce them to the love of Christ. Leading them to the Sacred Heart is the prelude to their falling in love with Him. By this, I mean, of course, the strengthening of their life of prayer while encouraging the frequent reception of the sacraments. If a young person prays well, receives Christ frequently in Communion, and visits Him often in. the Blessed Sacrament, thus becoming closely attached to Him, then he is certainly better disposed to make the sac-rifice of self required in the priesthood or the religious life. Finally, youth must face the test of generosity. Many will fail the test as did the young man of the Gospel who loved Christ but would_not give up his wealth to follow Him. Others, however, will appreciate the truth in the old adage: "It is more blessed to give than to receive." They will admit that sacrifice hurts, yet they will take up the cross and follow Christ. For this, though, they must be prepared. They must come to realize that the real challenge of any worthwhile activity lies in the sacrifices that must be endured. Once a youth has really understood how to look up smilingly, though tearfully, to a crucified Christ and to see through His broken Body the Godhead, 4- 4- Challenging Youth VOLUME 21, 1962 197 4" 4. Brother ~ohn Joseph, ~.X. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 198 then will he understand that his wiser choice is not the limited love of creatures, but the all-embracing eternal love. Having now indicated some of the fundamental traits of recruiters and prospective candidates that are essential for a successful contact between the two, we will devote our attention to a concrete program which can be organ-ized within the framework of a religious congregation, particularly if its secondary purpose is teaching. Such a program is already functioning in various organizations within the Church, each adapting the means to its own purpose and traditions. The program brings best results when well coordinated and designed to include every member of the congregation, for the more who are pray-ing, planning, and working, the greater will be the de-gree of success. Accordingly we will consider the pro-gram on the general, provincial, local, and classroom levels, since each level has its own director and particular duties suitable to that level and since the cooperation of each level with those both above and below it is very im-portant. General Level The general vocation director is usually also a coun-sellor or assistant to the superior general with whom he lives at the generalate of the congregation. Thus he is in a good position to see the strong and weak spots in the recruiting programs in each province as well as in the mission fields or vice-provinces. Through correspondence, bulletins, and personal visits, he keeps informed concern.- ing methods and progress throughout the congregation. and in turn keeps the superior general informed. Some of the activities by which he assists the recruiters in the provinces and in the various schools are the following: First, he studies the trends, problems, and methods be-ing used by others, in order to pass along to the provinces any ideas which they may use in the light of their own program. There are three principal ways by which he can maintain an alertness to developing ideas: a) by reading widely in this field, gradually building up a useful file of written materials, reports, propaganda releases, and programs of various other congregations~ as well as a shelf of books on the theology and method: ology of vocation work; b) by consultation with other religious on the gener-alate level in order to compare notes and adapt the proven ideas of others. It can also be useful to study the methods of other organizations to see how they do their enlisting of members; and c) by attendance at vocation conferences, meetings, and exhibitions on the national and international level, since it is especially here that others with similar interests are found and where current problems and trends are re-ported on. Secondly, the general vocation director, through his correspondence and personal c6ntacts with the recruiting leaders in the various provinces of his own congregation, is in a position to pass. on ideas from one province to an-other and so to furnish information on programs which have met with success elsewhere within the community. Thirdly, he is able, either directly in correspondence with provincials or with the province vocation director to offer suggestions for strengthening the program of in-dividual schools. For he receives twice a year a vocation report from each house. These reports are made out in triplicate with a copy being retained in the community itself and two copies being sent to the provincial who, in turn, forwards to the generalate one copy of each report. The chief aim of this report is to ascertain that an active program is carried out in every school of the congregation. This report gives detailed information on the spiritual activities in each school that have as their end the win-ning of God's blessing on the recruiting program, as also on the promotional efforts being used, statistics on the number of students being interviewed, the likely pros-pects, and the number of vocations already obtained for various seminaries or novitiates. Fourthly, the general vocation director can also serve as a publicity director for the congregation as a whole, being aware that the better his community is known the more inquiries will be received from interested persons, and the more candidates will normally apply. This ac-tivity could include the distribution of literature in places where the congregation has no other contacts; spreading knowledge of the institute through the use of slides, pic-tures, or magazine articles; encouraging the preparation within the provinces of articles, pamphlets, pertinent leaflets, book marks, calendars, and the like. This kind of activity can be multiplied according to the policy of the superior general and the time available to the di-rector. However, in my opinion the principal contribution of a vocation director at the general level, is to encourage, Encourage, ENCOURAGEI The work of gathering young people for our novitiates in this day and age is frequently most discouraging, and this work must, in the last analysis, be done on the local and classroom levels. Many a religious teacher does the daily work of instruct-ing, interviewing, and otherwise promoting vocations only to find that at the end of the school year he has not obtained a single candidate from his class. Now if he feels all alone in this discouraging effort, he may easily let up ÷ ÷ ÷ Challenging Youth VOLUME 21~ 1962 199 4. 4, 4. Brother lohn ]oseph, C.F.X. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 200 on his efforts the following year. However, if he knows that he is not alone, but senses that' he is being encour-aged, prayed for, and supported by his brethren and su-periors, then he is less inclined to slacken his efforts. The general vocation director, conscious of the fact that any such slackening of effort tends to lead to the failure of the whole program, must be always optimistic and cheer-ful, ever encouraging the.teachers to keep trying, always suggesting new approaches. The office of general vocation director is still rather new in the developing program of modern vocation re-cruiting but unless there is an officer on the generalate staff to help organize and encourage a congregation-wide program of increasing membership, there is less likelihood that the community will keep pace with the ever-increas-ing demands for personnel that all of us find confronting us today. So important a part of the growth of an insti-tute deserves special consideration by the highest authori-ties of the Order. Provincial Level It is, however, on the level of the separate provinces that most programs of recruitment begin. It is here that methods will begin to vary according to the traditions and religious background of the region in which the houses are situated. Here it is, too, that the representative of the recruiting organization first comes into direct con-tact with the prospects themselves. Though policies and programs may differ, the general aim will always be the same; namely, to lead young men and women to know and to love Christ so that they may be alert to the call which He may deign to give them. So let us here outline a few general steps which have been found useful at this level. The provincial vocation director works according to the instructions of his particular provincial. He may be a member of the council, though in many congregations he is not. In any case it is important that he work .closely with his superior and with the other programs of the separate schools. And it is essential that he have adequate time to carry out a well-planned program. He has a full-. time job and should not be encumbered with other du-ties to the extent of causing the work of recruiting to suffer in the province. For the task of obtaining new postulants cannot be left to chance. Nor to a program of prayer alone. The Lord does, indeed, bid us to pray the Lord to send required laborers into His vineyard, but He uses men to further His purposes and seldom extends His invitation by a direct apparition or heavenly voice. In this matter we can learn from successful organiza-tions in the world. The army and navy, all business firms, every political group or social club has its clearly defined method of obtaining new members. A personnel depart-ment is set up, equipped to supply in[ormation, present the attractive features of membership, as well as to ex-amine and select potentially useful members. Frankly, this is what the office of the provincial vocati0ndirector is also designed to do. This religious must attract poten-tial candidates and then select members for the congre-gation from among those who apply. Though policies vary, and it is a healthy sign that they do, some of the usual activities o[ this office are the following: l) He assists the provincial and the local superiors in the selection o~ at least one vocation director for each of the schools in the province. It is chiefly through their cooperation that the director will carry out the program of the province. 2) He trains, advises, and guides these recruiters. An annual gathering of them all for at least a few days is a usual and useful practice. 3) He sees to the composition and actual preparation of a variety of pamphlets, leaflets, posters, and other ma-terials for distribution to the schools. 4) He publishes a regular (usual!y monthly) bulletin to keep all the religious interested in the programs, poli-cies, and results of the same. G) He visits every school at least two or three times dur-ing the school year, checks on the program of the local directors and the teachers, speaks in the classes or at school assemblies, interviews students who have been recommended to him by the local director, by a teacher, or who present themselves to him following an invitation to do so during his talks to the students; gives a confer-ence each year to every community so that the members will be constantly aware of the needs and aims of the program; develops a library of slides and sometimes of moving pictures to help him in clarifying the mode of life lived in the training schools anal religious communi-ties; and also addresses groups of parents, alumni, or other adult groups among whose members he wishes to arouse interest in vocations. 6) He plans and places advertisements through which Catholic magazines and newspapers may carry informa-tion about the congregation to potential candidates who could not otherwise be reached. 7) He sponsors such events in the schools as essay or poster contests on a province-wide competitive basis, as also vocation exhibitions, prayer campaigns, mission crusades, and other activities which serve to arouse inter-est in the work and needs of the Church. 8) He helps to develop both at the provincial house and in all the communities Small libraries of selected ÷ ,,I-÷ Challenging Youth VOLUME 21, 1962 201 + + ÷ Brother John Joseph, C.F.X. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 202 books and pamphlets concerning religious vocations, oc-casionally preparing an up-to-date bibliography of these publications. 9) He attends conferences and conventions dealing with the problems of vocation recruiting, and maintains contact with other provincial directors. 10) He organizes week-end retreats for students who are interested in vocations so they can prayerfully con-sider this matter in a quiet atmosphere. He may also ar-range for interested students to spend a few days at the training centers of the province. For the good recruiter believes firmly with Canon Jacques Leclercq that "It is the orders which insist most strongly on the supernatural aspect of vocations which receive the most recruits" (The Religious Vocation, p. 85). 11) He represents the provincial in interviewing all candidates, having them fill out all the required forms and then make formal application to the provincial upon whom it usually rests to accept or reject the prospect. 12) He may arrange for special tests of the potential postulants since these tests~ if given prudently, often sup-ply useful information. 13) He visits the homes of the applicants if informa-tion on the family background is needed or if parental opposition makes avisit necessary. 14) He may accompany the new class of aspirants or postulants to the juniorate or novitiate, in order to help them through the period of adjustment to the new en-vironment. He occasionally visits them, especially on the days of the reception of the habit or the taking of vows. 15) Finally, he keeps the general vocation director and, through him, the superior general informed about the progress of recruiting in the province. These numer-ous activities give us an idea of the tremendous impor-tance of the post of provincial vocation director for the successful carrying out of the program of recruitment in the congregation. Local Level We now come to the task of the local vocation director. Here we are getting closer in our systematic approach to reach, inform, and guide youth{For we are now consider-ing the school itself, where the boy and girl are actuallv found. Right here, and not at the provincialate or gen-eralate, are the vocations in person. Accordingly, here it is that the challenge to follow Christ the King must ring out the dearest. The chief responsibility for this lies with that religious who, working closely with the superior and other authorities of the school, encourages and directs the individual teadbers who are in the last analysis the real recruiters. All depends npon the latter just as in a battle the general, captains, and lieutenants depend on the non-commissioned soldier in the ranks. However, let us first consider the essential part of the one who must organize the program in the whole school. His chief du-ties include the following: 1) He must be well-informed on all matters" concern-ing the history of the congregation, its founder and pio-neers, its provinces, numbers, and missions. 2) He must have a pleasant office, well-equipped for interviewing prospects, containing supplies of literature, needed forms, suitable files, and so forth, 3) He must have the school program of recruiting or-ganized, supplying teachers with definite outlines of such program, and checking its success. 4) He should arrange to speak in each class, invite students to visit his office, supply information needed, and aim by a program of education and inspiration to develop the latent vocations in the school. 5) He can sponsor a vocation club for the more thor-ough cultivating of potential vocations, and can encour-age such groups as the Sodality of Our Lady, the various Third Orders, the Legion of Mary, and the Catholic Students' Mission Crusade, since these deepen the spirit-ual life of the students while offering them an outlet for their zeal. 6) He arranges for publicity' for the congregation in local and school publications, featuring activities such as profession, ordination, or jubilees. 7) He does the preliminary work of interviewing defi-nite prospects so that they will be ready to meet the pro-vincial director when he visits the school, In cases where the student is interested in the diocesan priesthood or in a congregation other than that of the counsellor, the con-tact can be made for him and every assistance given him to accomplish his aim. 8) He may find opportunities for seeking out vocations beyond the limits of the school, through talks in other schools or colleges, or to parochial groups of young people who do not attend the Catholic schools. 9). Finally, the local vocation director is the keym~n in the community for all matters pertaining to recruiting although he must avoid the pitfall of believing that it is .his exclusive right to foster vocations in the school. He assists the superior in filling out the required vocation re-ports, if such are a part of the system. He aids the teach-ers by supplying them with needed materials and fresh ideas. He takes a special interest in candidates who have been accepted so as to encourage them to live .closer to Christ through a definite program of prayer, reading, and frequentation of the sacraments. Thus does the local director, if he is efficient, zealous, and capable of winning + + + Challenging Youth VOLUME 21~ 1962 ÷ ÷ B~oth~ John ]o~eph, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 204 the backing of the teachers, do much toward ensuring a successful program. Classroom Level Now we come to speak about the teachers themselves. Nobody is in a better position to challenge youth than the teacher who, day by day, appears before them. If he is truly zealous for the welfare of the Church, he can do much toward planting the seed of vocation in these youthful hearts. His is the actual contact with the future priest, brother, and sister. The success of the program will fail or succeed as he does. Cognizant, then, that there before him sits the future religious of the Church, the teacher must unhesitatingly challenge the very best that is in the hearts and souls of his students. Some suggestions for teachers, then, are in order: 1) The teacher must prepare the soil for religious vo-cations by encouraging attention at prayer and regular attendance at the sacraments. 2) He should stress Christ's love for us and teach youth to reciprocate that love. 3) He should go into detail in explaining the problems of the Church, both at home and in the mission fields; suggesting the part his students can play in solving them. He should dwell upon the loftiness of working for God. 4) In his religion lessons he should not neglect to dis~ cuss the great truths of life that have led so many persons to dedicate their lives to God. Consideration should be given to the fleeting quality of earthly .possessions and pleasures, the dangers of the world, and man's responsi-bility to his Creator. Thus the teacher causes his students to think seriously about life. 5) He should talk to his class occasionally about the religious life, its various apostolates, missionary activities, and lofty purpose. He will find the students interested in the life of the founder and history of the order. He can explain the special privileges and obligations of the priesthood, the difference between a priest and the vari-ous kinds of brothers, the meaning of the vows, the dif-ference between the secular and religio.us clergy, and be-tween the active and contemplative life. These are all interesting topics. 6) The teacher, while keeping all things in perspective, should also point out the joys, benefits, and rewards of the priestly and religious states. 7) He should be pleasant at all times, drawing youth by his kindness. His cheerful, friendly manner shoul~ also be noted in his relations with his fellow religious. For nothing repels youth more than a sour, unfair teacher. 8) He must try to win their confidence that he may intuence their wills and help them to combat the ob-stacles which everywhere oppose vocations. 9) The teacher need not hesitate to suggest, in a pru-dent way, to a particular student that he prayedully con-sider whether he has a vocation. This personal, in.dividual approach is a potent one as success[ul recruiters' know. Personal interviews are more effective than group talks. 10) The teacher should cooperate with the lodal direc-tor in all programs, contests, outings, retreats, or other activities sponsored in the school. The real success of all these depends largely upon him. 11) Finally, the teacher should constantly pray that God may bless his efforts. Such a program, it well organized and put into prac-tice, adapted and modified to the needs and limitations of the area, will certainly carry to the youths o[ today the great challenge of this mid-twentieth century. It will also arouse many of them to give themselves to the service of Christ, our King. To effect such programs we religious must likewise hear and answer the challenge. We must be great-souled in the service o[ a Church that is proud to proclaim itself Catho-lic, seeking as it does to spread the message of Christ to all men in all parts of the world. To be worthy of this service we need a broad outlook, for in such a service the small-minded religious is a contradiction. It is the Church as a whole that is important. Believing this, let us all take a keen interest in filling the seminaries of our dio-ceses, while the same zeal will lead us also to encourage vocations to the religious congregations, which carry on so great a part of the burden of the Church. Our brothers and sisters must realize the privilege that is theirs to lead young men to the sacred priesthood, while the. clergy must recognize the importance of a tremendously en-larged army of well-trained religiou~ [or the advance-ment o[ the educational and charitable systems of the universal Church. Working together under Christ and His Vicar, we can indeed meet the challenge to bring the world to the Sacred Heartl ÷ ÷ ÷ Challenging Youth VOLIJMI: 21~ 205 RENI~ CARPENTIER, S.J. Priestly Vocation and Religious Vocation ÷ ÷ gen~ Carpentier, S.J., is a member of the faculty of Col-l~ ge Saint-Albert, 95, Chauss~e de Mont-Saint-Jean, Eegenhoven - Lou-vain, Belgium. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 206 What is the Will oI the Holy Spirit? The juxtaposition1 of these two terms demands that a comparison of the two be undertaken. As the words indi-cate, an abstract comparison of the content of these two vocations is not in question. Between the priesthood and the state of evangelical perfection the difference is evi-dent: The ministerial priesthood implies sacramental character, strictly divine powers, a sacred responsibility for. the service of the people of God, and the highest, kind of dignity. The state of perfection signifies nothing of the kind. The theoretical comparison, it seems, poses no prob-lem. But it is an altogether different matter when voca-tion to the priesthood and vocation to the religious life are placed face to face in the concrete. In both cases a way of life is chosen. In today's Church these two ways of life appear to young Christians as two ways of consecrating oneself entirely to the Kingdom of God. Necessarily, then, these two ways of life are being com-pared and the comparison brings up a complex problem. Each of these two vocations is fixed within a system of laws and institutions which form a unit; yet both can be chosen at the. same time. In practicE, the two ways of life meet and overlap. It remains true, nevertheless, that or-dinarily priestly vocation means the life of the diocesan priest; and religious vocation means the r~ligious insti-tute with or without the priesthood. The question is then asked--and it is this question which I wish to answer: How is one to explain objectively to young Christians, for example, the meaning Of the two vocations? "Objectively," that is, what does G6d and what does the. Church ask and expect of each? And how is this to be explained without arbitrarily doing an injustice to one or the other, without a This is the text of an address delivered tO the First International Congress on Vocations to the State of Perfection. The translation was made by John E. Becker, S.J. glorifying one at the expense of the other? In short, how is this to be expressed according to the desires of the Holy Spirit in order to cooperate with Him and not to obstruct His action? Exterior Aspect ol the Two Vocations It is necessary, I believe, to distinguish from this objec-tive or essential aspect of the comparison another aspect which I may term exterior; by this I mean what a young person of today, confronted with the great institutions of the Church, can see from the outside before he has en-tered them. This aspect must be of equal interest to us if we wish to know how to enlighten a young candidate and how to develop public action in the Church in favor of vocations, Certainly, the objective value is of greatest interest to us; it is the only one which is true in itself. Whether I am a priest or a religious, what am I really called to? Since this is the most important aspect, it is what should govern the exterior aspect. Nevertheless, the two vocations are mysterious. The young person, the adolescent, and even the adult who approaches the priesthood or the religious state without having lived either of them has not yet fully understood them. What they see are the most superficial differences. For example, a diocesan priest may live with his mother; the religious is fully enfolded in a powerful family. These features are true but nonessential. The priestly or religious ideal appears to the young man in this priest or that religious he has been close to or whose life he has read. I certainly do not wish to speak here of those strictly individual points of view which characterize voca-tions in the concrete; but there will always be an exterior picture of the two vocations which is more or less pro-found, more or less complete. Still, it must not falsify the objective meaning. We seek here the reality of a vocation, its deep and objective meaning, and also its true exterior meaning, the true supernatural psychology of the call which is addressed to Christian people. Recent Discussion The question of the two vocations was very vividly high-lighted thirty or forty years ago. The reason was a most holy and necessary one, an evident appeal of the Lord for the sanctification of diocesan priests. Some of these accord-ing to Cardinal Mercier object: "We are not religious." But are you not, comes the rejoinder, of a quite superior and more demanding "ordbr," "the order of St. Peter," or "the order of Christ," whose priests you are? Here, then, is posed the question of the religious vocation and the vocation to the diocesan priesthood. The matter is complicated by another factor, that of Priest and Religious ,4. Ren~ ¢a~pentier, $.1. REVIEW FOR REL;GIOUS 208 belonging to a diocese. The priest seeks to discover more intimate links with his bishop; but does not the religious priest, and especially the exempt religious, live at the fringe of the influence of the diocesan bishop, "at the fringe of the hierarchy," as it is sometimes expressed? Why does the religious live in this way, on the fringe? Is it not through concern for his own salvation? .If he withdraws from the world, is it not to concern himself with his own salvation? But in that case is not the diocesan priest who from morning to night is focused on the salvation of others actually living out to a greater degree the life of charity, the state of perfection? The vocation to the diocesan priesthood is then not only the vocation with the greatest obligation to perfection, but it is the call to an authentic "diocesan perfection," and even to true evangelical perfection, that is, fraternal charity. And this seems to give the lie to the name and the institution of the s0-called "state of perfection.". On the other hand, this conclusion seems to contradict the facts; for, practically .speaking and because of his state of life, the Church imposes a greater obligation to perfection on the religious. And do not the greater part of religious men and women vow their whole life to the heroic service of the neighbor? And finally, is not the religious fully joined to the Church by a vow of obedience which is frequently directed to the bishop of Rome? Holiness and Fisibility Carried on in this way, the discussions recalled that the question of the two vocations has had a long history. At root, it would seem to derive from the very nature of the Kingdom of God here on earth; that is, unless I am mi.~;- taken, from its twofold essential values, holiness and visi-bility: holiness under the free impulse of the Spirit which gives life to the Church; visibility which makes of the Kingdom of God an institution perfectly adapted to the Spirit. Holiness is the aim; it is the call of all who are baptized and especially of all priests. It is for this, her end, that the Church institutes the states of perfection. On the other hand, visibility, the visible and organiza-tional Church, is the way for all men. An admirable gift from on high, visibility implies the sacramental transmis-sion of holiness, the liturgy of adoration, the soverei~ society of the Church, the sacred jurisdiction that governs the people of God in Christ's name, and finally also, at the very heart of this visible Church, the official institu-tion of the community of perfection. Sanctity and visibility are strictly associated. Concretely they make up but one thing: the Body of Christ which is the Church. Nevertheless, religious life seems centered on sanctity, perfection to be acquired. The vocation to the priesthood is more concerned with the visible aspect, for it must assure the validity bf the Eucharistic cult, the efficaciousness of the sacraments, the solidity of doctrine, the prudent direction of the people of God. The two voca-tions, like the two functions they must fulfill~ are dif-ferent. Nevertheless, the religious life, a public state, is of the highest interest to the visibleGhurch and leads very frequently toward the priesthood; the priesthood, for its part, can have no other aim than the sanctification of the world; and it therefore aims first at the sanctification of the priest and often at his belonging to the state of per-fection. Duality-Unity Here we are at the heart of our problem. Between the two.vocations there is an evident, profound difference and at the same time an intimate connection. It is as if the two values of the. Church, inseparable but necessarily distinct, should appear here with maximum emphasis: spiritual power and institutional power. This distinction between two realities mutually inte-grated, this otherness-oneness of two sets of values which seek one another out and will always do so, this is the point of this paper. We will clarify it first by means of the sacred history of the Church; then we will venture into its theology; finally we would like to deduce some practical attitudes for.success in the sacred task common to all priests and all religious of cultivating the vocations by means of which the Church and humanity survive. First we must take a very brief look at the historical evolution of the two vocations and at their mutual unity-in- tension. In doing this we will distinguish three stages for each of which only a few characteristics will be pro-posed. The Primitive Community The first stage to be considered is that of the primitive community extending throughout the first two centuries up to the time when, in the third century, persecution became intermittent and the separation of the monks occurred as an ecclesiastical event. During this period there was as yet no problem with the two vocations. It is evident that they existed; but the people of God had not yet felt the need to divide itself into distinct com-munities; indeed, the persecutions would have prevented it. It is true that at the call of the apostles the Christians of the first centuries spontaneously answered by adopting a communal and fraternal way of life in which the spirit 0f what would later be called "the counsels" reigned. So it was that in their eyes earthly goods, their own prop- + 4. 4. Priest and Religious VOLUME 21. 1962 209 ÷ ÷ ÷ Ren~ Carpentie~, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 210 erty, are in a certain way destined by charity for the use of all. Catechetical instruction in the first centuries re-peats this principle without creating any problem. Within the community, each one applied it freely. Some kept their goods to support their family. Others, sometimes a large group, the ascetics, and those who practiced celi-bacy, followed Christ more literally. They gave their goods to the poor of the community and lived on the re-sources of all. There were also virgins who definitively renounced marriage and lived in their families. These men and women had a special place in the Church but were not separated out. They were charged with the dis. tribution of the alms of the community and with other works of charity. Perhaps also they may frequently have been deacons and deaconesses. In this fraternal community the priests were very close to the faithful. At the beginning they were virtuous men upon whom the founding Apostle had imposed hands and who could thenceforward consecrate the Eucharist. If the community grew in number, there arose among the priests and bishops one bishop who inherited the author-ity of the Apostle. Soon, it seems, it was from among the ascetics, the celibates, the voluntarily poor that these priests were chosen. Today, the parish of the simple faith-ful is separate from the communities of perfection, and a double catechesis has been formed; one is centered on the counsels while the other often no longer considers them, It is quite a'task to represent ourselves as a community in which the preaching of the counsels in words and deeds is always present, as a community in which there is only one catechesis and where the same spirit is shared by all: those who own as well as those who have given away what they own; those who profess virginity and those who live holy married lives in the Lord. This apostolic cate-chesis demands an extended treatment. The "'Apostolic Life" and the Monks The end of this first period, between 250 and 350, is marked by the separation of the monks. After the new study of the Vita Antonii published by Father Bouyer in 1950, historians have almost reached agreement on the meaning of this event in the history of the Church. The whole Church of that time saw in this new life a return to the ancient "apostolic life" which was no longer truly practiced in the numerous communities of the period. It is a noteworthy historical fact that these "fugitives" separated themselves from their communities. In modern times, we would say that "they exempted themselves from jurisdiction." Were they then criticized and condemned? On the contrary, everyone admired them. Although some bishops in Egypt and even in Rome had to be convinced by the enthusiasm of Athanasius, they fully recognized this more vigorous "apostolic life." Let it be noted, then, that the apostolic life became more specialized and in-stitutionalized in order that it might continue to exist. But it remained at bottom the same thing, and the whole Church bore witness to this. Everyone recognized it by the same name as the primitive apostolic life which had been taught to all during the first two centuries and which had never ceased to exist. This event, then, places the two vocations face to face, but once more without any practical problem arising. There were evidently priests among the "hermits" or "Chris(ians of the desert," whether these lived near their former community or whether they banded together to form a new community. The Problem o] the Two Vocations In the second period we group the whole of the Middle Ages up to the Council of Trent. The two vocations are distinct from here on, and the problem concerning them promptly arises. It is a long story with many detours over which I need not delay this audience. I would only like to propose a general conclusion. As soon as they are sepa-rated, we see the two vocations seek one another out. From the side of the priesthood, it seems, two convergent inspirations are followed. One is represented by St. Augustine. If the great bishop did not ordain any prie.sts except those who were deter-mined to live a common life with him in a "clerical mon-astery" without personal possessions and evidently celi-bate, this was, he declared, a simple return to the apostolic life as it was lived in primitive times. It was by this primi-tive teaching that he justified common life even in its institutionalized form. Imitated from the beginning by neighboring bishops, this ideal passed on to a line of clerics, the canons, who will defend it throughout the Middle Ages. The other inspiration began, according to the testi-mony of St. Ambrose, with St. Eusebius of Vercelli who was the first "to make monks of those who were clerics," although he was subsequently imitated by a large num-ber of the bishops of Italy. He required that his clergy adopt the monastic life. Although this antedated by a half century the common life of St. Augustine, this com-mon life fonnd its motivating force in an already evolved understanding of monasticism. Henceforth monasticism spread magnificently, helped especially by the highly in-fluential work of Athanasius, Vita Antonii, which ap-peared around 357. The nuance which subtly distinguishes the two inspira-tions should be noted. For Augustine the return to the + ÷ + Priest and Religious VOLUME 21, 1962 211 ÷ ÷ ÷ Ren~ Carpentie~, S.I. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 212 beginnings seems a "duty" upon which he vigorously in-sists. On the other hand, imitation of monks cannot ap-pear as anything other than a counsel, though Eusebius made a diocesan institution of it. It is because of the presence of this double orientation of mind that we are able to understand the directives of Gregory the Great to the monks sent to England (they were to establish a clergT of the "apostolic life"); and it would also seem to explain the totally monastic character which the English church kept for a long time. But it is especially to the influence of the evangelical ideal that we must attribute the law of virginity imposed on priests of the Latin Church from the time of Pope Siricius in 386. For if poverty introduces one to the evangelical life and if obedience is its culmination in its institutionalized form of monastic life, it is still vi~- ginity, espousal to Christ, which is its central value. The two vocations seek each other out. I confine my considera-tions here to the Latin Church; for the Greek Church, reference can be made to the words of Plus XI and Piu~ XII on the honor in which virginity is held in it. I need not further emphasize this theme. The efforts of local councils and of the popes to draw the clergy to a common life are well known. The immediate reason is evidently to safeguard chastity; the basis, neverthele~;, is found in the apostolic life. As for detachment from riches, the two vocations also coincide in this. With the great reformer of the clergy, St. Peter Damian, and Pope Nicholas II, the two just missed being identified forever, since the Pope almost decided to impose common life on all priests as seven centuries before the popes and the councils had prescribed celibacy for them. This projected obligatory common life is the historical climax of the Church's effort to unite the two vocations. But the rural parish was clearly more necessary. Priests living alone had been accepted for a long time without criticism by the time the Council of Trent wrote the in-stitution of the secular clergy into law and placed the accent on the creation of common seminaries for the formation of all priests. The Three Canonical States Then the third period began, the one in which we live; it prepared the way for the Code with its three "states of persons." On this canonical classification (which is often very confusedly understood) were based the various docu-ments of Plus XII which clarified and, it may be said, re-solved recent controversy. In presenting the teaching of Pius XII, I begin the second part of this address: the comparative theology of the priestly and religious vocations. Without attempting to give this theology in all its details, I will take as a framework the three following divisions: the teaching of Pius XII; the two vocations and their relationships; fi-nally, the main elements of a theological synthesis. Teaching of Pius XII on the Two Vocations Pius XII had frequent ofcasion to compare' the two vocations, particularly with respect to religious clerics. But he also stated the excellence and the contemporary value of the vocation of lay religious (for example, that of the teaching brother) existing along with the priestly vocation. (See his Letter of March 31, 1954, to Cardinal Valerio Valeri.) Since these congregations of teaching brothers could today, without the difficulties of former times, become clerical congregations, the Pope, .by de-claring them fully approved, implicitly affirmed the proper value of the religious vocation in itself. What then in brief was his teaching on the two vocations? 1) The priestly vocation and the vocation to the state of perfection are different. The state of life of a diocesan priest cannot be called a state of perfection. For the priest as such is not held to the effective practice of the three evangelical counsels as is the state of perfection ~(Dis-course, December 8, 1950). 2) The priestly vocation is distinguished from that of the simple baptized faithful by reason of the divine hier-archical constitution of the Church. The vocation of the religious is another matter. Its significance is not related to the distinction between priests and laity. It can be a call of priests as well as of laity. Its significance is that it "relates strictly to the proper end of the .Church, which is to conduct men to sanctity" (Discourse,~ December 8, 1950). It is the state of life which publicly professes to aim at evangelical perfection; that is, the common prac-tice of the counsels by the three vows of obedience, chas-tity, and poverty (Provida Mater of February 2, 1947). 3) There is another sign that the religious vocation is different from the vocation to the priesthood. The priest-hood and its exercise are of exactly the same value in the two clergies. The priesthood, then, is distinct from the state of perfection. There is certainly a sharing of apostolic labor between the two clergies, but the Church freely de-c: ides about this sharing according to time and place. In the same way, dependence upon a bishop is perfectly realized in the religious priest, even if he is "exempt" (Dis-course, December 8, 1950). Finally, we must conclude that properly speaking the two vocations are not comparable. The religious life has no other meaning than the effective practice of the three counsels in a recognized state of life in order to aim at evangelical perfection. The priestly vocation as such does not have this significance. 4. 4' 4" Priest and Religious VOLUME 21, 196~ 213 ÷ Ren~ Carpentier, $.1. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 214 Mutual Attraction o] the Two Vocations Nevertheless, this difference does not hinder the mutual attraction of the two vocations. As Plus XH added: "Nothing prevents the diocesan p.riest from adopting the three counsels, either privately or in a state of perfection" (Discourse, December 8, 1950). As is.evident, in the pre-ceding outline of th6 problem there was never any ques-tion of absolutely excluding the priest, from evangelical perfection as the Church teaches it in the states of per-fection. There was question only of keeping [or each vo-cation its own significance. On the other hand, when in Menti Nostrae the Pope described the "active charity" that is demanded of every priest by reason of his priest-hood, he presented it by means of the three characteris-tics of the states of perfection: humility and obedience, chastity, disinterestedness and poverty. For reasons of per-fection and of edification, he recalled to priests the counsel of the common life (c. 134), although in the Code this does not seem even to imply an invitation to live in the insti-tutional community of goods of the Middle Ages. And in his encyclical on the centenary of the Cur~ of Ars, His Holiness Pope John XXIII spoke in the same way. The teaching in Cardinal Suhard's pastoral letter (The Priest in the Modern World), though obviously of much less universal importance, was also the same. Especially in-teresting is the testimony of. Cardinal Mercier which is sometimes appealed to as a justification for a different spirituality for the diocesan priest. In the statutes of the society of priestly perfection which he founded, he pro-posed to his priests the three vows of religion; and he passed the last twelve years of his life trying to obtain from Plus XI recognition of these vows as public with-out, nevertheless, detaching priests from their diocese and. tl~eir bishop. Without this public status, he wrote, dio-cesan priests would be unable to fulfill their priestly vo-cation; and this is why he hoped for its extension to the universal Church. This last point, however, goes beyond the position o.~ the popes and need not be held. As Pius XII insisted, "the state of perfection" is not necessary. What we do hold is a conclusion fully conformed to the teaching of history: The two vocations are different and yet they cannot re-main strangers to one another. Monks as a group and the majority of male institutes today are clerical insti-tutes (and many even, since the time of the canons regular and the Dominicans, have become religious in order to become priests). Likewise, every diocesan priest, by reason of his priestly vocation, is oriented by his own pastors toward evangelical perfection, toward its spirit. To em-ploy the expressions of Pius XII, "nothing will be lacking to his practice of evangelical perfection if he wishes to adopt, even privately, the vows of the three counsels" (Discourse, December 9, 1957). Theology o] the "Duality-Unity" o[ the Two Voca-tions , In view of this teaching, I would now like to attempt a theological comparison of the two vocations. Naturally, it will be only a brief exposition, and I ask the indulgence of the theologians who hear me. As.I have already indi-cated, I think that the mystery of these two vocations re-flects in itself the unsuspected depths of the principal treasures of the Kingdom of God. This requires an ex-tensive treatment; but here we can give only a few indi-cations. The Priestly Vocation First of all, the priestly vocation appears from the be-ginning as fully independent of the vocation to the state of evangelical perfection; and so it has remained in spite of the efforts made from the beginning 0f the Middle Ages by bishops, popes, and saints to join it indissolubly to the institutionalized apostolic life of religious. In this distinction between the two vocations, which always for-bids calling the priestly life as such "a state of perfec-tion," is hidden, unless I am mistaken, a subtle teaching of the greatest importance. It is this: The powers of the priest are strictly divine. As Plus XII wrote in Mediator Dei, "The power which is entrusted to the priest is in no way human, since it is entirely from above and comes down from God." Since this is the case, it would be ex-tremely dangerous for the priest or the faithful to confuse the exercise of these powers with the exercise of personal holiness, the reception of these powers in the sacrament of orders with the reception of a personal sanctifying grace proportioned to these powers. The priest would risk considering himself as a sanctifying power, whereas in reality he is but a channel for such. And the faithful would risk stopping short at the minister as at a screen which masked Christ from them. A central principle of the Kingdom would be thereby compromised, the prin-ciple of the ministry as a transparent medium. From this would follow an easily made conclusion that has already torn the Church: Because of the weakness and the un-worthiness of the minister, the divinity of his powers would be rejected. Thig transparency of the minister (that is, the doc-trinal affirmation, on the one hand, of the validity of his powers independently of his sanctity and, on the other hand, his personal duty of complete humility, of abso-lute disinterestedness) was demanded by Christ, especially 4. 4. 4- Priest and Religious VOLUME 21~ 1962 ÷ Ren~ Carp~ati~r, SJ. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 216 at the moment of the first priestly ordination, as the proper mark of the evangelical priest: "I am," He said, "in the midst of you. as one who serves." "The kings of the' gentiles" lord it over them. But not so among you." You must have nothing in common with the egoism of the powerful of.this world. You must be the servants (Jn 13:14.16; Lk 22:25-27). It is with this same intent that theology teaches the instrumental causality of the minister of the sacraments. As Plus XII expressed it in Mediator Dei, priests are made into instruments of the divinity by which heavenly and supernatural life is communicated to the Mystical Body of Christ. My priestly vocation, then, is for others, not for re.y-self. This is a difficult requirement which ought to be well understood. Certainly it gives no dispensation from the duty of personal sanctification. Quite the contrary. If "Christ is a priest," wrote Pius XII again in Mediator Dei, "it is for us, not for Himself. In the same way is He a victim~ for us." In giving to His priests an active partici-pation in His priesthood, Christ does not have primarily in view their own enrichment by exceptional gifts. "The priestly ministry," writes Father de Lubac, "is not a kind of super-baptism which constitutes a class of super- Christians." The priest communicates to the members of Christ the marvelous deeds of Christ. He imitates Christ's unselfish act of love. Certainly if he desires it, he will receive in abundance the personal graces to love as a priest ought to love; but these graces are to intensify in him his own baptism, his privileges as an adopted child. Along with all his brothers, he remains a humble adopted child, even though he wields the true powers of the only Son. "There is, then, in the Church," writes Father Con-gar, "a double participation in the priesthood of Christ, one along the lines of the relationship of life-giving, of pure and simple communion, which Christ has with Hi:; Body; the other according to the relation of power which He exercises upon His Body as a means of communion." The first sanctifies all the faithful, and the priest is first of all one of the faithful. It unites them to the Father in Christ. It is from this participation in Christ's priesthood that the state of perfection takes its development. The second participation entrusts to those ordained for the ministry to others the powers and the sacramental means of sanctification. This explains the refusal of the priesthood by Francis of Assisi and the flight from the episcopal o~fice of so many eminent saints. Knowing that others of their time could be priests and bishops, they affirmed in this way the radical difference there is between spiritual, moral imi- tation of Christ and the priesthood which does not per-tain to the order of sanctification-to-be-acquired. Finally, let us give one more sign of this otherness. If the priestly character is indelible and will forever mark those who have received it, the exercise of the priesthood will have but one time: It will' disappear when' ~l~e ~E~ple of God are fully assembled in the life to come. On the contrary, it is then that communion with the Father and communion between brothers will be fully established, and these are the very exercise of the vocation to perfec-tion, especially to the state of perfection. The Religious Vocation We have just established the otherness of these two vocations from the point of view of the priestly vocation. No less specified is the proper mission of the vocation to the religious state. If the priestly life ought first of all to bring down the divine gifts upon the people of God through the sacraments, the religious vocation under-takes to give to these gifts of God the Church's public and fullest response. This response is the building up here below of the Kingdom of Heaven. The response is evi-dently personal, but it is even more social. The personal imitation of Christ by profession, the program given by our Mother the Church to her states of perfection can only be the Gospel adapted by love; that is, the counsels of Jesus and the following of Christ. But even more is it a social response. The Kingdom is the Mystical Body of Christ. To love Christ is to build up His Body to unite His members in a community of charity and in a definitive liturgy of adoration for the glory of the Father. Since the Church is herself a public reality, the state of perfection, when consecrated by public vows, brings into being a fully developed cell of Christ. It recreates here be-low a truly social order based on mutuaI love and on a return to the living God, a social order which constitutes a permanent appeal addressed to disunited men that they find their brotherhood again. "That he might gather into one the children who were scattered abroad, (Ps 11:52). This is a mission of the highest importance, since by it alone does the Church fully succeed in bringing about a visible evangelical community, the new order of God's children. It is clearly a mission, one that is altogether different from that of the priestly vocation and that can-not, properly speaking, be compared with it. But it is essential to the realization of the Church here below; without it the priest would not preach in full the social order of the gospel since he would have no example of it to point out. + .+ + Priest and Religious VOLUME 21, 1962 ÷ ÷ Rend Carpentier, $.J. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Correlation oI the Two Vocations This public mission, which is both individual and so-cial, explains to us as a consequence how the two voca-tions are different. But it is this same public and social value which demonstrates their intimate and necessary connection. We will now consider the mutual relation that exists between the two. The priestly vocation, a service of love of the Mystical Body, is totally oriented toward the Christian people. It has no concern but to bring to being, to nourish, to teach the Mystical Body on earth, and to guide it to eternal life. But the state of perfection is nothing else (I speak of its professed program) than the most perfect public community within the Mystical Body. Moreover, it is the Church herself who, recognizing her own mystery, or-ganizes the religious community. The priest is the man of the Church, the servant of the Church. He is, then, above all the servant of religious life. It is his most excel-lent creation. Another consideration is the following. The priest is the man of the Mass. He lives but to offer Christ to the Father and to place at the disposition of the children of God the Eucharistic sacrifice where they can consecrate themselves in Christ. But the religious life consecrates it-self entirely by the three public vows which cover the whole of existence. It responds fully, then, to the appeal of the priest. It does not exist except as an echo of the voice of the priest which, in turn, is but the instrument of the voice of Christ. Everyday the priest is the immedi-ate witness of the Eucharistic consecration of Christ. But it is in religious life that this offering of consecration is accepted and fulfilled as a state and a program of life. There it is that Christ the Victim can make Himself vis-ible. It follows that the two vocations, arising from two dis-tinct missions, unceasingly tend to resemble one another. To all that we have seen of history and theological re-flection, we add what is suggested by the spiritual as-pirations of the two vocations. On the one hand, the religious vocation aspires to the complete realization of the Mass which the priest cele-brates within the heart of the community. At the moment when religious life culminates at perpetual profession, it fulfills the most complete act of the priesthood of the Church and of the faithful, the definitive offering of the whole life~ Its model, then, is the .sacrifice of Christ and the Mass which represents it. On the other hand, the priest centers his spirituality around the Mass. He will find no more perfect mirror of it than the one which exists at the heart of the Church, the public state of per- fection. There it is that he may contemplate the ideal of his own aspirations for sanctity. In order to understand this well, we must return to a capital truth. The priest is only an instrument of the ministry. He preaches perfection, but he does .oqtsr.eate it. He does not invent the evangelical program; he'is its servant. He does not produce grace, he is the humble channel of the grace of Christ. As does everyone of the faithful, as does every man, he. contemplates perfection not in himself but there where it shines; that is, in the Church, the great sign lifted up before the nations, and, above all, as Pius XII has said, in that chosen portion of the Church where, under the assiduous leadership of the priesthood, the way of life of Christ is fully adopted (Plus XII, Discourse to Superiors General, February 11, 1958, and previously in his Letter to Cardinal Micara of November II, 1950). "Imitate what you handle." What the priest handles is the Eucharistic Body, and it is the Mystical Body; for both are but one. It is only right to speak of the "fatherhood" of the priest. In actuality, however, he only holds the place of the Father, as he fills the role of Jesus. Passing through his humble hands, the splendor of the Father shines forth in the way of life of Christ, which the Church, having the Son as her Spouse, teaches to her states of perfection. Frequent Union of the Two Vocations Accordingly, the priestly vocation has always sought to unite itself with the religious vocation. This historical movement of the Church can only come from the Holy Spirit. That is the source of the vocation of the canons regular, of the Dominicans, of the very numerous insti-tutes of religious clerics. A different case, but one which demonstrates nevertheless the same mutual integration of the two vocations, is that of the monk-priest. Since he seeks the perfect public consecration of himself and of his community, it is natural that the monk should, if he can, unite in the same person the divine instrumental power of consecrating and the most complete of the Church's responses to the divine consecration; that is, the public state of perfection. It might be asked if the monk does not re-orient to himself the priesthood that he receives. But it would be wrong to consider the matter in this way. What the monk seeks is not an egocentric perfection which would no longer be Christian. More than anyone, he with his brothers brings to reality the Mystical Body; and it is in the Church, in the perfect community of charity and adoration, that he finds his sanctification. When he celebrates Mass, as does every priest, he offers the Church; he builds up the Kingdom of 4. 4. 4. Priest and Religious VOLUME 21~ 1962 219 + + ÷ Ren~ Ca~pentier, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 220 ,God and, first of all, that perfect kingdom which is con-stituted by the monastic community. The priesthood is not necessary to him; but if the Church gives it to him, it is to achieve a greater integration within herself of the person of the monk, his community, and the divine official praise which this community celebrates and carries on in the world. Clarifications When the resemblance between the two vocations, priestly and religious, is spoken of, what is considered is the essential matter of evangelical perfection, and not the difference in the observance of details which are so considerable from institute to institute. In his discourse to the Second General Congress of the States of Perfection (December 7, 1957), Pius XII pointed up this "essential" matter of perfection; it is the imitation of Christ defini-tively embraced in the great counsels that sums up all the other matters. If, to make an impossible supposition, the priest sought to create for himself an ideal of holiness of another kind than that of the baptised, he would put himself, so to speak, outside the Church, the Body of holiness; he would be ambitioning something else in his plan of holiness than to be as perfectly as possible the adopted child of the Father in Christ. He would be boldly directing his as-pirations towards a life conformed to his divine powers; that is, he would seem to be making his spiritual lift.' equal to that of the only-begotten Son Himself. No priest has ever thought of such a thing. By reason of the sacer-dotal character he is instrumentally a man of God, but his whole mission makes him a man among men. Cer-tainly, he reveres in himself with full humility the mys-terious efficacy of Christ, as do also the faithful; but not for an instant does he or the faithful confuse the lowly man with the transcendence of that God who works through him as through an intermediary. "It is, then, quite true," wrote Father de Lubac, "that the institution of the priesthood and the sacrament of orders did not create within the Church two degrees of attachment to Christ, as it were, two kinds of Christians. This is a fun-damental truth of our faith. All are united in the same essential dignity, the dignity of Christians, a marvelous renewal of the dignity of man, which has been so mag-nificently sung by the great Pope St. Leo." Against the similarity of the two vocations a difficulty might still be raised. Does not the religious withdraw from the world, and ought not the diocesan priest root himself in the world? In order to follow the vocation of a diocesan priest, is. it not fitting to place the accent on that which is peculiar to it as opposed to the religious state? By this means it would be ~reed of an imitation which would paralyze it; left to its own initiative in enter-ing into the mass of men, it would be free to communicate to all men those things which are necessary here below. There is a general problem here, that of action and contemplation, of renouncement ~ihd of use. It is a prob-lem which exceeds the limits of this article. Recent popes have spoken of this problem, especially to priests. In his heart, Pius XII declared, the priest should be an entire stranger to the world, one who wishes to live for the Lord only and to serve Him perfectly (Discourse to Superiors General, February 11, 1958; see also the third part of the Discourse of December 8, 1950). In this difficulty as formulated, we confine ourselves to noting a mistake which would be a grave danger for religious vocations if it were not corrected. In the truest sense of the word, the religious, even the most contemplative, does not abandon "the world." He-builds it up into its full reality if it is true that the evangelical order of brotherhood is the ex-ample given by Christ to disunited human society so that it might find peace and life. During the Middle Ages the monks literally created a new people, western civiliza-tion (see Pius XII's encyclical F.ulgens Radiatur on St. Benedict, March 21, 1947). Even today, does not the re-ligious life devote itself to all human sciences, to all the services of the health of souls and of bodies, to all the forms of education of children, adolescents, young adults, and adults. It remains true, nevertheless, and this is what it proclaims by its very existence, that "he who would save his life will lose it" (Mt 16:25) and "What does it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, but suffers the loss of his own soul?" (Mt 16:26). No ConIusion of the Two Vocations Finally, if the two vocations necessarily tend to resem-ble one another in their efforts at sanctification, they should by no means be confused in the Church of today. On the contrary, it may be believed that their differentia-tion, completed by canon law, enriches the Church. For the religious state, the correct independence of local juris-diction assured it by ecclesiastical law is a life or death condition. The very nature of the evangelical society, as the often sad history of the Church demonstrates, requires that it be able to live according to its own principles if it is to give the services which the Holy Spirit and the Church entrust to it. And on the other hand, the Church has too much respect for the liberty and the differences of her children, and too great a need for priests, not to leave to those of her elect who desire it the choice of their own means of sanctification and not to impose any more 4. 4. + Priest and Religious VOLUME 21, 1962 221 ,4" Ren~ Cavpentier, S.$. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS than what in her own view she has judged to be indis-pensable. Synthesis A summary of this theological evidence in a single synthesis is long overdue. To formulate it, I will draw upon a very recent little work of His Excellency, Msgr. DeSmedt, Bishop of Bruges, entitled The Priesthood oI the Faithlul. I have found it very illuminating. The bishop's intent is to explain the priestly vocation to his flock. He considers he can do no better than first of all to develop before their eyes the broad perspective of the priesthood of the faithful. The end of the Church is holi-ness. The Church is accordingly, a Body of holiness, hence a priesthood of the faithful. This is the major and basic principle which gi,~es proper value to all ecclesiasti-cal realities, above all to the two fundamental vocations which are at the center of the Church. In the priesthood of the faithful, all--the simply bap-tized, priests, bishops, the pope himself---are united to offer themselves and to join themselves to Christ so as to be efficaciously offered by His all powerful adoration and to be finally gathered together by Christ into a single people of brotherhood in communion with the Blessed Trinity. In this Body of holiness the mission of the states of perfection easily takes its proper place. It is the vocation of the states of perfection to respond fully, under the guidance of the Church, to the appeal of the baptismal dignity. It is for them to make concrete the people of God, fraternally united and consecrated to the Father by the vows of the three counsels. In this way they are at the service of their brothers, all Christians and all men, to win them and orient them to brotherly consecration in Christ. Among the states of perfection, the religious state is at the heart of the visible Church; it is com-missioned by her and closely linked with her to be the public w!tness of the social order of the gospel, the witness of the community of love and of worship in the midst of men. Secular institutes and all the baptized and con-firmed, priests included, who in actual fact or in spirit practice evangelical perfection in mutual charity and the faithful adoration of the Lord, also witness to this true life, at least in a personal way, each one according to his position and according to the innumerable adaptations which the apostolic approach to men require. It is with respect to the priesthood of the faithful that the diocesan priesthood is situated with full clarity. Es-sentially, it is its servant. Consecrated by Christ, it dis-tributes to the people the word and the bread in His name and in His place. It directs the people to eternal life. It has its powers and its commission. It is the object of the veneration of lay persons who absorb its presence, its help, its teaching, its edification. This is what Bishop DeSmedt shows in the second part of his work. But by this very fact the priest centers his life on his flock as its pastor, dn the *family of God asr its father. Above all, he is pastor and father for the states of perfec-tion. He must count on them above all to assure the spread of the apostolic life in the world. He is always, then, the central figure of the state of perfection even if he is not charged directly with its care. That is to say, he makes it known, he reveals it to the world, since it is he who must reveal the Church as a brotherhood conse-crated to God and since it is he who must reveal the full gospel. Objective Dil~erence of the Two Vocations Thus the objective difference which we were to find between

Issue 59.6 of the Review for Religious, 2000. ; NOVEMBER: DECEMBER 2000 ,VOLUME 59 NUMBER 6 Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bimonthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: review@slu.edu ¯ Web site: www.reviewforreligious.org Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for.Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, iVlO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP Mount St. Mary's Seminary; Emmitsburg, Maryland 21727 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subsEription rates. ©2000 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. Jew rel,g,ous LIVING OUR CATHOLIC LEGACIES Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming sJ Clare Boehmer ASC Philip C. Fischer SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm James and Joan Felling Adrian Gaudin SC Kathryn Richards FSP Joel Rippinger OSB. Bishop Carlos A. Sevilla SJ Patricia Wittberg SC NOVEMBER DECEMBER 2000 VOLUME 59 NUMBER 6 contents 566 spiritual practice Retrieving the Practice of Silence Donald J. Goergen oP enters us into an appreciation of silence that we might commit ourselves more to its observance. 575 The Dangers of Solitude Kenneth C. Russell, guiding readers through some 12th-century advice to hermits, shows its 2 l st-cenrury relevance to hermits and others as well. 584 A Spiritual Direction Mary Beth Moore SC gazes at, listens to, a few moments of reality and possibility within contemporary sisterly living. 594 a witness response Contemplative Religious Witness: A Redemptoristine Monastery Dennis J. Billy CSSR finds the life of a group of contemplative sisters very much present to his apostolic mission, and happily reflects that the reverse is true as well. 601 AVowed Response to the Postmodern World Andr~ Maureen Soete SSND seeks ways for the vowed life to contribute more vigorously, more effectively, to the alleviation of troubles in our troubled world. Review for Religious 608 examples from the past Mary Ward: Centuries Her Scroll Lawrence F. Barmann sketches the life story of Mary Ward, the saintly English founder of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as an inspiration for us living in the current ecclesial milieu. 614 627 St. Catherine's Letters: Human Love, Gracious Authority Stan Parmisano OP finds that in style and content the letters of Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) have surprising and challenging and charming relevance for persons living today. Katharine Drexel's Cultural Relevance Now Normandie J. Gaitley SSJ sketches the life of the recently canonized Mother Katharine Drexel SBS (1858-1955), a Philadelphia debutante who used her inheritance to serve Native Americans and African Americans. 633 643 vocation When Vocations Happen by Accident Elizabeth Julian RSM describes with quiet enthusiasm her sense of a flexible small community in New Zealand that fosters acquaintance and has shown itself to foster vocations. Vocational Support Donald Macdonald SMM speaks of the human need of support in one's vocation and of the providential availability of that support if we are alert to its manifold presence. departments 564 Prisms 650 Canonical Counsel: Responsibilities of the Novice Director 656 Book Reviews 666 Indexes to Volume 59 November-December 2000 prisms Whave come to appreciate the rich complexi.ty of the biblical term jubilee, espe-cially as we have looked toward the new millennium. But as we approach the Advent and Christmas seasons of the year 2000, one focus of jubilee stands out. Jubilee implies celebration. Advent and Christmas seasons pro-vide an opportune moment for us to consider what it is that we celebrate. Celebrati6n often means bringing people together, sometimes those dearest to us, and at other times the "crowd" that comes together only for special occasions. Celebration can include elegant banquets or simple fin-ger food. It may suggest a refined cocktail party or a noisy beer-keg-and-pretzels get-together. Celebration can imply long-term planning or it may be a spur-of-the- moment, spontaneous occasion. We celebrate beginnings, like newborn babies and the wedding day; we celebrate completions, like school graduations and retirements. We observe national patriotic days, and we take time for religious festivals. But for all the aspects of a jubilee year of forgiveness, justice, and reconciliation, what is it that we most cele-brate? The biblical notion of jubilee celebrates, above all, our being God's people and our living like God's sons and daughters. This planet called Earth is "home" for us because it is God's home. Our space-age view of our planet Earth has brought home to us how much we all are "stewards," not owners, of God's gift to us. Review for Religious What is striking is how our jubilee celebrations enter us into the Gospel Prodigal Son parable. Whether we more identify with one who hopes to see life as only an arena of personal delights and squanderings or whether we more identify with the other who defines life as a kind of slavery with weighty obligations and grim duties, we realize how much we need a jubilee understanding of life. Both sons, in Jesus' famous parable, understand neither the father who helped bring them into life nor the life which this father wants to share with them. The first son in his self-cen-tered celebrating misses the point of celebration. The second son in his self-defined servitude also misses the idea of celebra-tion. Just as the father in the parable goes out of the way to meet each son, so God continues to break into our life to call us to a reality of biblical jubilee. Advent is our jubilee celebration of our longing and desire to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of our life. Christmas is our jubilee celebration of God's desire and longing to come and play forever among the children of Earth. Advent and Christmas are at the center of our understanding jubilee because both seas~ons emphasize the heart of all our reasons to celebrate: God calls us sons and daughters, and we know the redemptive salvation that Jesus brought, of living in God's home all the days of our life. David L. Fleming SJ thank you for your ~uppor~throughout thi~ pa~t yoar and pray that (~od~rieh o a nd~ abundant iubiloo Advont and ~hri~tma~ Th~ Mitor~ and ,of Revi~ ~orRoligiou~ . " November-December 2000 spiritua practice DONALD J. GOERGEN Retrieving the Practice of Silence Jesus experienced the need for quiet. "In the morn-ing, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed"(Mk 1:35, NRSV). What did he seek there? What did he find? The Book of Psalms is quoted in the New Testament more often than any other book of the Hebrew Bible. What role did the psalms play in the prayer of Jesus? "Be still, and know that I am God" (Ps 46:10). How often in the course of his life did Jesus pray over verses like that, or this: "For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation"? (Ps 62:1). There are few things in human life more important, both personally and communally, than discovering the value of silence. Spirituality and religion are important dimensions of human and social life, and so are silence and stillness. Other civilizations, perhaps more pastoral, more agrarian ones, had greater opportunities for the practice of silence. Our times seem less fortunate in that regard. Yet silence is essential to wholesome living. My purpose in these reflections is to help us appreciate silence more and commit ourselves to practicing it. Donald J. Goergen OP wrote on celibacy for our May- June 1998 issue. His address is Friends of God Dominican Ashram; 720 35th Street; Kenosha, Wisconsin 53140. Review for Religious Worship, Charity, and Silence Which is more important, love of God or love of neighbor? (Mk 12:28-31). It does not take much to realize that this question is falsely posed. Which is more important, inhaling or exhaling, yang or yin? St. Anselm spoke of God as "the Being a greater than which cannot be conceived." Certainly, for one who believes, God alone deserves to be worshiped. Adoration and praise are the only appro-priate responses to God. Although there is nothing in human life more important than love of God, the God of Jesus instructs us that there is something that must precede or accompany it. "So, when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remem-ber that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift" (Mt 5:23- 24). "Those who say 'I love God,' and hate their brothers or sis-ters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also" (1 Jn 4:20-21). As important as worship is, equally important is the practice of charity, love of neighbor, the "works of mercy" (Mr 25:31-46). The revolution in Jesus' teaching was not that he understood love of God, the Shema (Dr 6:4-5), as the core of the Hebrew Scriptures. Almost every practicing and devout Jew understood that to be the great com-mandment. But Jesus' placing love of neighbor (Lv 19:18; Mk 12:31) on a par with love of God, that was revolutionary, and for him that was what true religion is about. For Jesus, the second commandment is not secondary, not second in the sense of less significant. According to Matthew, it is "like" the "great and first" commandment (Mr 22:38-39). Luke (10:27) reports them as really one commandment. True worship or love of God is inseparable from true com-passion or love of neighbor. But what do love of God and love of neighbor, or worship and the works of mercy, have to do with the practice of silence? Abhishiktananda, or Henri Le Saux, the French monk who came to India in 1948 and immersed himself in its reli-gious environment, wrote: Now if something has passed in this long discourse by the way of words, yet beyond words, if you have heard in the words of the Upanishads some echo of what the Spirit has November-Decenlber 2000 Goergen ¯ Retrieving the Practice of Silence certainly whispered in your heart when you sat in contem-plation of the mystery of the Father and the Son, then you will discover by yourselves the secret of what is called the Advaitic or Upanishadic prayer. It can be summed up in one Hebrew phrase of Psalm 65, which Jerome translates: silen-tium tibi laus. Silence is praise for you. Silence in prayer, silence in thanksgiving, prayer, and adoration, silence in meditation, silence inside and outside as the most essential preparation for this stillness of the soul in which alone the Spirit can work at his pleasure.~ The contemplative and interior journey, the love and worship of God, are dependent on silence. But charity or love of neigh-bor depends on silence too. A loving kindness toward our human companions on this earth requires the silent journey inward just as true worship of God requires it. Can there be true love of neigh-bor without confronting the truth about ourselves? Can we expect reconciliation and forgiveness in our world if we ourselves are not yet ready to forgive? If we are to transform our world, we must also be working on becoming transformed ourselves. Social engage-ment requires time apart. Silence is essential if we are to deepen our love for God and our love for our neighbor. Silence, Solitude, and Simplicity What does silence sound like? What does it look like? Are there different kinds of silence? Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earth-quake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. (1 Kg 19:11-13) True silence, the inner stillness, the still point, is an achieve-ment to be sought, yet always remains a grace. But it is a grace upon which we must focus our attention. It requires discipline, which does not guarantee interior silence, but rather prepares the way. We must devote time to "the practice of silence," the practice of interior and contemplative prayer, the practice of an awareness that is the fruit of quieting the mind.2 Such "quiet" is not easily obtained in our world today. Not Review for Religious that a busy, technological, urban society is the enemy of silence, but neither is it a friend. Modern social and commercial life cannot prevent the pursuit of silence, but neither do they encourage or value it. Entertainment is a noisy industry. The more channels we have on television, the better. But then they must be filled--with "stuff," whatever it be. They compete for attention; thus, the more out-rageous, the more likely the success. The Internet now multiplies ways to distract us from an inner stillness. Not to find television entertaining seems quaint. To see it or the overuse of the Internet as distraction from true entertain-ment, a life with God quietly pursued, is sec-ular heresy. For silence is not the stuff of which modern societies, commerce, or edu-cation are ordinarily made. Not that the media, the schools, the churches, market-places, and businesses are avowed enemies of silence; they are just uneasy with it. We are talking about a disciplined silence that requires resolve. Its close friends are solitude and simplicity. These compan-ions reveal how countercultural true silence really is. Solitude is one of silence's most cherished friends. Yet how difficult it is in our world today to find solitude, to pursue solitude, to practice solitude. We are "driven" away from it. We can hardly face the silence within ourselves. We flee. As Francis Thompson wrote: I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears I hid from Him, and under running laughter.3 The running is aided by all the activities of our world, justified by the needs of our world, and rationalized by "This is just our world and that's the way it is." To desire silence we must value solitude. We identify aloneness with loneliness. But, until we are at home with ourselves, we will always be lonely, no matter how busy, how "with it," how much with others we might be. As we know, marriage is no cure for loneliness. Neither is single life. Dietrich Modern social and commercial life cannot prevent the pursuit of silence, but neither do they encourage or value it. November-December 2000 Goergen ¯ Retrieving tbe Practice of Silence Bonhoeffer once cautioned us to be wary of the person who lives with another or in community who cannot be alone, or who lives alone but cannot live in community.4 Sociality and solitude are two sides of the same coin: we can-not find one without the other. Silence lives on solitude. We must find ways to structure it into our lives on a regular basis, like the food we eat. Where can we find that place apart, that space for being alone, and for how long can we keep ourselves there with-out being taken up by distractions~ Where can we go to practice silence? Or how in the midst of activity can we find that cell within? s One of solitude's companions is simplicity of life. Simplicity inside requires simplicity outside. A cluttered, thing-filled, con-sumer- intensive environment is hardly the place in which to prac-tice an awareness that few things in life are important. The world immediately outside myself needs to reflect what I am trying to attain within myself. Simplicity in life is an outward expression of simplicity within. One's "within" and "without" go together. And now we can see more clearly why our current economic world can easily become an enemy of silence. The pursuit of silence eventu-ally becomes a pursuit of simplicity of life--which is a recognizable enemy to a consumer economy, a global and ever expanding mar-ket economy. Not that the market is evil; it is just easy prey to the pretension that it alone is important, the be-all and end-all of human life. The practices of silence, solitude, and simplicity enable us to see the truth about economic pursuits: How inhumane they can be when given priority in life, how grounded in greed they become! Kinds of Silence There are a variety of silences.6 Silence can be either destruc-tive or constructive.7 Destructive silence is refusing to speak when a word is called for, a word of consolation, of affection, of chal-lenge. Destructive silence can be passive aggression, a refusal to participate, a lack of care, a form of punishment, unconscionable noncommunication. But silence as context for an interior journey is positive. Silence as a socia! context is the absence of noise in our imme-diate environment. There are different degrees of environmental silence. A noiseless environment is difficult to find in modern Review for Religious urban settings. One can distinguish rural silences and urban silences. For someone unaccustomed to rural silences, the sound of the cricket or the howl of a coyote can be disturbing. There are sounds to which we have become accustomed and those to which we are not. Familiar sounds need not destroy environmen-tal silence, but can blend with it. There is a silent stillness to the vastness of nature: the sounds and silence of the ocean, the moun-tains, the desert, the plains. Each is a different environment and a different silence. On a windless day, sitting atop one of the mountain peaks of the Sangre de Cristo range near Christ in the Desert Monastery in northern New Mexico, one can hear an almost Human silence absolute environmental silence. Human silence is the presence of nonspeech, call be a silence It is not necessarily noncommunication or non-of solitude, communitarian. Silence itself can communicate abundantly, and it is amazing what can be corn- but it can also be municated without words. Human silence can be a silence of solitude, but it can also be commu- communitarian. nitarian. A solemn silence can prevail in Christian or Buddhist monasteries or a Hindu ashram, in a synagogue, church, or mosque. These settings or "environments" can be sacred space. There are times and places when human speech is out of place or out of season. Human silence can be community silence, but there is also personal silence. An individual person can cultivate silence--by seeking environmental silence, or sacred space, or solitude, but also by the practice of silence: avoiding unnecessary speech, c~eating personal space, the silence of one's own room, withdrawing to "the cell within," lis-tening to music, allowing absorption in art and beauty, acquiring an inner stillness and the practice of meditation. Personal silence itself is not only oriented toward calm, tran-quillity, and an absence of stress, but ultimately toward interior silence, the silencing of the mind, even if this is rare or only momentary. I remember a conversation with a cloistered Dominican nun, who had a doctorate and had been teaching before joining this cloistered contemplative community. When I asked why she had joined the monastery, she replied, "I needed to stop thinking if I was going to start praying." The human being is a reflective being, but also a contemplative being that sometimes needs to move beyond thoughts (mental silence) as well as wordsv-~z-~'~---)-'[-i November-December 2000 Goergen ¯ Retrieving the Practice of Silence (verbal silence). The interior journey is in fact directed toward this deep silence within, this cave of the heart, this still point, this soul of the soul, this human spirit. Spiritual silence is the human spirit at peace, the silence of the spirit in its communion with the Spirit of God, the divine Spirit, the Holy Spirit. This is mystical silence, with its dark nights, its ecstatic joy, its calm recollection, its deep rest. Silence of any sort is most often not constant, but periodic, coming at intervals, having a rhythm of its own. Deep silence, mystical silence, is not an achievement but a grace. Thus one can speak of the grace of silence, a grace that is present in varied ways and at varied levels, exteriorly and interiorly: the prayer of silence, the silent Presence, the Holy Mystery. It is this mystery that we cel-ebrate in liturgy and seek in contemplation. We experience litur-gical silence, a pastoral silence, intimate silences, times and places not to speak, for which words are inappropriate, occasions on which only silence can communicate. Silence can communicate from within a depth beyond words. In community, in friendship, in ministry, and in prayer there must be silence as well as speech. Divine silence is God's very own silence, God's very own self-communication, God's' awesome and incomprehensible transcen-dence, God's overwhelming intimate immanence, God's elusive presence and mysterious absence, God's truth and God's beauty, the Nameless One whose name is Father, Son, and Spirit, the One- Who-Is, the One-Who-Is-With-Us, the silence of being, the sound of ore, the soundlessness of communion, the union of God and humanity, the union of Word and flesh, the triune union, the incor-poration of humanity into the silent triunity of its Creator. There is ultimately no distinction between divine Silence and divine Speech. They are one 'and the same. God's speech is silent, and God's silence speaks. Silence and Theology .The practice of silence is necessary not only for the spiritual journey and to sustain our humanity. It is also essential for doing theology. Theologians are accountable for their theology to their professional peers, to their varied communities of faith, and to society at large for the quality, fidelity, and social implications of their work. They cannot absolve themselves of this threefold responsibility. But the theologian is also accountable to God. One Review for Religious does not stand before the Holy Mystery, the mysterium fascinans et tremendum, without asking the Holy Spirit for courage, guid-ance, and wisdom. In other words, all theology must begin with prayer. It has both a reflective moment and a contemplative moment. It is not an ego project, but a work of the Spirit. Theology cannot be done apart from silence. The practice of silence, of placing oneself in the presence of God, of meditation, of listening, of longing are all part of doing theology. Theology can too easily become words, verbal batdes, polemic, agenda ridden, jargon, rather than revelatory, illuminating, con-nected to life, committed to Truth. This happens when theolo-gians neglect the practice of contemplative silence--which would make them aware of both the inadequacy and the necessity of words for communicating the divine mystery. A theologian needs to be practiced in the art of silence. So does the magisterium in the church need to practice it. "Roma locuta est," the saying goes. But think of the symbolic power in "Roma tacuit." What a wonderful example that could be. Magisterial authority must reflect that we are a learning church as well as a teaching church. Is not part of the crisis over author-ity the ways in which the church exercises its authority? We do not grant authority easily to those who do not listen. Silence gives value to words. Apart from words, silence can be sterile, but apart from silence words lose their power. As Ecclesiastes (3:7) says, "There is a time for keeping silence, a time for speaking." Silence is a work of the Spirit. True silence is ulti-mately prayer. It speaks with authority. It communicates truth. It creates community. It is the voice of the soul, of the human spirit, and of the Holy Spirit. Can we afford to allow its practice to become peripheral in our lives? In The Sleeping Beauty, Ralph Harper points to the value of silence for our world: Each order of experience has its own a.tmosphere. The atmo-sphere of presence, of giving, of wholeness, is silence. We know that serious things have to be done in silence, because we do not have words to measure the immeasurable. In silence people love, pray, listen, compose, paint, write, think, suffer. These experiences are all occasions of giving and receiving, of some encounter with forces that are inex-haustible and independent of us. These are easily distin-guishable from our routines and possessiveness as silence is distinct from noise.8 November-December 2000 Goergen ¯ Retrieving the Practice of Silence Not only nuns and monks, but all of us need to retrieve the art and practice of silence. We need to dip deeply into the silent abyss of self, of God, of God in the self and the self in God, We need to explore the emptiness and the fullness that lie within us. We need silence. Notes 1 Abhishiktananda, "The Upanishads and Advaitic Experience," in The Further Shore (New Delhi: I.S.P.C.K., 1984), p. 117. 2 Buddhist traditions also see a triple relationship: compassion, rooted ¯ in egolessness, which in turn is rooted in mindfulness. These three are intimately connected. See Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (San Francisco: Harper, 1992), esp. pp. 59-72, 116-122, 188-201. 3 The first lines of "The Hound of Heaven." 4 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1954), esp. pp. 76~89. "Let him who cannot be alone beware of community. Let him who is not in community beware of being alone. ¯. The mark of solitude is silence, as speech is the mark of community. Silence and speech have the same inner correspondence and difference as do solitude and community. One does not exist without the other. Right speech comes out of silence, and right silence out of speech. Silence does not mean dumbness, as speech does not mean chatter. Dumbness does not create solitude and chatter does not create fellowship" (p. 78). s See Catherine of Siena: The Dialogue, trans. Suzanne Noffke OP (New York: Paulist Press, 1980), on the "cell of self-knowledge," pp. 25, 118, 122, 125, 135, and 158. 6 Theodore Pereira in "Eloquence in Silence, Healing in Stillness," Indian Theological Studies 33 (June 1996): 99-126, has written about different types of silences. 7 "Silence itself is expressed in several ways. We know silences of contempt and of joy, of pain and of pleasure, of consent and of solitude." Jean-Luc Marion, God without Being (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), pp. 53-54. ~ Ralph Harper, The Sleeping Beauty (London: Harvill Press, 1955), pp. 110-111. The word "men" in the original was changed to "people" to accommodate current usage. Review for Religious KENNETH C. RUSSELL The Dangers of Solitude ~o~e~oe ldi!a nTgheerrse oisf as ololintugd tera. dAitniodn t hoef wwaarrnniinngg sw hoauvlde- bneo th ceormmiets solely from cenobites suspicious of solitaries off doing "their own thing." Religious who have the highest regard for the blessings and joys of the life of aloneness with God have tempered their enthusiasm with cautionary words about the special difficulties the solitary is likely to encounter. Thomas Merton, for example, warns that "sordid difficulties and uncertainties" attend .the life of even interior solitude,l Authors from the first centuries of the church conjure up frightening pictures of the demons who lie in wait for the unsuspecting hermit, while modern writers warn newcomers to the desert that solitude will force them to confront the disturbing image of their true self. The message is clear: more awaits the novice hermit than the beauties of nature and the spiritual delights which ancient and contemporary enthusiasts of the eremitical life tend to emphasize. I suppose that most contemporary solitaries would agree that demons in one guise or another must be wrestled with and that it can, indeed, be a distressing experience to come face to face with the self we usually avoid in a flurry of activity. However, I also suspect that most hermits are somewhat amused by both the modern and the ancient depiction of their lot. They would be only too happy to confess that there are no monsters writhing in the Kenneth C. Russell last wrote for our March-April 2000 issue. His address remains 40 Landry Street, Apt. 1505; Vanier, Ontario; K1L 8K4 Canada. November-December 2000 E5-7-5 Russell ¯ The Dangers of Solitude corners of their huts and that the identity crisis so precious to their contemporaries does not keep them awake nights. What they actually confront, it seems, is a routine cycle of sun and cloud on a prairie stretching clear to the horizon. There are no mountains or valleys to speak of. Their bad days are as unremarkable as their good ones. They struggle against subtle temptations, not spectacular ones. It has always been so. The 12th-century Cistercian Aelred of Rievaulx recognized this in his hard-hitting Letter to a Recluse, addressed to his elderly sister but written with less seasoned solitaries in mind? So did his contemporaries Peter the Venerable and Bernard of Portes, who wrote shorter and less theologically dense letters to male recluses who had asked their advice.3 Twelfth-century recluses lived in circumstances that are quite different from those in which most modern hermits seek solitude. But this does not mean that the letters of Peter and Bernard are merely quaint witnesses to a bygone era. The basics of the eremitical life are constant across the centuries. They are also unaffected by the way in which different solitaries choose to live the eremitical life. Whether the solitary is a recluse, a hermit, or a homeless wanderer like Benedict Joseph Labre does not radically modify the eremitical life. Consequently the letters Peter and Bernard wrote to 12th-century male monastic recluses remain relevant to male and female solitaries of all kinds, even today. Indeed, it seems to me that their practical orientation makes them especially useful. Therefore, I want to focus on the difficulties these authors see arising when the honeymoon period of the eremitical life--which may last a good long time--is finally over. In highlighting some of the minor difficulties which can grow into major problems if not attended to, it is not my intention to present a negative view of the solitary life. It does have dark days; it would not be a human enterprise if it did not. However, in focusing on the gray periods, I am not denying its spells of fine weather. I am merely reiterating the warning uttered down the centuries that people who wander off into the desert on their own had better know what they are about. Peter the Venerable's Letter to Ghislebert Peter the Venerable, the great abbot of Cluny, was, by his own admission, a very busy man. In fact, he shocks us a bit by admitting that he read the letters from a Cluniac recluse named Ghislebert in Review for Religious his choir stall on Holy Saturday. He claims that he had simply not been able to find a moment to read them earlier. Peter may have been rushed, but he nevertheless knew something about the eremitical life. Not only did he himself periodically spend time in solitude, but he had pastoral experience in directing monks who sought a solitary retreat for a limited period or for life. There were actually a large number of hermits living in the woods near Cluny. Peter the Venerable, then, knew what he was talking about when he replied to Ghislebert's request for guidance. The key to Peter's advice is the emphasis he puts on the idea that, as a recluse, Ghislebert has been buried with Christ. We do not know the nature of the liturgical ceremony with which Ghislebert was committed to his cell, but other sources indicate that the idea of being buried with Christ and dead to the world was sometimes dramatically represented by using funeral rites to initiate such enclosure. In any case, Peter emphasizes that, if his effort to live as a recluse is going to succeed, Ghislebert had better be sure that he is indeed dead to the world and the world dead to him. To drive home the point, Peter quotes the desert father Arsenius: "Flee people, be silent, and you will be saved." In short, be what you have set out to be and all will be well. Although we may feel a little ill-at-ease with the medieval idea of the recluse being rather literally buried with Christ, it is obvious that any new solitary needs to make a definitive break with the world and his or her past to get off to a good start. He or she has to be serious about being marginal. But, for all the images of being cut off and buried, the reality is that a living human being goes into the desert. He or she wants to be there, of course, but the spiritual and especially the psychological conditioning to solitude is not achieved by a mere act of will. The hermit, in fact, begins with some interior dividedness. Part of the self has no interest in disappearing. Inevitably the life force will rise up against the isolation and denial of achievement that the solitary life demands. Hermits also soon discover, as the Carthusian Guigo II puts it, that they are a crowd unto themselves. They are, indeed, the doorway through which the world presses into the cell. They may succeed in finding a quiet spot on the sidelines of society, but the Hermits soon discover that they are a crowd unto themselves. November-December 2000 Russell ¯ The Dangers of Solitude internal vacuum created by their withdrawal makes them vulnerable to the imagination's readiness to reassert their right to a place in the world. Since hermits have what we might term a "weak" present, the mind tends to take refuge in either the past or the future. Bernard of Portes will highlight the way in which the past crowds into the hermit's mind. Peter the Venerable puts more emphasis on the daydreams about the future which exploit the hermit's status to draw him away from his solitude. He pictures the monk turned hermit imagining that he feels the tabs of a bishop's miter on the back of his necl~ or fantasizing that he is the wise, holy, and much admired abbot of a large monastic community. This is all nonsense, of course, and surely most beginners are as amused by the tricks the imagination plays as Peter the Venerable is. What is not funny is that these silly thoughts can trouble prayer. It is also true, unfortunately, that small threads can weave themselves into strong ropes. If hermits are not careful, they can convince themselves that they are made for something better than the sorry life of a solitary. A more serious pressure to "return from the dead" and reenter the hustle and bustle of.life, bit by bit, springs from the essential nature of the solitary existence. Hermits have to live without the external momentum that social interaction usually provides. They are not carried along by the excitement of what is going on at their workplace, nor can they look forward to parties or sports events to distract them. Unfortunately, unless solitaries maintain their focus on whatever is the task of the moment, their day-to-day existence will begin to feel dull and wearisome. The obvious way to relieve this lethargy is for the solitary to engage in a small amount of pastoral or counseling activity. This sounds like a psychologically sound idea, especially to modern Christians, who are more than a little suspicious of the way hermits pull away from the good causes "activists" think so important. Peter the Venerable, however, is not so sure. He is afraid that this public ministry will become addictive. Instead of relieving the hermits' boredom so that they can return to the solitary life refreshed, each turn outward makes solitude all the more unbearable and the turn away from it all the easier. What looks like a solution to the pressures of the eremitical regime can destroy a hermit's ability to live the solitary life. "Doing good" can do a hermit in. A second consequence of the turn outward is that the solitaries' Review for Religious availability attracts people who offer two enticing things: prestige and cash. Since the strict eremitical life deprives hermits of the ordinary opportunities to see themselves mirrored in the reaction of others, Peter the Venerable rightly fears that Ghislebert will take the high esteem in which he is held by those he helps as the true measure of his worth. The abbot sees a further danger in the money that the hermit will be offered for his services. With all the good intentions in the world, Ghislebert can easily find himself managing a little charitable fund which will grow, as such things do, until, as Peter puts it, he is putting up buildings and demolishing himself. Peter's point would seem to be that hermits who are not perfectly honest about their motivations can make a place for themselves in the world. They can keep an address in the woods, as it were, and still be part of society. The price they pay, unfortunately, is the abandonment of their original commitment. History offers many examples which confirm that the hardest thing in the world for solitaries is actually to be what they profess to be. Aelred of Rievaulx was very hard on the way in which solitaries drift into outside activities. He sharply admonished them to wake up to the facts of their vocation. "When you are pressured to get involved: Tu sede, tu tace, tu sustine. Sit still, keep quiet, and stick it out! Period! Leave the doing of good deeds to those who .have the responsibility for such tasks." The solitary's fundamental temptation, it seems, is to focus on something other than God. According to Peter, this can be anything from good works to an obsession with health or appearance. "Doing good" can do a hermit in. Bernard of Portes's Letter to Rainald The Carthusian Bernard of Portes agrees with Peter the Venerable that solitaries need to be on guard against the distractions that are likely to entice them away from their fundamental commitment. He is particularly sensitive, however, to the spiritual and psychological repercussions of the hermit's withdrawal from society. He understands very well that the social self will not go lightly into solitude. Though hermits are united to all believers and, indeed, all humanity in their union with Christ in his church, the social self wants to strut its stuff in the midst of the diversions November-December 2000 Russell * The Dangers of Solitude Hermits do not have the social status they enjoyed in the 12th century. of the marketplace. It does not want to be shut away with not much more than God to focus on. Therefore, Bernard warns Rainald that he must expect a spell of bad weather sooner or later. One day he might be hit by a wave of sadness and the next be in a bad mood and irritable. He will find tapes from his past running in his head while he reedits the script of what he said and did. A troupe of lewd thoughts will stage its floor show one day, and lukewarnmess flood in the next. It seems that there is no escape from these inner storms and flat stretches. Indeed, Bernard maintains that hermits go into the desert specifically t6 wrestle with these elements that distract us from God. They are, we might say, the psychological echoes of a hermit's attachment to the world he or she claims to have renounced. Bernard of Portes warns hermits that, because they are no longer carried along by the current of daily life in society, they will be the targets of acedia and sadness. Acedia, a listless psychospiritual condition, weighs so heavily on its victims that some escape from the boredom o'f the here and now into dreams of what has been and might yet be while others slip into the torpor of chronic fatigue. This affliction, which involves a hanging back from the initial vocational commitment and a failure to actualize it in the present moment, "detemporalizes" hermits. It weakens their focus on the here and now and sets them adrift. Therefore they look outward for things to occupy their mind and fill their time. Bernard says it is very important for hermits to give their life a certain self-generated dynamism by moving from one activity to another th~'oughout the day. Oddly enough, this is in accord with the traditional wisdom that the secret of the eremitical life is "Keep it moving." Bernard also emphasizes meditation and advises Rainald to be totally present to the words he is saying when he recites the Office. Bernard, it is quite clear, believes that acedia can be held at bay if a hermit puts his or her mind to it and lives in the present moment. Sadness, however, is another matter. Bernard seems convinced that an occasional period of feeling down is an inescapable feature of the eremitical life. Sadness is, I suppose, a pit into which an Review for Religious individual ill-suited for solitude might tumble, but this does not seem to be what Bernard has in mind. He is describing, not a chronic or pathological condition, but the normal downturns of life--which the hermit feels more intensely because of his or her isolation. On the spiritual level, the alternation of these strong and weak periods is inevitable in view of the ebb and flow of God's grace. If acedia pulls one away from the present, sadness can be said to sink one into it. Sadness is the clouding over of the eternal horizon of hope which draws us forward. Without the attraction of the ultimate goal--which is, remember, the sole dynamic element in a hermit's life--the individual is oppressed by the miseries of the present. For no good reason, anger can well up in the solitary and rail away at the self or other people: "Nothing they do is ever any good, and nothing I try ever works out!" Such slack times call for patience, because, once again, the temptation is to shift attention away from God and the love that is his due. The self, whether proud or inadequate, whether much sought after or neglected, must not become the primary object of the hermit's attention. Application to Modern Hermits Is any of this applicable to modern hermits living in country cabins and cheap city apartments? I think so. Times have certainly changed, but the leisure of the hermit can still go flat, and money remains a worrisome issue. Unlike their 12th-century counterparts, modern hermits do not have to figure out how to channel their excess funds to the poor without attracting a crowd of beggars, but they do have to worry about how to live apart from the world and still earn their keep. Unless they are supported by a religious congregation or order, paying their bills and providing some measure of stability in an unsettled time can be a real preoccupation. Indeed, it can shipwreck their project altogether. Pride, which Peter the Venerable and Bernard of Portes see as a major threat to hermits, would seem to be less of a worry these days. Solitaries are looked up to once again, but the applause is not unanimous. In fact, many people who give their lives to the service of Christ and his poor question the sense of such a calling. Certainly hermits do not have the social status they enjoyed in the 12th century. In any case, while many religious who become November-December 2000 Russell ¯ The Dangers of Solitude With no one else to worry about, they can become obsessed with every ache. solitaries identify themselves as hermits, most lay hermits have no official status of any kind. They live a hidden life which is just that, hidden. The lack of social status does not mean, of course, that hermits are immune to the temptation to take a little secret pride in the uniqueness of their calling. Pride, however, does not seem to be the great danger it was to hermits in the Middle Ages. Certainly relevant today, however, is the emphasis Peter the Venerable and Bernard of Portes put on the need for the hermit to exist in the now. This almost Buddhist focus on being present to the moment is for both of them basic to the eremitical life. Without this absorption in the here and now, distractions press in. The hermit, to borrow a phrase from the world of sports, "loses his or her concentration" on the worship of God in unending prayer. This is a major problem, but, given the restrictions of the solitary life, it manifests itself in small and sometimes silly ways. For example, hermits may get too wrapped up in their work or turn repairs to their dwelling into a full-scale redecorating project. They can become finicky fussbudgets who insist that every item in their cell be lined up just so. Worse yet, with no one else to worry about, they can become obsessed with every ache and sniffle. What are we to make of Peter the Venerable's condemnation of the tendency of hermits to make themselves useful to their fel-low Christians by offering them the fruit, as it were, of their con-templative silence? Must we conclude that he, and Bernard as well, would censure the spiritual direction and parish activities in which some contemporary hermits get involved? Not necessarily. In their letters both authors emphasize--and we must keep in mind that they were writing to recluses, that is, to solitaries who in theory were totally cut off from the world--that the singularity of the eremitical life means that hermits will have to work out what is best for them. Therefore, while Bernard borrows from the cus-toms of the Carthusians to make all kinds of suggestions to Rainald about the details of his life, he realizes that it is up to the hermit to exercise discretion in choosing what suits him. Consequently, we can conclude that, although Peter and Bernard show that it is easy for hermits to delude themselves about why they are rendering this or that occasional service, it is up to them to determine, after Review for Religious taking counsel, what fosters their aloneness with God and what hinders it. I suspect that there are times when novice solitaries, going through a dark period, might welcome the sight of a few demons raising cain in their living room. They might even be glad to summon up the self-absorption required for the drama of a first-class identity crisis. Anything exciting and novel would be a relief. What they have to contend with, however, day in and day out, as Peter and Bernard remind them, is the subtle task of remaining faithful to their original commitment in all kinds of psychological weather. They have much to gain and much to lose. Peter the Venerable and Bernard of Portes, who shared a high regard for the solitary life, warn them, therefore, to take care. Notes ' Thomas Merton, "Notes for a Philosophy of Solitude," in his Disputed Questions (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1960; Noonday Book, 1976), p. 165. 2 A Rule of Life for a Recluse, trans. Mary Paul MacPherson, in The Works of Aelred of Rievaulx, Vol. 1: Treatises, The Pastoral Prayer, Cistercian Fathers Series, no. 2 (Spencer, Massachusetts: Cistercian Publications, 1971). 3 Neither the letter of Peter the Venerable to Ghislebert nor Bernard of Portes's letter to Rainald has, as far as I know, been translated into English. The Latin text and a French translation of Bernard's letter can be found in Lettres des premiers chartreux, Vol. 2, introduction, critical text, French translation, and notes by "un chartreux" (Sources chr~tiennes, no. 274; Paris: Cerf, 1980), pp. 50-79. For the Latin text of Peter's letter, see Giles Constable, The Letters of Peter the Venerable, Vol. 1 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967), pp. 27-41. November-December 2000 MARY BETH MOORE A Spiritual Direction Connie drew the heavy drape across the window, noting the ast gray light filtering from the west. She turned on a small lamp on one side of the room and lit the vanilla candle at the other. Immediately its aroma permeated the small space. She selected a Mozart disc from the handful of CDs near the love seat, placed it carefully on the turntable, pressed play, and adjusted the volume so that the maestro's graceful, precise notes were barely audible, as subtle as the candle. She paused, looking slowly to each corner until satisfied by the atmosphere she had created. Free of clutter, the parlor was just large enough for the love seat, chair, and coffee table. She sat down on the chair. Connie never sat until she was satisfied. She was a short, heavy woman and, since it was not easy for her to get out of a chair, she considered the act of getting into it. She had a few moments before her guest arrived, and this time was also planned. The guest or, more precisely, the directee required the kind of attention one must work up to. So she made an effort to appreciate the room for its own sake. She awaited the security these preparations usually brought. She summoned the attitude of inner peace which any directee had a right to expect of her, breathing deeply, ignoring the slight pulse in her legs, ankles, even noting the contradiction between attending to a pleas-ant carnal sensation--the candle--and determinedly shutting out the unpleasant. She made herself breathe. Connie had been a spiritual director for almost twenty years, Mary Beth Moore SC writes from 3496 Jerusalem Avenue; Wantagh, New York 11793. Review for Religious and people liked her. She had talent in this abstruse area, and she knew this because her directees said so. Most of her clients were nuns, participants in a lifestyle whose subtle conflicts she knew as her own, having been a nun now for forty years. Relationships: community, friends, principals, superiors. Even, occasionally, a romantic entanglement. And, of course, the relationship with God. Connie never told them what to do. She listened. She asked ques-tions. She recalled for the searcher his or her own best qualities. (Yes, even the occasional priest or layman found his way to her.) Generosity. Loyalty. Courage. Connie never mi~de these things up. Yes, that was the talent. Seemingly from thin air, she would recall a point the directee had made two months before, or ask precisely the right question. "What must you do to grow in this sit-uation?" The question was perhaps trite, but the answers never were. Stammering or articulate, passionate or cool, the directee usually responded with a perfectly credible plan of action, one whose truthfulness went to the heart of the matter. She had learned to expect the creativity that her directees brought with them. Still, Connie did not consider herself creative. She thought of herself as a modest person, and attributed the results to God's grace. When she looked in the mirror, she saw a face that had always been plain, and was now old. Of course, Connie had not once seen her own brown eyes transformed with the glow of the full attention she gave to the directees. They simply thanked her. She expected nothing more. At the sound of the doorbell, Connie took hold of the chair arms and, giving herself a boost, stood and steadied herself before crossing the short distance to the front door. She was pleasantly nervous for this encounter with her client, and she hurried as much as she could, knowing how uncomfortable it was to wait at her door. The Bronx brownstone faced southeast toward the Sound and Long Island, and through the winter a stiffwind blew almost steadily. She opened the door to see a petite woman framed against the dark corridor of the street, hopping around on the stoop to cope with the cold. The sky behind her was clear, but dark. The city lights obliterated all but the highest-hung stars. "Marilyn, my dear, come in quickly before the wind knocks you down." "It almost did. I parked a block away, and--" "Did you meet much traffic?" Connie took Marilyn's coat and shivered at the cold that rolled off of it. November-December 2000 Moore ¯ A Spiritual Direction "Som'e, as usual. The Cross Bronx is always crowded." "Oh, that's a terrible road. I always feel glad when I turn off. A cup of tea before we start?" "I would love it, if it's no trouble. It sounds so good." "No trouble at all. Go in and make yourse.lf comfortable. I'll be right back." She indicated the room she had just prepared, and waited to be sure her guest was seated before disappearing into the inner quarters to make tea. She returned with a tray and two steaming cups. They were silent as they fixed the tea to their lik-ing. Part of Connie's skill was to suppress small talk as the pre-lude to spiritual direction. Chatter cluttered the spirit, she believed. She had once lived as a hermit for three months, and the disci-pline served her well. After a suitable interval she moved to her cus-tomary opener. "So, tell me, what brings you to spiritual direction?" "Ah, yes. Well, I have the intuition, this notion. It haunts me and I feel almost, I don't know, maybe, embarrassed to share it. Or even ashamed--though maybe that is too strong a word. I've tried to discuss it, get a hold, but I." Connie listened as the other woman stuttered, and felt a tug of compassion. She leaned ever so slightly toward her, her eyes widening to lend support to the recitation. A sexual problem per-haps. Everything supposedly out in the open these days, but the unique turns of the human heart, and the struggle to articulate them! She waited. ". this notion, and others don't want to hear, or maybe can't hear. Almost a conviction actually." "A conviction that ." Connie was poised, waiting for the other to look up. "I don't want to offend you, as well. But I suppose it's foolish to come and beat around the bush. You see--" "'I assure you, my dear, I won't be offended. I'm eager to hear what you have to say." "A conviction that it's over. Over, over, over." Connie frowned, noted the slightest wave of impatience with the conversation's turn. "You'll have to tell me what 'it' is, I think." "This." She spread her hands as if her meaning should be obvi-ous, indicating the candle, the lamp, and Connie herself with thrusts of her chin. "Convents. Middle-aged women living in polite little groups, good-hearted, but accommodated. Comfortable. Convents, parlors, single beds, obsessive neatness, vanilla candles. Over." Review for Religious "Leave my candle out of it, at least," Connie said, more emphatically than she had intended. She was offended, but she did not realize it quite yet. "O.K. Your candle may be spared." Marilyn grinned. "But as for the other elements, well, the writing is on the wall." "Nebuchadnezzar? A kingdom about to fall?" Connie tried to get her bearings. The other's hesitancy had disappeared, her voice got stronger by the sentence, and Connie began to think that her earlier, tentative approach might have been a ploy. "Yes. That's exactly right, Connie. The humble kingdom we built for ourselves that did so much good. Children we taught, sick we nursed. It was a world in itself, a kingdom if you will. We had a place in a religiosity that was shared by Catholics every-where. In that Catholic world, we had a mystique of holiness, otherness. We were a cheap labor pool. Now others can do what we did, without living a special way of life." She took deep breath while Connie waited with alarm. "I believe our lifestyle is ending." Buy time. That was Connie's second idea, after the first one, something like, who do you think you are? Who are you, sup-posedly asking me for help, boldly upending a tradition? One that needs no defense. "I must keep eye contact," she thought. "Marilyn, too, is a committed religious, sincere, middle-aged, a seeker like myself." She was unused to such a strong emotion that was not compassion. She focused with effort. "Fall back on tech-nique," she urged herself. When she finally spoke, her voice was light. "Well, that's radical, for sure. Possibly a bit reductive. I'll need some time to take in the idea. But, in any case, you know that spir-itual direction does not provide answers. Why don't you tell me about your prayer. What's happening there?" "Connie, don't you see? That is what's happening. I pray, but I feel afraid. This sense of winding down . . . it, it assaults me. This is the result of my reading the signs of the times. And, very selfishly, I wonder what will happen to us. I'd actually like some-body to refute me." "'Prayer is the balance of mind and heart. Perhaps you think too much." November-December 2000 Moore ¯ A Spiritual Direction "Prayer is the balance of mind and heart. Perhaps you think too much." "Oh, maybe. It's just when I have an insight I always think it's correct. I'm not pious, either." Marilyn's voice had softened. Connie saw that she had heard her words as a correction, as in fact they had been. She had men-tioned fear, a key word in Connie's work, the rope binding the spirit, an adversary of growth. Usually Connie would have asked about it, but this evening it suddenly seemed like too much trou-ble. She was impatient, her back began to ache. She sought for a middle ground. "Or perhaps I think too little. You're a challenge to me, and I'm not sure if I can be as objective as I like. Can you"--she searched for the way back to Marilyn's point--"can you stay with the questions?" She got a little stronger. "Ride the questions." Marilyn thrust out her chin, as if shg regarded the question as an object in the room. There was a pulse of silence. "Yeah. That's a good idea." She smiled and looked at Connie with a glint of humor. "Good luck. I'll pray with you." There was a notable pause, and Connie sighed before turn-ing to topics of lesser import. Her back pain was easing, and she felt relieved that the conversation had returned to a manageable place. She was no coward. She had borne others' tears and rage at God. But a messy squabble with herself as partner was not at all congenial. She had put the balance back. She would pray with and for Marilyn. Both were careful to refrain from gossip in the spiritual-direc-tion setting; the set of those who chose such support was small, and many knew each other. Still, there were allowable facts--some-one's new job, an elderly sister's passing. And, after the intense discussion of the inner life, it was consoling to take in the mellow light and the full attention, each from the other. When they had finished the tea, and the candle wax threatened to spill on the table top, Marilyn moved to go. Connie helped her with her coat, saw her out into the cold air. The street was quieter now and a single star, maybe a planet, winked above the streetlights. She closed the door and went back to her direction room to turn off the light and blow out the candle. The wax had leaked onto the table into a viscous pool. "Ride the question," she repeated softly aloud to herself. She had been pleased to hit upon a phrase Revie~v for Religious that seemed to help her directee, but, as she turned it over in her mind now, looking at the empty room, it sounded trite, facile. The dialogue with Marilyn echoed in her mind, and a sensation rip-pled quickly, like the hint of an unpleasant duty she could not quite remember. She stepped away from the room with unusual haste and headed for the community recreation room and her favorite TV program. When Connie got to the community room, Sarah was watch-ing a public TV program--something about endangered species-- with the intensity of a graduate student. While she made eye contact with Connie, she held up a forefinger to postpone conversation until the program seg-ment ended. Connie sank into the chair and waited. She did not mind. It was more inter-esting to observe Sarah than to watch the parade of facts on the screen. She could easily see in the woman the ardent girl she had taught thirty years before, and, in her unsettled state of mind, that girl seemed to inhabit the room again. Sarah's field was biology, and she brought her expertise along with boundless energy to a nonprofit agency that monitored the environ-ment. Connie studied her with detached affec-tion. What was it that made Sarah so interesting? The combination of ambition and idealism, thought Connie. She was the perfect nun for our time. Connie mused about the effect of her own ministry. She had joined Sarah and the others in the brownstone house the year she finished her term as novice director. It had been her initiative to work free-lance in spiritual direction, and the community con-firmed' her choice. Her clients found her by word of mouth. She spent her day much as she had with the novices, in a disciplined but unhurried rhythm of prayer, study, and client appointments. It was Sarah who persuaded Connie to get a paying job two years ago. Some of the sisters in her own house had argued against it, but Sarah persisted. She pointed out to Connie that she com-plained about being the one to answer telephone solicitations and wait for plumbers. Sarah, the realist, reminded the community that their income base was shrinking, since the elderly sisters far outnumbered the younger wage-earners. Connie began to mind She could see in the woman the ardent girl she had taught thirty years before. November-December 2000 Moore ¯ A Spiritual Direction not having even a modest paycheck to present for the running of the house, and the quota for the retired sisters' care. The only thing she did not tell Sarah and the others was that she was tired of not having tales to "tell at supper about the outside world they inhabited each day. What could she say about spiritual direction? In that field there were no general issues, no little anecdotes, to report, only secrets of the heart whose value was discovered as the directee conferred it. So Connie took a job as the secretary in a little Catholic school in the Bronx. She bolstered the idealistic young man who was prin-cipal and lent an ear to the parents who rushed through with for-gotten lunches and umbrellas. She now had tales for the dinner table with the community, and savored even more the evenings of direction. She did not allow herself to miss the easy pace she had once enjoyed. She was often tired. She worried intermittently about losing weight, especially when Sarah inaugurated a new restric-tion in the community diet. She gave up insisting that they buy whole milk: it was not worth the commentary on cholesterol. But these were small .annoyances, predictable, familiar. If the occa-sional ache or pain pressed itself too deeply into her conscious-ness, her mind might leap to the future for a moment. But the pain subsided, or was integrated into what she chose to put up with. It was against her principles to measure herself by a worldly standard. She gazed at the TV for a bit, savoring the comfort of her (avorite chair until the program finished and Sarah pressed the mute button. "How was your day?" Connie asked. "Really productive," Sarah answered brightly. "I spent the morning editing that junior high 'natural city' curriculum. Jake did a great job with the project and I told him so. Then I had a meeting with the Friends of the Harbor committee. Giuliani's guy stopped in. Nice person actually, said he would continue to press our concerns with the mayor. He sounded sincere, but we'll keep the pressure on anyway. Peter was pleased." "Peter?" "Grossman, the earth sciences professor from Bronx Community College, that one who chairs--" "Oh yes, I remember him." Connie made it a point to keep up with the cast of cha[acters that peopled Sarah's offbeat job. "Did Jake's wife have the baby yet?" Review for Religious "Three days ago! I thought I'd told you. Mother and daugh-ter are doing fine." Sarah described the particulars of the birth in detail, then trained eager eyes on Connie. "How was your day?" Connie's mind returned to her session, where a seasoned nun had suggested that religious life would become a thing of the past. It was an abstract idea, after all. The common room she shared now with Sarah was perfectly real and stable. The house had been paid for. "Connie, your day?" Sarah's voice called her from her reverie. "Anything wrong?" "Wrong? Oh no." She hesitated. "Do you think about the future, Sarah? I mean our community. Do you think there will be nuns living in this house in twenty years? Youngish nuns, enthu-siastic like yourself, women who believe in prayer, the vows? Some of my directees"--she tried to be deliberately vague--"a few think our way of living is a thing of the past." Sarah frowned. "It could be, you know. Let's face it. No one has joined the community at all in the past five years, and those of us in it aren't getting any younger. It could be. But, hey, God our Mother will bring to birth something new. Birth, growth, decay, matter recycle into new growth. It's a universal process. Why should we escape it?" She reached for the TV wand."Do you want to watch anything else?" "You've thought about this?" "Oh, it crosses my mind now and again. Shall I turn this off?." Sarah waved the remote again. "Sure." Connie could see that Sarah was preparing to leave the community room, and a wave of desolation passed over her. She longed to call out, "Please don't go, yet," but she knew perfectly well such a request would startle Sarah. "She'd probably think I'm having some kind of attack," Connie thought. "What reason could I give for the need of her presence?" Nothing came to her. Sarah was at the door now, turning back, her gaze objective and ldnd. "You O.K., Connie?" "I'm just fine," Connie answered quickly. "Sufficient for the day is the trouble thereof." Sarah was satisfied. "Sleep well, then." "You too." Connie was alone now in the familiar room, and hothing could threaten her. Soon her strange moment of panic would pass, and she would move to her usual routine, fold back the newspaper, November-December 2000 Moore ¯ A Spiritual Direction enjoy the silence. She had an honorable job. She loved Sarah, and the others with whom she lived and shared an uncomplicated love of friendship. She scanned the headlines, then tossed them aside to read the Arts page, a book review, but she struggled to concen-trate. "Loneliness has no hold over me," she thought. Loneliness and solitude were the same companion in different dress, the bite of one and the consolation of the other alternating throughout her days. But the mood of release she sought at the end of the day still eluded her. She focused on the gratitude she must render for the events of the day, and recalled a grandmother who had come to the school to deliver a forgotten lunch. In her mind's eye she could see the weary black face transformed with smiles when the child hove into view. But, when the memory dimmed, a keen discomfort reasserted itself. She pushed through her rote evening prayer, "Now Lord you may dismiss your servant in peace, for my eyes have seen your sal-vation. A light of revelation to the Gentiles and a glory for your people Israel." Simeon, welcoming his life's end, having seen the object of his heart's desire. "He was lucky," she thought. The prayer did not seem to help at all. She turned off the light in the common room and made her way out by the light of the street lamp filtering through the blinds. She turned toward the kitchen. "A nice cup of tea," she thought. "It will clear my mind." She made the tea. She measured out her usual two spoonfuls of sugar, tasted it, then furtively added a third. She sipped it slowly and regarded the clock, whose subtle whine could be heard in the silence. "I tell my directees to face their fears. And so must I," Connie concluded. "What was it, then, old age?" But she dismissed this quickly. Maybe prettier, fitter women, yes, even nuns might struggle with this, but she had never known herself that way. She had long ago accommodated herself to aches and wrinkles. Nor was it fear of death. Not yet. Her mother, her aunts, stout women all, had lived into their nineties. "I probably have a few decades in me," she mused. What had Marilyn said? "It's over." That was the phrase that had ripped her, as if a web of equilibrium she hardly knew existed was torn, and its sundering had discovered a category of feeling she could not recognize. "Now, Lord, you may dismiss your servant in peace, because my eyes have seen your salvation." Simeon's words came back Review for Religious again, with the picture of the bearded sage, smiling and content, holding an infant whom he knew certainly to be the savior. Who did he think he was? "I'm jealous of him," she thought. And, since the habit of honesty was well established, Connie began to name the struggle. The child Simeon held had just been named Jesus, newly circumcised, accompanied by proud parents. She was jealous of Simeon's proximity, his luck to be in the right place at the right time. She was envious of the consolation of touch, the embrace that illuminated him, at once revealing the true iden-tity of the child. But most of all she was jealous of his certainty. As a young idealistic woman, and through all the vicissitudes of the years, she had fallen back on the certainty that she was doing God's will. And, just as the meeting with a newborn child had transformed Simeon from a bumbling old man into a prophet, so she had thought her lifestyle would transform her. She looked around the kitchen slowly, scrutinizing the cabi-nets, the fridge. Stalling. The fear she felt was not provoked by the encounter with Marilyn, but rather unmasked by it. Fear, raw fear, as when a young child is lost in a crowded arena. Connie placed both hands on the teacup and concentrated on the warmth that spread to her palms. She recalled, with effort, that she was an adult. But, slowly, understanding came to her. What was threatened was certainty and specialness. The fear in her belly suggested that she had bartered for those goods with the austerity of her lifestyle and her vows. Yet she herself had taught the basic truth of spiri-tual direction so many times: All that is not love must be rooted out. She could not blame anyone or anything external for her new situation. She sat thus at the kitchentable for a long while, and the tea, untouched, grew cold. By and by she simply admitted that an inner battle was just beginning; she might as well go to bed. Fear would come and go, and grief, too, must attend the process. She lay in bed, listening to the faint sounds of traffic, making an effort to yield to sleep in order to be ready for the next day. But, as she was poised on the mysterious shelf before consciousness falls away, a phrase floated up from the well of memory, a saying she would work with for months to come, "Though a bird be tied to earth by only a thread, still he cannot fly." November-December 2000 a witness response DENNIS j. BILLY Contemplative Religious Witness: A Redemptoristine Monastery At the end of each academic year, I leave my work at the Alphonsian Academy in Rome and spend the summer months as an author in residence at Mount St. Alphonsus, the Redemptorist retreat center in Esopus, New York. During my time there, one of the responsibilities I share with the other members of my community is to celebrate Eucharist at the nearby Redemptoristine monastery of Our Mother of Perpetual Help. This small community of contemplative nuns devotes itself to being what their 18th-century Neapolitan foundress, Maria Celeste Crostarosa (1696- 1755), called a "living memory" of the Holy Savior. My close contact with the sisters there has helped me appreciate more deeply the contemplative dimension of my own vocation. It has also helped me see the intimate relationship between the Redemptorist and Redemptoristine callings, two very different lifestyles-- one apostolic, the other contemplative--deeply devoted to a common charism of proclaiming "plentiful redemption" in Christ. Dennis J. Billy CSSR, a frequent contributor to this review, may be addressed at Accademia Alfonsiana; C.P. 2458; 00100 Roma; Italy. R~view for Religious Spousal Love As a community of women entirely dedicated to contemplation, the sisters at Perpetual Help Monastery maintain a spirit of separation but openness to the world around them. They follow the norms of papal enclosure as laid out in church law and interpreted by their Constitutions and Statutes, but do so with a keen sensitivity that their contemplative vocation places them at the very heart of the local church. In the spirit of Vatican Council II, they have also renewed their way of life to be more in keeping with the spirit and charism of their foundress. In doing so, they have attempted to adapt the contemplative life to the exigencies of North American culture while at the same time taking care to maintain the significant countercultural and eschatological witness that religious life in general and the contemplative life in particular seeks to convey. The result is a small but dedicated group of women religious whose lives are deeply immersed in the mystery of Christ and his body, the church. Verbi sponsa, the recent Vatican instruction on contemplative life and the norms of papal enclosure, describes cloistered nuns as becoming, with the Virgin Mary, "the 'living memory' of the church's spousal love" (§1). I could not read these words without thinking of the special meaning they would have for the Redemptoristines at Esopus and throughout the world. Mary's close.relationship to her Son places her in a position of humble service toward all who turn to her. "To Jesus through Mary" was the way St. Alphonsus de Liguori (1696- 1787) liked to express Mary's role in the economy of salvation. Everything she does is meant to lead us to a closer, more intimate relationship with her Son. Her loving and heartfelt fiat in Luke's Gospel reminds us that it could not be otherwise. Her response to the angel reveals a deep trust in God's trust in her. She became the Mother of God because of her spousal relationship with God, which was itself a gift from God to her and, through her, to all the world. When seen in this light, to be with Mary a "living memory of the church's spousal love" leads quite naturally (perhaps it would be better to say "supernaturally") to being a "living memory of the redeeming Christ." Each remembrance is a single dimension of a To be with Mary a "living memory of the church's spousal love". Ly-95---2 November-December 2000 Billy ¯ Contemplative Religious Witness much larger reality: you cannot have one without the other. Keenly aware of this connection, the Redemptoristines at Esopus proclaim their spousal love for their risen Lord at their daily Eucharist, where he eats with them, drinks with them, and caresses them with the gentle, calming breeze of his Spirit. A Eucharistic Community It is often said that something is not fully experienced until it is remembered. If this saying is true, then the Redemptoristines' desire to become a "living memory" of their Lord must foster a deeper experience of Jesus' presence in their hearts and in their midst. One need only consider the deep spirit of prayerfulness that fills their daily celebration of the Eucharist to see that this is so. These simple celebrations tap into the hidden life of contemplation going on in the deepest recesses of their hearts and reveal the height and depth and breadth of the paschal mystery. The daily Eucharist is the center of the sisters' lives. It immerses them in the mystery of God's love which their lives espouse and puts them in intimate contact with their risen Lord. The Eucharist reminds them of the "eucharistic quality" of the cloistered life itself (see Verbi sponsa, §3). Separation from the world enables the sisters to be present t6 the world on a much deeper level. It enables them to share not only in Jesus' life of kenotic self-offering, but also to join him in his eternal act of thanksgiving to the Father. This close connection between the Eucharist and the sisters' contemplative vocation touches the very heart of the redemptive mystery. It affirms Jesus' ongoing presence in their community and gives meaning to every dimension of their largely hidden life of prayer. The sisters' daily remembrance of Jesus is possible only because of Jesus' continual remembrance of them. They seek to be a living memorial to the living memorial he has left them in the Eucharist. They, more than anyone else I have met, take to heart Jesus' words "Do this in memory of me." In this light, life in the Redemptoristine cloister at Esopus takes on the threefold dimensions of banquet, sacrifice, and presence that characterize the mystery of every Eucharistic celebration. Being a "living memo~ry" of Jesus, in other words, means seeking to give nourishment to others (banquet) through a humble offering of self (sacrifice) in the name and in the company of Jesus, who is "Emmanuel, God wi~h us" (presence). The Review for Religious Eucharist, in other words, not only is the summit of their lives, but permeates everything they do. Without it, there is no way they could continue or even survive. From Death to Life I once had the occasion to experience this eucharistic quality of the sisters' lives in a profound and beautiful way. Sister Mary Regina, one of the sisters in the community, was nearing death after a long-drawn-out battle with cancer. This was happening at the very time I had been scheduled to lead the sisters in their annual ten-day retreat. After learning that Regina's death was drawing near, I fully expected the retreat to be canceled (or at least postponed), since the sisters' hearts were heavy with sorrow and their schedule was already overloaded by the "round the clock" attention Regina's condition demanded. I was ~urprised, therefore, to learn that the community wanted the retreat to go on, despite the added strain it would put on them. I was even more surprised (but also delighted) when, on the first day of the retreat, the prioress asked if it would be all right to celebrate Mass in the infirmary so that Regina could attend from her sickbed. That Eucharistturned out to be the last Regina would ever share in--at least on this side of death. The breaking of the bread took on special significance as we celebrated in the presence of one whose life was ebbing away. The nearness of death brought a special solemnity to our celebration. Regina's silence added depth to our words; her gaze, a quiet calm to our troubled, questioning hearts. The knowledge that she would not be with us much longer affected the way we prayed. Everyone in the room seemed to have one eye fixed on the Lord and the other one on her. And that was the way it should have been, the way the Lord himself wanted it. This was Regina's moment. With her community around her, she was free to be herself before her Lord. Firmly fixed on the host, her eyes told us in a quiet, nonverbal way that Jesus was with her in a way he had never been before. So it is, I believe, with all of us at or near the time of death. Each one of us must one day drink from the same cup. Now it was Regina's turn. Separation from the world enables the sisters to be present on a much deeper level. November-December 2000 Billy ¯ Contemplative Religious Witness Near the end of Mass, I looked around the room and experienced that sense of communion that can only come from hearts united by their common yearning for God. As my eyes moved from face to face, I could sense the pain that the community as a whole and each of its members was experiencing as a result of Regina's illness and imminent death. I could also sense the deep love that bound them to each other and, at this special moment, to Regina. In the midst of the sadness, my gratitude deepened and gave way to a deep sense of peace. The Lord was with us, and that was all that mattered. I closed my eyes and imagined myself in the upper room. The Heart of the Church Contemplatives, we are told, live at the very heart of the church. On this day I was grateful for this brief glimpse God had given me into the heart of a contemplative community. There the simple mysteries of life and death are recognized, pondered, and celebrated. There human existence is plumbed to its depths and experienced in all its wonder and heightened fragility. There the restlessness of the human heart forages in the darkness of divine mystery. There God is allowed to be God and is welcomed, however he chooses to come. Very few of us ai'e called to live as contemplatives in the heart of the church. Those who hear the call and respond to it often find that they have been driven to it by the relentless pursuit of a passionate divine Lover. Happiness would elude them anywhere else. Only there, in the cloister, can they give themselves exclusively to God with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength. Their hidden life behind their monastery walls is the visible reminder of what they have left behind--and journeyed into. So essential is it to the good of the whole that it recedes, almost by necessity, to the background of life's numerous surface activities. Like the heart itself, it is never seen, rarely heard, seemingly still, but always pumping. The heart, one might say, is an appropriate metaphor for monastic enclosure itself. Some of the most vital activity in the entire body takes place within the narrow, confining chambers of the heart. These otherwise empty cavities are formed by the inner contours of the heart's muscle fibers. The constant expansion and contraction of these tissues forces the blood through the chambers Review for Religious and creates enough pressure to make it flow throughout the rest of the body. In a similar way the empty spaces within the cloister are visibly shaped by the rules of monastic enclosure which, firm yet flexible, allow the life of the contemplative community to distinguish itself from the rest of Christ's body in order to perform for it a special function. Here the all-important apostolic dimension of the contemplative life comes to light. The contemplative community plumbs the depths of the Spirit so that the life of the Spirit may flow more freely to all the members of the body. Here the law of inverted magnitudes operates in full force. The contemplative community confines itself in time and space in order to open itself up to and move more deeply into the sacred. This simultaneous movement ("juxtaposition," if you will) of contraction and expansion is at the center of the contemplative experience. Although not everyone is called to live a life of monastic enclosure, all of us are called to foster a contemplative attihade toward life. For us to do so, this dynamic .movement of physical withdrawal and spiritual expansion must somehow come into play for each of us. Active and Contehaplative I began these reflections by stating that my contact with the Redemptoristine community at Esopus has given me a deeper appreciation of the contemplative dimension of my vocation as a Redemptorist, missionary. I also like to think that, in some way, the appreciation has been mutual, giving rise in them to a deeper sense of the apostolic dimension of their lives as contemplative religious. We share a single charism which, although expressed in drastically different lifestyles, brings to light the plentiful redemption wrought for us in the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Contemplative religious, we have seen, live in the very heart of the church. The Redemptoristines, to my mind, do much the same for the apostolic mission of the Redemptorist congregation. Both orders, after all, share common origins and embrace the same motto: Copiosa apud eum redemptio ("With him there is plentiful redemption"). To follow the Lord in his work for the poor and most abandoned (as Redemptorists try to do) is closely tied to being a "living memory" of the risen Lord (as the sisters try to be). Each order focuses on a different dimension of the one redemptive mystery and, for this very reason, is intimately related to the other. Noventber-December 2000 My experience at Esopus has taught me that contemplative religious can best contribute to the apostolic mission of the church by simply being themselves and living whatever Rule they follow with patience, humility, and deep compassion. In doing so, they reveal the depth of their humanity and remind us of the intimacy we are all called to share with the divine. The eucharistic quality of their lives enables them to celebrate the present moment-- whatever it may bring--by sharing the gifts of self-offering and sensitive personal presence. Their life of solitude places them at the very heart of the church's life and ongoing mission. Their enclosed life offers the world a countercultural and eschatological sign of what is still to come, yet somehow already mysteriously present in the deepest recesses of the human heart. Like the Redemptoristines at Esopus, contemplative religious are called to lose themselves in the mystery of the divine in order to find themselves in the face of the very next person they meet. They plumb the depths of human experience in order to move more deeply into the sacred and live in intimate spousal union with their divine Lover. All of them are living reminders of the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. All are visible expressions of the church's living memory of what took place in the person of Jesus Christ and takes place today in his body, the church. Theirs is a message for all times, all places, and all circumstances. Those who hear it will recognize the need to foster in themselves a contemplative attitude toward life. Those who do not will miss a unique opportunity to peer beneath the surface of life and behold, as never before, the innermost treasures of the human heart. Review for Religious ANDRI~ MAUREEN SOETE A Vowed Response to the Postmodern World Tphosetm choadrearcnte wriostrilcds asryem bpetionmgs s, taunddie rde aalnitdie ps roofb oeudr bsyo -sccailelend-tists, sociologists, anthropologists, philosophers, and theologians. All seek to understand the reality, foresee the consequences, and arrive at some satisfactory description and response. Since I am not a theologian, scientist, philosopher, or any of the above, I do not claim to understand this reality, much less propose responses. What I offer is simply my own response as a woman religious, specifically a School Sister of Notre Dame. The Situation of Our Age Postmodern issues have been touching us and coming into our consciousness for some time now. Our world is rapidly chang-ing, and what we once thought were objective, unchangeable real-ities are in fact changing. The "way to be" and the "way to do" for the present generation seems so different from our way. What can all this mean to SSND sisters and associates at this time? This time of change may feel like a breakdown. The world has become so different that we may not like it and may question Andr,~ Maureen Soete SSND has ministered in Japan for thirteen years. This article is the address she gave to an assembly of Japanese and North American School Sisters of Notre Dame in Kyoto on 9 January 2000. Her address is 11 ol Kawarada-cho; Matsugasaki; Sakyo-ku; Kyoto 606, Japan. November-December 2000 Soete * A Vowed Response the direction in which it is heading. Envisioning ourselves living in this new age, we may have the feeling that we do not fit, for what we understood as reality is being challenged. This is not just the usual generation-gap experience that we have all probably experienced from one side or the other. This phenomenon has been observed by many since the first hints of it in the 1970s and is obviously a real cultural shift. The choices for different lifestyles, the questioning of what we considered permanent values, and the challenges to our thinking are in some ways unnerving. We may catch ourselves longing for the good old days--the secure structures, the way students "used to be," and the way convent life was. It almost tempts us to choose to respond by retreating--by going back. These times are being described by the word chaos. Some of the chaotic things that people observe and study are political, eco-nomic, and social oppression; poverty, starvation, and unemploy-ment; the oppression of women; the ecological crisis; nuclear threat; secularism, materialism, and the failure of churches to renew themselves and inspire belief. Chaos causes a great deal of anxiety, but it also provides us with the moment and the call to rediscover our real story and our deepest roots. How Our Foundress Would Respond As followers of Mother Theresa Gerhardinger, we can ask ourselves how she would manage in this age, how .she would respond if she were alive today. We know that our answer would have something to do with our charism. What is it that she passed on to us that is ageless? What is the changeless essence that will survive these times and even give us the hope we need to go on? When we think of Mother Theresa responding to her time and day we think of a strong woman of prayer, a woman of God, a woman in touch with the reality and needs of her day, a woman animated and energized by the conviction that women can change the world, a woman who knew that, if people can change, the world can cMnge too. But at the root of all these images of her was her sense of God's desire and call "that all be one." She longed for the oneness of all in God. She was a woman willing to strug-gle for unity on every level. She could see unity in diversity, for she believed in the rights of individuals and the respect due to each person. She learned the Review for Religious lessons essential for real unity--lessons of love, respect, appreci-ation, tolerance, and trust--first from her own parents and later from her mentors Bishop Wittmann and Father Job. These were her models, inspiring her to foster the same values among her sis-ters and her society. It was her commitment to unity and her drive "to make one" that gave her tireless energy for mission, and could give us the same tireless energy. The Postmodern Age The academic world has come to use the term "postmodern" in an attempt to name this period of the world's history because this is the period in which people are reacting to all that is false and untrue, all that has not worked in our familiar modern age. In some way the choice of the name "postmodern" is like calling the butterfly a "postcaterpillar." "Postcaterpillar" might be a suitable name during the period when we observe that the caterpillar is no more, that what was once the caterpillar now seems dead or half dead, changing unaccountably. But once we see the beautiful creature with bright wings emerge, flutter freely, and take flight, we find ourselves calling it a "butterfly." Similarly, because of the lack of clarity about the future, schol-ars describe the present reality by noting changes from the earlier condition.When all of the characteristics of this age become clear and show some coherence, it will be time to give the new period a name. The world may not reach that point in our lifetimes, but I hope that all of us want to be a part of the creation of the new name. We can do that by appropriately influencing, shaping, and creating some of the characteristics that will emerge. I suggest that a principal characteristic must be unity. That same oneness that was Christ's mission and Theresa Gerhardinger's mission must be our mission too. Failure of the Modern Age The modern age promised us that by science and technology, by dividing the whole, dissecting and labeling every part, and con-trasting one thing with another, it could understand and solve the problems of our world and probe the depths of reality. It promised that the world would be controlled and developed and perfected, and that human beings would reach great heights. But science November-December 2000 [--~2 ¯ Soete ¯ A Vowed Response Our prosperity and plenty come to us on the backs of the poor and oppressed. itself has had to admit that the mysteries of the world are far beyond such probing; that our scientific advances have actually destroyed much of our world and have led us to live in fear of some scientific developments; that actually, in spite of all of our sci-entific progress, we have missed opportunities to expand and develop our spiritual and human potential and have inst(ad created horrendous human misery. MI of the human misery in the world today is a sign that these former beliefs are not working. When I think of the oppression, poverty, ecological recklessness, uncontrolled materialism, and other problems of our day, I can understand why a new generation rejects our old answers. When I hear dogmatic pronouncements from our churches or from our governments about how things should be and see that those very pronouncements bring about more division than unity and hope alnong peoples, I can understand why some of my own young nieces and nephews reject them as incomplete, irrelevant, without meaning in their lives. It is probably true that there have always been famines, always children abused, always conflicts among religious groups, always people oppressed and exploited and murdered--but we have not always known about them with such immediate clarity. Now, thanks to advances in technology, we do. We are informed immediately about what is happening around the world. And we know now what the prophets and economists have been telling us for a long time, that our prosperity and plenty come to us on the backs of the poor and oppressed. And now the poor and oppressed know that too. We can see all of the "signs of the times" on our nightly news programs. It is up to us to read them carefully, interpret them honestly, and respond accordingly. If society is not organizing itself so as to be inclusive of all citizens, but chooses rather to be exclusive, then the developments in the world around us must sig-nal that we are going in the wrong direction. If our lack of respect for our environment cries out to heaven and to us in its misery, if our land is no longer fertile, our water is befouled, and our air is poisoned--if we really see and recognize this, we must know that we are going in the wrong direction. Review for Religious If our neglect of the poor and downtrodden causes our edu-cation and healthcare systems to fail, and if our competitive cul-tures make the lives of many people miserable, then all of that neglect and competition must be the wrong direction. If the signs tell me that life the way we have thus far organized it is not work-ing, that nothing succeeds, that my actions effect disaster for oth-ers, I am obviously moving in the wrong direction. After recognizing all of this, what do we do? We must make choices in response to these signs. We can choose to be "the tired ones" who give up to let someone else lead the renewal. We can choose to be "the selfish ones" who create only our own security and pleasure. Or we can choose to be "the hopeful ones" who will look for new possibilities for ourselves and for the world. I want us to be the ones who choose to be hopeful. I think we must con-tinue to believe that human beings hold the potential to create a world that works for all peoples. Our Vows as a Response I think that as vowed religious we might bring new dimen-sions to the thinking about solutions to world problems and could radically affect outcomes--not by seeing ourselves as an elite group distanced from our neighbors by some holy and private choices, by mysterious vows of poverty, celibacy, and obedience, but rather by remembering--and letting ourselves be reignited by--the zeal with which I think we all made our first vows. I mean the per-sonal hope that we would change the world for the better, that we ourselves would bring with us the presence of Christ, that by sharing our love, faith, and hope we would make Christ visible and bring all the world to oneness in God. What happened to that most wonderful zeal and enthusiasm? I think that we religious need to ponder deeply the meaning of our vows and the witness our lives can give, must give, in con-trast to various trends and news events. I think of instances of environmental pollution, of trials for war crimes, of the terroriz-ing of ethnic and religious groups, and of the mother of a young child who could kill another woman's little girl. We seek to be effective in demonstrating hope and bringing it into our world. In a world where millions (including helpless children) suf-fer from the lack of such essentials as food, clothing, shelter, medicine, and education; in a world where people use their wealth November-December 2000 Soete ¯ A Vowed Response to produce more wealth so that they can live in a style that uses up the goods of the earth; in a world where people want more and more and give less and less to the laborers who produce the goods; in a world full of people who throw away and waste without even a thought--in such a world I have promised, we have promised, to use only what we need and to share everything we have. Are we keeping that promise? Would anyone who looks at us, our lifestyles, or our closets notice our choiceto do with less and our willingness to share? Would they be edified, stand in awe of the way that we are keeping our promise? In a world where groups of human beings look upon other groups as lower and with great intolerance seek to get rid of them; in a world where "ethnic cleansing," ways of death, become a way of life for some; in a world where nationalism means that free-dom to be intolerant of the differences of other races or peoples-- in such a world I have promised, we have promised, to love inclusively and to take on Jesus' own reverence and concern for all people, excluding no one. Are we keeping that promise? Would anyone who looks at us, at our way of being with the people with whom we live, at our way of being with the people at our place of ministry, notice our love, tolerance, and respect? Would they be edified and stand in awe of the way we are keeping our promise? In a world where the strong and influential make decisions for the weak; in a world where whole groups of people are not consulted about matters that affect vital areas of their lives; in a world where people are murdered because they disagree--in such a world I have promised, we have promised, to search for God's will and the right direction through dialogue and conversation, con-sultation and collaboration with all concerned. Are we keeping that promise? Would anyone who watches how we lead or partic-ipate in groups of students or teachers or coworkers notice our collaborative style or the way we listen to every person? Wotild they be edified and stand in awe of the way we are keeping our promise? What Then? I have spoken about our vows, emphasizing them as three promises because the term "vows" can sometimes be spiritualized and focused only on our commitment to God. In thinking about them as promises, I had a sense of a great possibility. I began to see Review for Religious that what we promise is more like a radical way that all human beings need to choose if we are to create a world where all people can live with dignity. I Wonder what might happen if we shared these choices of ours more openly among ourselves and witnessed to them more radically with our associates and with our partners in ministry. I am not so sure of our next step. I am not so sure how this small core of friends and others like us might have a good impact on our society and our world. But I think that somehow we can--and I challenge ourselves and others to come alive with that potential. "Striving for Unity" is our charism. We are supposed to be masters of it by now. Why, in our Japan Region alone, if we add up all of our years of religious life, we have more than three thousand years of our SSND lifestyle! I hope that we and others may gather together everyone's good insights and with them create for ourselves an exciting and real-istic dream as we step forward with God into this third millennium. Many of us will probably not be around when the next era gets its name, but--just as we prefer the word "butterfly" to "postcaterpillar" when thinking of the little creature's potential--would we not want the concepts of oneness, tolerance, collaboration, acceptance, and respect to be part of the name given to the next era? Are there initiatives for us to take, or can we at least support and encourage the wonderful people around us who are already dedicating their lives to this conversion and transformation of the earth? Is this not what we want to use our energy and ingenuity for? Is this not a way that we could use our positions as educa-tors and as ministers? Is this not worth the offering of the rest of our lives? We have promised to use only what we need. Are we keeping that promise? November-Decen~ber 2000 LAWRENCE F. BARMANN Mary Ward: Centuries Her Scroll examples from the past Today, amid questions about effective evangelization in the 21st century, about leadership and ~uthority in the Catholic Church, and about women's fuller participa-tion in these efforts and echelons, there is much that can and should be learned from Mary Ward at long last. During her lifetime four hundred years ago, she experi-enced much suffering and failure, but her full contribu-tion to the church and the world seems now to be only beginning. For religious in the United States and else-where who may know little or nothing of this extraor-dinary woman, I hope this article may provide a brief but warm introduction. The recent book I will be draw-ing from and citing is an excellent place to make fur-ther acquaintance with her goodness and truth. I refer to Mary Ward: Pilgrim and Mystic by Margaret Mary Littlehales IBVM) Mary Ward was an English gentlewoman, well-con-nected by birth, and related to many of those who were executed for their part in the ill-conceived Gun Powder Plot of 1605. She was born in Yorkshire in 1585, three years before the defeat of the Spanish Armada and four- Lawrence E Barmann is a professor of American studies and theological studies at Saint Louis Univ, ersity. His address is Humanities Building; 3800 Lindell Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63108. Review for Religious teen years after Pope Pius V's bull Regnans in excelsis made techni-cal traitors out of all English Catholics who claimed allegiance to the pope by inviting them to dethrone Queen Elizabeth. So mar-tyrdom for the faith, or at least willingly accepted hardship for the ability to practice it, became the very atmosphere in which Mary Ward grew to adulthood. Such an atmosphere is often inducive to quick spiritual maturity, and in Mary Ward's case it certainly was. By the time she was sixteen, Mary Ward had developed a strong prayer life and the conviction that God intended her for the religious state in some form. Her parents thought otherwise, and Edmund Neville, heir to the earldom of Westmoreland, became her suitor. After Mary had gently rejected him, Neville became a Jesuit; and at twenty-one she persuaded her father to allow her to go to the continent to try her vocation to religious life. In 1606 Mary arrived at SaintoOmer in the Spanish Netherlands (now northern France), where English Catholics escaping persecution in their homeland had been migrating for decades. Through the advice of misguided confessors, she entered a Poor Clare convent, only to realize within a year that this was not where God intended her to be. In 1609 she returned briefly to England, where she seems to have gained some light about God's choice for her. Upon returning to Saint-Omer with a small group of English women about her own age, she set about doing for women's education what the Jesuits were doing for boys among the emigr~s. She called her community the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and her specific intention was "to train English girls from Catholic families to be wives and mothers or religious, but all to be apostles for the faith in England." She was convinced that women were quite as capable of edu-cation as men, though she thought they did not need precisely the same courses. For Greek and Hebrew she substituted modern lan-guages, and for physical training, dancing. Moreover, she set about having her own followers trained to teach such things. In the patri-archal world and church of the 17th century, this was considered wildly innovative and thus suspect; and so the church authorities, who alone could approve her work as a religious institute, were to make Mary pay dearly for such innovation. Once, in 1617, after hearing a Jesuit priest comment on the work of her schools that, "when all is done, they are but women," Mary remarked calmly but with conviction: "There is no such dif- November-Decen~ber 2000 Barmann ¯ Mary Ward ference between men and women that women may not do great things . And I hope in time to come it will be seen that women will do much . What think you of this word 'but women'? but as if we were in all things inferior to some other creature which I suppose to be man." Mary Ward's convictions about this and much else were drawn not primarily from books and debates, but from her intense relationship with God and from his grace working through her wonderfully balanced and prophetic personality. As the schools grew and young women increasingly wished to join Mary Ward's community, she needed to settle on some rule of life. By 1611 already about forty women had cast their lots with hers. Both the local bishop and her confessor tried to force her to adopt either the Augustinian, Benedictine, Franciscan, or Carmelite rules. To these urgings she could only respond that "they seemed not that which God would have." These "English Ladies," as they were now commonly called by their supporters (or "Jesuitesses," by their detractors), could not have adopted any of those earlier rules for women and continue to do the work to which they were called; all four rules as they were applied to women in those days required canonical enclosure. Finally Mary Ward had her answer, and it was to lead to incredible suffering for the remainder of her life. To the papal nuncio in Cologne, Monsignor Albergati, she explained: About this time, in the year 1611, being alone in some extraordinary repose of mind, I heard distinctly not by sound of voice, but intellectually understood, these words: "Take the same of the Society"; so understood as that we were to take the same both in matter and manner, that only excepted which God by diversity of sex hath prohibited. These few words gave so great a light in that particular institute, comfort and strength, and changed so the whole soul as that it was impos-sible for me to doubt, but that they came from Him whose words are works. Mary Ward's conviction that God intended her to adopt the Jesuit Rule to her institute of religious women and to do her spe-cial work in the world rather than in a cloister was what 17th-cen-tury western Europe obviously needed if it were to remain at all Catholic. But it was a conviction far in advance of the convictions of most of the male authorities in post-Reformation Rome. Furthermore, the Jesuits had managed to incur the jealous wrath of the secular clergy in England, and these latter pursued Mary with calumnious accusations simply because she intended to estab-lish a female religious congregation based on Jesuit principles. Review for Religious These calumnies found a ready hearing in Rome. The Jesuits them-selves were ambivalent about her institute, sometimes being extremely helpful and sometimes joining the enemy. In 1622 Mary Ward finally met the Jesuit general, Mutius Vitelleschi, who was deeply and permanently impressed by her. Henceforth the Jesuit general would instruct his men to be supportive of Mary's work and gracious to her, short of such involvement as might lead to a sort of second order--something St. Ignatius Loyola had strictly for-bidden. Meanwhile Mary's institute had established schools not only in Saint-Omer, but in Liege and Rome, and would soon have houses in Naples, Perugia, Munich, Vienna, Pressburg, and elsewhere. Mary herself, always of delicate physical constitution, went back and forth across the Alps, mostly on foot, frequently in winter and in the midst of the Thirty Years War, in order to strengthen and encourage her followers; while at the same time she worked tirelessly to gain the necessary support of bishops, the Roman curia, and the pope, for the approval of her institute. The number of high-placed clerics who opposed her for reasons that had nothing to do with reli-gion, or even good sense, always outnumbered those who sup-ported her. The bishop of Vienna, for instance, wrote to Rome in 1628 to complain that the English Ladies had opened a school there without his peymission (though they had the emperor's per-mission and he had even given them a house and funds) and that the girls in Mary Ward's school had actually performed publicly in a comic school play! With the Catholic religion collapsing in central Europe, a bishop's jealousy of his rights against the only Catholic ruler of any weight in the region would ultimately prevent the Catholic education of young women in the empire. Of popes with whom Mary had to deal, Urban VIII, who would condemn Galileo at Mary Ward's conviction that God intended her to adopt the Jesuit Rule to her institute of religious women was what 17th-century western Europe obviously needed if it were to remain Catholic. November-December 2000 Barmann ¯ Mar~ Ward about the same time that he condemned Mary Ward, was the most duplicitous. She first had an audience with Urban in 1624, in which she pleaded for approval of her institute and in which Urban smiled and smiled and totally misled her about his intentions. Eventually he ordered the suppression of all of her houses and the dissolution of her institute, and this merely on the basis of English clerical calumnies and calumnies spawned by the hurt pride of ambitious continental clerics. Mary herself was eventually imprisoned as a heretic in a Poor Clare convent in Munich, by order of the Roman Inquisition. There she nearly died, though she so impressed the resident Poor Clares that they knew she was anything but a heretic. Meanwhile, her followers were being systematically driven from their houses and were mostly on the verge of starvation. Having at length been released from prison, Mary set out at the end of 1631 for Rome in order to clear her good name for the sake of what she hoped might be the future of her institute. Kneeling at Urban's feet she burst out, "Holy Father, I am not nor ever have been a heretic." At which the pope interrupted, "We believe it, we believe it; we need no other proof." He also allowed the institute to continue (under private vows) in Rome and under his protection. In 1637 Mary Ward set out again for England, though it would be May of 1639 before she actually got there. She sought a letter from Pope Urban to give to Queen Henrietta Maria to gain the queen's support for her institute. The letter Mary received speaks of her as "one much esteemed in Rome both for her well-known qualities and piety, which will without doubt cause Your Majesty to see and hear her." This was the same Rome which, only half a dozen years earlier, had imprisoned her as a heretic and decreed the destruction of her life's work. The queen did receive Mary gra-ciously, but within a year the country would be in the throes of political ttirmoil that would end in civil war and the execution of the king. Without completely abandoning her hope of establishing a school in London, Mary went north to Yorkshire in 1642, and there she died at Osbaldwick, a short distance from the city of York, on 20 January (old style) 1645. After her death Mary Ward's institute did in fact flourish, and finally, in 1977, after a wait of 366 years, the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary was able to realize Mary Ward's original insight and founder's charism by adopting the Jesuit Constitutions, and with the blessing of the Jesuit general, Pedro Arrupe. Margaret Mary Review for Religious Littlehales's study of Mary's Ward's life reveals many things. It reveals the costliness, but also the great happiness, of completely abandoning oneself to God. It also demonstrates that, within the external church structure, official authority can be quite wrong, but probably less so in proportion to the genuine humility of its wielders. Mary Ward's life demonstrates incontrovertibly that God's intended purposes are often achieved through the near annihilation of the human instruments of that achievement. Christians should not be surprised by this, for such was the case with God's own Son. Contemporary religious, both men and women, can find great encouragement and inspiration in the life of this saintly English woman. Dorothy Day did, and she even titled her own autobiog-raphy with a remark Mary Ward once made as she pondered what lay ahead of her as a young woman bent on seeking only God's will--"the long loneliness." Note 1 Margaret Mary Littlehales, Mary Ward, Pilgrim and Mystic, 1~8Y- 164~ (Tunbridge Wells, England: Burns and Oates, 1998). Pp. 272. £18.95. Patrimony my patrimony is a deity unknown whose name I cannot pronounce communicated to me in stuttering speech, in fits of temper and in weeping, in so many questions unleavened by answers in silence and in absence by those struck dumb and those afraid to speak Sefin Kinsella November-December 2000 STAN PARMISANO St. Catherine's Letters: Human Love, Gracious Authority One level of St. Catherine of Siena, perhaps her deepest, is revealed in her Dialogue.' But this great work, whether in the original or in proper translation, is strange fare for many mod-ern readers. Its subject matter--mystical union with the Trinity in and through Christ--is high and heavy and, I should think, attractive only to the relatively few seriously intent upon such union. Its language often includes words and phrases borrowed from the scholastic theology of the day, though Catherine's orig-inal genius keeps breaking through, giving new form to old mat-ter. The book is also rife with personification and allegory (Christ the Bridge, the Tree of Life, Vineyard of the Soul, and so forth)-- fun for the medieval reader, but dry and tedious for today's read-ership. Also, in the Dialogue Catherine is quite formal and impersonal. The lively, dynamic personality recorded in history is certainly there, but it has to be searched out, for it is hidden in the shadow of the great Truth she labors to expound. She herself is merely un'anirna in the mighty presence of her God. Her letters are a different matter.2 They are personal--writ-ten not by an anonymous "soul," but by the flesh-and-blood Catherine. Io Caterina rings throughout, addressed not to people in general, but to here-and-now individuals. The letters evoke wide and popular interest. They deal with Catherine's own life Stan Parmisano OP wrote about theology and faith in our September- October issue. His address remains Saint Albert's Priory; 5890 Birch Court; Oakland, California 94618. Revie'a, for Religiou, and visible experiences and with details about life around her, social and political as well as spiritual. Their language is not borrowed from or freighted with outmoded rhetorical devices, but is pleas-ingly spontaneous and informal, as alive today as in Catherine's own time. On the whole the letters are original. They are Catherine, in every vibrant word and phrase--simple, nuanced, various, alive with passion for the truth, and the truth in particu-lar situations. They are "unliterary," to be sure, for they were talked, not written, by our unlettered saint, but they are clear and coherent, direct and firm, though also tactful. Catherine sometimes digresses, loses the train of her thought, but she never really rambles on or gossips. She has little time for light conversation ("Let us run, let us run, for the time is short!"), and her central point is almost always clear and precise. Though each of her letters is unique, many of them fall into a common pattern. They begin with Jesus, and with Catherine as the slave of the servants of God--never, for Catherine, a mere pious formula, but always freshly genuine. Then she often seems to lose herself in the contemplation and exposition of one of the mysteries of faith, which, however, turns out to be pertinent to the subject of the letter. Soon she comes to the question at issue, and, if in the initial paragraphs she was high and spiritual, peacefully contemplative, now she is very much the active apostle dealing practically and in detail with earthy mat-ters. She ends with statements of love and concern for her corre-spondent, placing all in the hands of God: "Bathe you in the blood of Christ crucified. Sweet Jesus, Jesus Love." The letters reveal the breadth as well as depth of Catherine's concerns, and her marvelous ability to adapt, with no compromise of ideal, to various situations and personalities. To a little niece she writes in gentle, childlike simplicity about the wise and foolish virgins in the Gospel and the lamps they bear: "Do you know what this means, my daughter? By the lamp is meant our heart, because a heart ought to be like a lamp. You see that a lamp is wide above and narrow below, and so the heart is made to signify that we ought always to keep it wide above through holy thoughts and holy imaginations and continual prayer; always holding in mem-ory the blessing of the Blood by which we are bought . I said . simple, nuanced, various, alive with passion for the truth, and the truth in particular situations. November-December 2000 Parmisano ¯ St. Catherine's Letters that a lamp is narrow below, and so is our heart: to signify that the heart ought to be narrow toward these earthly things--that is, it must not desire or love them extravagantly, nor hunger for more than God wills to give us" (letter no. 23). To Alessa, as to other of her women disciples, she sends prac-tical advice about the religious life, which is to be lived "both with and without moderation . For love toward God should be with-out measure, and that for creatures should be measured by that for God, and not by measure of one's own consolations, whether spiritual or temporal." And how manage this? "Make two homes for yourself, my daughter: one actual home in your cell, that you go not running about into many places, unless for necessity, or for obe-dience to the prioress, or for charity's sake; and another spiritual home, which you are to carry with you always." This last, she con-tinues, is "the cell of true self-knowledge," embracing both the knowledge of God and the knowledge of self, "two cells in one. ¯ and when abiding in the one you must abide in the other, for oth-erwise the soul would fall into either confusion or presumption. For, if you rested in the knowledge of yourself, confusion of mind would fall upon you; and, if you dwelt in the knowledge of God alone, you would fall into presumption" (no. 49). Still within the uncompromising truth and love of Jesus, but with some relevant adaptation, she writes in a much different vein to Sir John Hawkwood, the English soldier of fortune who was the scourge of the Italian city-states. She begs him to leave "the service and pay of the devil., and take the pay and the cross of Christ crucified." He is a soldier; let him remain such, but let him now become Christ's knight: "I beg you, then, gently in Christ Jesus, that, since God and also our Holy Father have ordered a crusade against the infidels and [since] you take such pleasure in war and fighting, you should not make war against Christians any-more-- for that is wrong to God; but go against the infidels. For it is a great cruelty that we who are Christians, and members bound in the body of Holy Church, should persecute one another." And she concludes abruptly but quite aptly with a subtle undertone of warning against his soldiering altogether: "I beg you, dearest brother, to keep in memory the shortness of your time." Her final words are as usual: "Remain in the holy and sweet grace of God. Sweet Jesus, Jesus Love" (140). To that formidable woman of the world Queen Joanna of Naples, who first sided with Clement, then Urban, then with Review for Religious Clement again in their rival claims on the papacy, Catherine writes in a similar manner, but with deeper sorrow and fiercer passion: "Dearest Mother--mother, I say, insofar as I see you to be a faith-ful daughter of Holy Church--it seems to me that you have no mercy on yourself. Ah me! because I love you I grieve over the evil state of your soul and body. I would willingly lay down my life to prevent this cruelty. Many times I have written to you in compassion, showing you that what is shown you for the truth is a lie; and the rod of divine justice., is ready for you if you do not flee so great a wrong. It is a human thing to sin, but perseverance in sin is a thing of the devil . Be merciful, ah, be merciful to yourself]. I say no more to you. Remain in the holy sweet grace of God. Sweet Jesus, Jesus Love" (348). She writes differently to Gregory xI than at a later date she would write to Urban vI. Gregory was weak and vacillating, and so in her letters to hi~n she exhorts him to be "manly" and firm in his high office of supreme pontiff: "Be manly in my sight, and not timorous . I, Catherine. write you in his precious Blood, desiring to see you a manly man (uomo virile) without any servile fear." And, when Gregory hesitates in his resolve to return to Rome for fear of being poisoned there, Catherine reminds him that there are other, more terrible kinds of poison; and at any rate there's as much poison "on the tables of Avignon . as on those of Rome!" (229, 239). Urban, on the other hand, from the start of his pontificate was already betraying that spirit of anger and vindictiveness that would end in personal revenge, violence, and mt~rder. One had written to Catherine after the election of Urban: "It seems that our new Christ is a terrible man." In her first letter to him, Catherine appears to be aware of this and shapes her words accordingly: "Next I beg you, and constrain you by the love of Christ crucified, as to those sheep who have left the fold--I believe for my sins-- that, by love of that Blood of which you are made minister, you delay not to receive them in mercy, and with your benignity and holiness force their hardness; give them the good of bringing them back to the fold, and, if they do not ask it in true and perfect humility, let Your Holiness supply for their imperfection. Receive from a sick man what he can give you" (291). Religious life is to be lived "both with and without moderation." November-December 2000 Parmisano * "St. Catherine's Letters She writes to William Flete and other hermits at Laceto a gem of a letter begging them to leave for a time the peace and quiet of their forest retreat and come to Rome on pilgrimage in support of Urban. She desires them so to lose themselves as to seek "nor peace nor quiet elsewhere than in Christ crucified." If out of piety they are loath to leave their solitary life, they must know that there are woods and forests aplenty in and around Rome! (326). To Raymond of Capua, her Dominican soul brother and dearest friend, she writes in every which way: tenderly, pas-sionately, in joy, in anger; now as a scolding mother, now as his obedient daughter, now reproving him for cowardice and want of faith, now exposing her own weakness and want of love. And, often uncomfortably for Raymond, always she wants him together with herself to die a martyr: "I tell you, sweetest Father, that, whether we will or no, the time we are living in enjoins us to die, so do not live any longer." (333). Catherine's Human Love This last suggests one of two facets of Catherine's personality that may prove especially problematic for the modern reader of her letters, namely, the quality of her human love. The spontane-ity, passion, naturalness, and totality of her love for the Person of Christ is beyond question: she is quite literally consumed, body and soul, with love for Him, who is mad (pazzo), drunk (ebro) with love for her. But, when it comes to lesser*folk, her native inclina-tions seem to be oversupernaturalized, and her love may appear forced and lacking in the milk of human tenderness and warmth and understanding. This would explain the extreme discomfort she experiences when ordered by the Lord to leave her solitary life and give to others the same love that she gave to

Part one of an interview with Matthew, Sarah, and Anna Colangelo. Topics include: Matthew attends school at Applewild in Fitchburg, MA. What it is like growing up in a house with parents who immigrated to the United States from Italy. Matthew's Italian identity while living in America and American identity while visiting in Italy. How life is different in the U.S. as compared with Italy. Matthew's thoughts on immigrants coming to the U.S. Matthew's grandmothers: one lives in the U.S. and the other is in Italy. The importance of carrying on Italian traditions. Matthew's religious beliefs and practices. The importance of education. Sarah discusses her education and area of study. Sarah gives a family history and discusses how life is different in Italy from life in the U.S. What it was like for Sarah being in Italy during the September 11th attacks. ; 1 INTERVIEWER: Kelly [unintelligible - 00:00:02]. It's Wednesday, December 26, 2001. We're at the home of Anna Canlangelo. First interview is with Mathew, her son, at 42 Leominster Road in Lunenburg. Tell me a little bit about yourself as far as when you were born, where you were born. MATHEW: I was born in America in [1997]. My parents both come from Italy. They both come from the town of [Corfinio] in [el Bruto] in Italy. I've gone to Applewild School for 10 years. We go to Italy every summer to see relatives there. I have probably -- three-fourths of my family live in Italy. So… INTERVIEWER: Tell me a little bit about the Applewild School. MATHEW: The Applewild School is in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. It's a private school from kindergarten to ninth grade. After ninth grade, usually kids apply to other private schools [unintelligible - 00:01:10] schools. But… I mean, there are foreign languages you take at Applewild; they're usually French and Latin. There's no Italian. But… INTERVIEWER: Do you speak Italian? MATHEW: I wouldn't say I'm fluent in it, but I can definitely get by, usually. INTERVIEWER: Dialect, or…? MATHEW: No. INTERVIEWER: Okay. Father speaks Italian in the home? MATHEW: Well yeah. They -- my parents speak it in the home. I mean, they speak it with my relatives all the time. Especially going to Italy, you know, I've really picked up the language. So yeah, I guess over 14 years, I picked up a little bit. INTERVIEWER: Yeah. Can you write in the language, or is it really just speaking? MATHEW: It's just really the speaking. [Unintelligible - 00:01:58] either. INTERVIEWER: Uh-huh. Oh, I understand that your, your grandfather is an immigrant. He was born in Italy. Your father was born in Italy. And so how long has your father lived here in America? 2 MATHEW: He's lived here ever since my parents got married. I don't know the exact year, but I'd say… about 23 years, I'd say. He obviously speaks English. He picked it up fairly quickly. He went to school in the US for a little while. INTERVIEWER: Okay. So getting back to Applewild, I just wanted to ask you a few more questions about that. Is that a boarding school? MATHEW: No. It's not. That's a day school. INTERVIEWER: A day school. MATHEW: But usually after Applewild, kids go to boarding schools. INTERVIEWER: Mm-hmm. But you are [Unintelligible - 00:02:49]? MATHEW: Yes. I would like to go boarding school too. [Unintelligible - 00:02:53] in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. INTERVIEWER: Top choice? MATHEW: Top choice. Probably St. Paul's or Exeter. INTERVIEWER: Exeter, is that where your uncle went? [Unintelligible - 00:03:05] MATHEW: He went to [unintelligible - 00:03:06]. INTERVIEWER: Okay. All right. So your sister went to Exeter? Tell me a little bit about growing up in Lunenburg as the son of really immigrant father. Do you think you had a different experience than your friends who maybe their parents are…? MATHEW: As opposed to friends that parents aren't immigrants? INTERVIEWER: Right, mm-hmm. MATHEW: Well, I mean, it's not as different as maybe one may think, but it's a whole -- in that cultural aspect, it's very different just for the simple fact that I go to Italy over the summer, and I travel maybe more than other kids might. But otherwise, it's not very different, because of course you're surrounded by a lot of people that are not from such a cultural background, they're not from -- parents are non-immigrants. So my life wouldn't be different. Maybe inside the house it could be different, but outside the house with other friends and just in society, it's not different at all.3 INTERVIEWER: Not different. What about in the house? How is it different? MATHEW: Well, in the house, I mean, you're talking Italian sometimes. Other families might not. Most of the families only speak English. Maybe someone else speaks another language, but they won't speak it in the house. So you kind of have that, like, dual side of the family. You have an English side and an Italian side, but when you put it together, inside the house, it makes the whole atmosphere very, very different than just a family that only speaks one language, only communicates in one language. INTERVIEWER: As well, the different traditions and the fact that your father did grow up in Italy, he obviously must have different notions of family life, of how a teenager should act, what a teenager should do. MATHEW: Well, it's funny. When he came to America, his whole idea about a teenager going -- because he pretty much was a teenager when he came to America. I mean, he was 20 some odd years old, okay? But pretty much plus or minus, like, five years, so he was still teenager, post-teenager age. So he really developed his notion of how a teenager should act in America. He's more open to the fact that teenagers should talk about different things just like adults should talk about them. So he's not a very restrictive parent, I should say. Maybe some other American parents are, but… INTERVIEWER: Do you see any differences though between your parents, your mother growing up here, all of those years growing up in America compared to your outlook? MATHEW: His outlook on…? INTERVIEWER: Maybe just on family. MATHEW: Well, in Italy, family is, like, really strong. They're all together. Like for instance, in Corfinio, all my family lives within, say, even like an acre, like really close together. I mean, immediate family, like grandparents, aunts. I mean of course, some other aunts live 4 in other parts of Italy, but it's very close family. In United States, maybe families could live across the country. There's no like boundary almost in United States for a family, different parts of the family could live. I think that's pretty important about Italian families is that they all are very closely -- all live very close to each other. INTERVIEWER: I guess I was wondering too—this is kind of what I was thinking of—is that your dad growing up in the confines of that small village. Here he is with aunts and uncles and grandparents and extended family living practically on his land when I [unintelligible - 00:07:30]. And the potential of his son and his daughter going away to private school; that must be very, very different thinking. MATHEW: Well, he's pretty open to the idea. He's always encouraged me and my sister to go to boarding school and to live away from home. I think that's pretty important for him to see us live away from home. I think it's important to us as well because we're never going to be able to live with our parents for such a long period of time, so I think it's important for us to go live outside the house. And of course, I think us, as a more Italian-American family, we're almost prone to spread away from the family when we grow up as opposed to an Italian family in Italy living really close together. It's kind of different in America. It's like we're the first generation of people who would take away from this Italian culture, I guess you could say, just for the simple fact that we're not full-blooded Italian. INTERVIEWER: That's interesting, because you really are full-blooded Italian, right? You're an American citizen. MATHEW: American citizen, but -- full-blooded Italian, but in the sense I'm not considering all of my principles are based in America. But yes, I'm full-blooded Italian. 5 INTERVIEWER: I think that your mother had mentioned that you used to [unintelligible - 00:09:08] Fitchburg, or Lunenburg, you -- Leominster right now? MATHEW: Lunenburg. INTERVIEWER: Lunenburg, okay. That you consider yourself, but you're an Italian; but when you're in Italian, you're an American. MATHEW: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Yeah? Can you explain that a little bit? MATHEW: Well, in America there's so many different cultures. There's so many different backgrounds of people from so many different countries, people come to America. It's funny that no one in America is actually considered American. I'm considered an Italian, or someone else an Irish, or whatever. But when you go to Italy, most of the people in Italy are considered Italian. So, when you go there, especially for me because I don't really speak Italian fluently, so I can't communicate, like, every single time to say something. So in that aspect, I am considered an American. It's hard to say if I'm really an Italian or really an American. So I think that's where you consider yourself an Italian-American from standpoint. INTERVIEWER: When you go back to Italy -- first of all, do you have cousins in Italy? MATHEW: Mm-hmm. INTERVIEWER: Do you ever wonder…? MATHEW: Oh, definitely. Life would have been much different. As I said before, your family, you would all be really close together; but in America, you're more spread out. I mean, just a whole life in America as opposed to in Italy, and I think that's why my grandparents came to America is that the whole point is that in America, you're free to do so much more and you have so many more windows of opportunity than in Italy. I'm not saying that 6 Italy is in any way like a Third World country or anything, because it's not in any way. It wouldn't be better or worse, you could say, because there's also many good things about living in Italy. But I'd say that living in America, it's just more open, and you're free to roam wherever you like, I guess, is a good way to say it. INTERVIEWER: Your family would probably have different expectations of you. Do you have someone that's about your age and male? MATHEW: Sure. Male? No. INTERVIEWER: No? Oh, so… MATHEW: I mean I have friends there. INTERVIEWER: So how were the expectations different? What are their goals compared to…? MATHEW: Well, especially in Corfinio nowadays, they don't really set a high bar for themselves, especially the males around my age. The education can be compared. It's not horrible, but like, it seems to me that they don't really strive for good education. Like for my cousin that's like a female per se, it can be like very opposite. They strive for like a good education, and they try to, like, do something with their life, I guess. But… yes, I mean the education in Italy is they pinpoint, you know. You go to a high schools that's for languages, or you go to a high schools that's for math and science. So that's just another way that you can say that in Italy, you're not really free to do what you want as much as before. INTERVIEWER: Is that because the jobs, there aren't as many jobs available? MATHEW: Well, there definitely are jobs available, especially in the north, but no, I wouldn't say that. I think they're just trying to push the kids towards a specific trade so that they can do much better. INTERVIEWER: Do you think that your cousins would stay in Corfinio [unintelligible - 00:13:11]? MATHEW: If they had the chance to move to the US? INTERVIEWER: Mm-hmm.7 MATHEW: Right now, I'd say they definitely would not, considering their whole family lives in Italy, but -- and also they don't speak English that well. They have courses in English, but they don't speak it that well. They've grown up in Italy, but if you would say, like, if they had a chance to grow up in America as opposed to growing up in Italy, probably, I would say. Just for the fact that like America over there seems to be this whole big deal, coming to America is considered like -- America is something they don't know about, so I think, yeah, definitely. They would choose to love to grow up in America. INTERVIEWER: And do you think that they have hopes to stay in the village, or they want to move to the north where the opportunity…? MATHEW: Well, I think -- I mean, the size of the town is dwindling. It kind of used to be -- the population used to be as high as about 3,000. Now it's about 900. I mean, it's hard to say. You see a lot of kids around my sister's age moving out of the city, going to, like, Rome, places like that. You also see a few of them staying in the town and working in, like, little shop, like little restaurants or something. But I think, yeah, I think many people had kind of moved away from the town as opposed to staying in the town and preserving the traditions of the southern or the central… INTERVIEWER: Have any of your cousins had the opportunity to travel to America just to visit? MATHEW: Yes. My older cousin, Francesca, has come twice. My younger cousin, Augusta, she's about my age. She's 14. She has never come to Italy. My aunts have come twice. I mean, yeah, definitely. They come back and stay. They like coming to America. I mean, it's certainly different from living in Italy. But I think they would choose to live in Italy at this point rather than 8 coming to America, and I don't blame them. I mean, if I was in their shoes, I would also rather live in Italy than live in America. INTERVIEWER: Tell me why. MATHEW: Well, as I said before, your whole life you lived in Italy. If I was them, I wouldn't really feel ready to move to America; because in America, then you have to set up your whole life to get, like, find a house, just to find everything, whereas in Italy, you have everything all set up for you. INTERVIEWER: But beyond that, what about lifestyle? MATHEW: Lifestyle? I'd say that… I mean, if you live in Italy for that long, the lifestyle, you get used to it. For instance, at night, you're always outside. You're walking around there in the piazza. You're always doing something, whereas in America, at night you're always in the house. So in that aspect, social life, Italy would be more open; but in many other aspects, it would be really [ripped in], really closed off in a way. So for the social aspect, yeah, definitely I think at the end of the day, it's much more free, definitely. It's really comforting, and you get to see your relatives only for a month in a year. I would choose the social life in Italy over the social life in America just for the simple fact that it's much more involved and you can go outside and not worry about anybody doing anything to you or anybody getting in your way or anything. In Italy, they're all outside. Everyone is outside at night, and it's normal for them; whereas in America, it seems like no one goes outside anymore. INTERVIEWER: [Unintelligible - 00:17:41] events of September 11th. MATHEW: Sure. Yes, especially my father. My sister came back from Italy a couple of weeks. Of course, they feel bad about it, but I don't think their ideas… I don't think they stray much from the whole world aspect of what happened on that day. I mean, they're 9 certainly not only afraid but disgusted at Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden. And I think on a world [political] stage, Italy is becoming very forceful, and they've become a stronger nation in the world platform, I guess you can say. On their views, they're being heard much more. And, like, Italy actually sent in about 2,000 troops to Afghanistan, so they're actually pushing and working. They're taking initiative to create a stronger nation. So I think that's good. But their ideas about September 11th though stray much from ours. INTERVIEWER: What is your viewpoint? How did you feel? Do you and your friends [unintelligible - 00:19:08] and how the world has changed? MATHEW: Sure. Definitely. I mean, I personally don't worry a lot about going on airplanes now, but you realize how so many people would worry and be afraid, especially what happened a couple of days ago with the flight going to Miami. But it's definitely a scary thing. But I don't think you can really worry about it that much. You can't help that cause. They're doing that just for that simple reason. The terrorists are doing that just [unintelligible - 00:19:49]. So… yeah, I mean, my feelings about it are pretty strong, I believe. I definitely feel that United States took the right action against the terrorists. And I guess we just have to feel [unintelligible - 00:20:11] from there. I mean, we're in the process of it. We're not looking back on it yet. We have to wait a little longer to look back on it because we're still in the middle of it. INTERVIEWER: [Unintelligible - 00:20:25] what life must have been like for your grandfather [unintelligible - 00:20:30]. MATHEW: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Do you speak about that?10 MATHEW: Sure. Well, life was much harder then, especially during World War II. Especially for my grandfather coming to America and living, like now, it's a total change for him. I think that was the reason for why he came to America. I mean, you don't realize it now because Italy has improved much over the years. But if you look back and how life is in Italy back then and you compare it with the life in America back then, coming to America is a big step. And also like an economic and socioeconomic background standpoint, definitely. I think that's just the will to improve and the will to thrive in America when you're coming in as an immigrant, because if you're an American back then, you could take things for granted or you could say, "Oh yeah, I'm an American. I can see all these people coming in." It's like nationalism. These people shouldn't deserve this, but them coming in, they think, "Oh yeah, we really have to work," because they know that's what the people are thinking, the Americans that have lived in America for a longer period of time. INTERVIEWER: Well, that brings up an interesting point. How do you feel? Or are you complacent, do you think, than someone -- let's say, a father at 14? MATHEW: Well… I wouldn't say complacent, but I obviously have a much different life than he did. I'm living in America, and I've lived in America. And America itself has also grown over, like, these 60 years. But I wouldn't consider myself the people from America back then, when my grandfather came to America feeling that these people shouldn't be here or whatever, simply because I'm a grandson of a person who came to America. So it's kind of different for me to be more complacent or less complacent. In a way, I'm very similar to him, like, if thinking lies about the whole subject. 11 INTERVIEWER: So what about coming from nothing basically, and he wanted to secure money just to live, but now he's become viably successful? How does a grandson get that drive by that much? MATHEW: I guess the drive to succeed would obviously be less than maybe him coming to America, but you kind of have to build that up as you go along, and you can't let it be less. You can't -- you have to motivate yourself to do something. And you can't just say that just because he was more motivated, he would do better things than a person that would stereotypically be less motivated, because that person could motivate themself to be more driven to succeed. So I myself would obviously consider myself less driven to succeed than he was at that stage. INTERVIEWER: So getting back to your grandfather though, what kinds of stories has he shared with you about living in Italy and how difficult it was? MATHEW: It's funny, he never told me. He never exaggerated or said anything about how difficult it was. He was always talking about family, always talking about the good things about living back there. But then you looked back upon it and you say no, it couldn't have been that good. Okay. Or else why else would you come to America, you know? But yeah, his stories are usually good and not denouncing Italy, or not saying anything bad about Italy or the social life. I mean, his stories really form a foundation in my thinking about living back then in Italy in the '40s and even the '50s. I would say that it definitely has changed over the past 60 years, and that it's not as bad as people might have thought it to be. INTERVIEWER: Back to your friends or your grandfather when he [audio glitch 00:25:42] things like that, and you said you may have a different view of that; and the recent immigrants the people you may either hang out with or associate [audio glitch 00:25:50] thinking your grandfather coming over and having those… 12 MATHEW: You mean other people coming over? INTERVIEWER: Other people coming over. MATHEW: Sure, definitely. I'm not in the position to say that these people have a better chance than I do. There's no reason for me to be angry at these people from coming over especially if my grandfather went through that when he came to America. But I think it's a totally different world these days. You can still have your place with all the immigrants and all the people coming to America now—not that there's as many as before, but there are more opportunities in America today, so you still have the same amount of chances as you would have back then as an American living in America. I mean, even more. So I'm not sure you should really afraid that these people will take your jobs. You have just as much jobs open, just as many windows of opportunity open for you. INTERVIEWER: But there's also a segment of the population that they feel as though maybe [audio glitch 00:27:05] education, welfare, all kinds of social programs. MATHEW: That's tough to say. I mean, could you specify or be specific? INTERVIEWER: Well, I guess what I'm getting at is—and you may not know this because of course you're living within [audio glitch - 00:27:21]. If I were to interview another 14-year-old immigrant, parents, grandparents, maybe not going to a private school, they would have a totally -- they may [audio glitch 00:27:30] different perception of ethnic growth, most probably have a different attitude [audio glitch 00:27:37] they lived in. MATHEW: Yeah, sure. It's very similar to that last question of -- you know, you can't really say anything bad about the people coming in because they're coming for the same reason that my grandparents came to America. So you almost think that they should have this same right as any American living in America now. So I wouldn't 13 say that most Italian-Americans my age would think that they're, like, inferior or would think that they government is giving them too many opportunities, too many rights, because I couldn't speak for all of them. I personally don't think that they're being given too many rights. INTERVIEWER: [audio glitch - 00:28:26] grandmother like? MATHEW: My grandmother? Well, she's one of the Italian grandmas. She cooks. She's really nice. Italian grandmothers don't really stray. They're not very different from… She's funny. [Unintelligible - 00:28:50] adjectives. INTERVIEWER: Go ahead. Now, this was your mother's mother you're talking about. MATHEW: Yes. They're living in America. She's just, like, happy to be around. She's never down. She has a good attitude about things, I would say. It's exactly the same for my grandmother living in Italy. INTERVIEWER: I was going to ask you to compare them. MATHEW: Yeah. They're very similar, and you would think that considering they both come from Italy. She thinks that there's no reason to be angry at anyone. There's no reason to be mad. She's… INTERVIEWER: How do they spend their days? I mean, is there a difference in how they spend -- let's say their leisure time, your two grandmothers? MATHEW: Yeah. They cook a lot, spend time cooking. They're usually around the house. My grandmother in America goes out a little more, but usually they stay in the house and don't go very far. They'll move around. INTERVIEWER: [Unintelligible - 00:30:05] your grandmother in Italy have a lot of people coming in and out and more associations than possibly… MATHEW: No. INTERVIEWER: No?14 MATHEW: Definitely not. My grandmother in Italy I would say has more. Most of the people coming in and out of my grandmother's house in Italy are the relatives, or especially -- that's what I see when I go over there. INTERVIEWER: Yeah. MATHEW: But that could also just be because the relatives are brought together more because we're there. But I would say that my grandmother in America, she sees more people than my grandmother in Italy, or has more connections to social life, you could say, other people her age. INTERVIEWER: Or they're socially the same? And what about your mother, how can you compare your mother to your American grandmother? MATHEW: Well, I would say my mother is more American than my grandmother. Her ideas about life are just more, I guess, American. And I use the word "American" saying, almost like a stereotype of the first generation, second generation of immigrants coming in. She doesn't think in an Italian sort of way, like my grandparents, or my grandmother, especially. But I think she has kind of transformed in a way to the more open and more… I'd say open and… not as… it's kind of like redundant [audio glitch 00:31:57] mind, and not as specific and restricted way of thinking. Because in Italy, everything is the way it is, and nothing really changes. Whereas in America, with all the different cultures, there's so many things that change over the course of the year, so you can't really be thinking the same way throughout all your years. INTERVIEWER: Do you mean in the tradition? MATHEW: Old traditions. Yeah. Well, I mean just the fact that there's so many different cultures in America that you can't think in one way. You can't just think there's only Christmas because there's Hanukkah, whereas in Italy, it's mostly like yeah, just Christmas, 15 just like this and just that. So yeah, I would say my mother is the first generation of a family that's starting to think in the more American way, a truly diverse aspect. INTERVIEWER: And I interviewed many, let's say, elderly; and they either came over here for -- most cases they tell me that their parents worked so hard, or what happened is that their kids went on to school, they got better homes; but with that progress also comes kind of disassociation, and they're no longer at grandma's house sort of thing. So I'm wondering, how do you feel about that progress that your family has made? Or maybe you don't really see it? MATHEW: We talked about it a little before, at how, like, in Italy you're very close together. Coming to America, you kind of -- someone said before disassociate yourself from the family and from the traditions that it holds. I mean, I can't say a lot because I'm not my mother in that sense. I won't have a firsthand view, that view of that. But from viewing what I can view, I would definitely say that that is true. You kind of disassociate yourself from the Italian society, the whole Italian traditions. Whether or not you become richer, you have bigger cars and bigger houses, that's one thing. That can be true and that can't be true; but anyway, to think that you disassociate yourself whether or not you become richer or poor. INTERVIEWER: Oh, it's important to yourself to keep the traditions going on? MATHEW: Sure. I mean, there's no reason why that they shouldn't be continued. But they're no longer men traditions, the whole [unintelligible - 00:34:45] so long ago. Of course we still go to my grandmother's house for dinner once in a while, whereas in Italy they go every single night. INTERVIEWER: Every night?16 MATHEW: Yeah, definitely. Every night. Now, there's just not as many traditions to hold onto as there were back when my grandparents came to America… INTERVIEWER: [audio glitch 00:35:08] family hold on to? MATHEW: Well, we still go to my grandmother's house for Christmas. We used to go for Easter. Once in a while, we'll go for dinner. But that's not very often. I would say maybe a couple of times a month. INTERVIEWER: A couple of times a month. MATHEW: A couple of times a month. INTERVIEWER: Yeah. MATHEW: A month, like a few times a month. But I think our family is pretty close as opposed to other families of different cultural backgrounds. INTERVIEWER: How about religion? Do you go to church or belong to a parish? MATHEW: Well, it's hard to say I belong to a parish because I've been to about three different churches in the area; and I think it's an important thing to say too. This generation, my generation, I think we're not being pushed as much—or at least, I am not being pushed as much to go to church; whereas if like my grandmother, most likely because she goes to church every Sunday, pushed my mother to go to church, and I kind of get that from my mother because my mother wants me to go to church, but then you're just like, you know, "Why am I going to church?" And I think that's also from other kids living in America now. They also think, "Why do I want to go to church?" So it kind of rubs off on you, I guess. I mean, religion played a much bigger part before than it does now. INTERVIEWER: Do you consider yourself Catholic? MATHEW: I consider myself a Catholic. I don't consider myself an atheist. I definitely believe in some figure, some dominant figure out there, 17 but I don't go to church a lot. But I don't think that matters whether you call yourself Catholic just because you don't go to church every Sunday. I mean, they don't go to church as much as they did 60 years ago also. Now, over the summer when I'm there, I almost never see them go to church. Of course, some people still will, but it's not the norm to go. Maybe I'm not the one to be asked that question because I don't know so much about it because I'm not there all the time. I'm only there during one season. It's the season that no one has school, and everyone is just out doing things. No one has anything to do. Maybe certain questions like that might be better answered by my grandfather. INTERVIEWER: When you go back to Italy, I get the impression that your grandparents are there too? Do they travel back every summer? MATHEW: Usually every summer. INTERVIEWER: How's your grandfather treated in the village? MATHEW: He's not treated bad at all. He has friends just everyone else has there, and he has [unintelligible - 00:38:17] friends from a long time ago. He does hang around them all the time. He's treated as one of them when he comes back. He's not treated as anything different [unintelligible - 00:38:27]. But yeah, he's not treated any differently as if he just stayed in Italy for his whole life. INTERVIEWER: You talked a little bit about your grandmother and then your mother, and obviously, there's some rejection of values from one generation to the next. You talked a little bit about religion, possibly rejecting a little bit… MATHEW: Not really rejecting, it's just more like -- I mean there's a difference in rejection and just, like, it feels disassociation from it. I mean, I'm not rejecting religion. I'm not saying that I don't want to ever go to church anymore, but it's just more like it's almost 18 more natural than that. It's like we don't go because it's not our tradition. INTERVIEWER: Well, are there other values that perhaps you think differently than…? MATHEW: Sure. I mean, just the whole lot of things, I guess. On a more, like, social background I guess, maybe my grandparents—and you must hear this a lot—I mean, they would be more, like, strict as opposed to now, parents, especially my mother, are more lenient. They let you do more things, and I think that compensates for the fact that in Italy, you can go outside and do whatever you want but then your parents are so strict and saying you have to do this, that, do this, whereas I say -- yeah, it compensates. I mean, for specific values, I mean, it's hard to say because it varies from family to family. But to give you, like, specific values, I wouldn't be a good one to answer that because I can't compare it with anything, because I don't really know how life was like back then. INTERVIEWER: Do you feel as though your grandparents may have different expectations? MATHEW: Not at all, nowadays. Before, maybe, especially my other -- they would expect the male to do more with his life, I guess, you can say. Do more and just be more proactive and take the initiative and just go forward. But I can't speculate on it and say that all the time, males are favored and females aren't favored. And today especially, that's not the case. INTERVIEWER: So is your father's father is still alive? MATHEW: No. INTERVIEWER: Do you think your grandmother in Italy has… MATHEW: No. Not at all. INTERVIEWER: No?19 MATHEW: She's open to like new ideas, and I didn't know her and I haven't heard as many stories about her growing up way back 50 years ago, 60 years ago. But what I see from her is that she's no different than any grandmother living in America. [Audio glitch 00:42:00] speaking in the language, she doesn't differ from other grandmothers, especially my grandmother living in America now. [Unintelligible - 00:42:12], like, combine and become one. The Italian culture is starting to, like, disintegrate in Italy. Now, you see McDonald's coming to Italy, and just the culture is slowly and gradually becoming, like, destroyed. [Unintelligible - 00:42:28] as much as Italy, but France and Germany. INTERVIEWER: Are there certain things in this area that are considered Italian but then when you go to Italy… MATHEW: Italian food. INTERVIEWER: Yeah. MATHEW: Like if you go to an Italian restaurant, like in Leominster or whatever, maybe people -- especially people that aren't Italian, like, think it's an Italian. But in Italy, it's just not that they think it's not Italian. They take it [unintelligible - 00:42:54] as an insult to Italy. They're saying like, "Oh yeah, this food is Italian or whatever," or just like shrimp scampi or something, or just something like that they'd kind of be insulted. But I mean, in another country, if they try to serve American food, there's nothing to be insulted with because they don't really have a specific culture in America, because America pretty much, as I said before, is like a whole bunch of cultures just combined together, different sects and different parts of the town. INTERVIEWER: Anything else? Not just food, but… MATHEW: Not just food. But that's the one I can relate most with. INTERVIEWER: Okay.20 MATHEW: Of course, they want me to do well. No other parent, I mean, no parent would not want you to do well. But they don't -- yeah, I mean, that's their main focus. They want me to succeed. They want me to do something with my life and… INTERVIEWER: What would that be? Does that mean in your profession or your social life? MATHEW: I mean everything, especially growing up. They don't want me to just, like, be down and not do something with my life. They want me to succeed not only like a professional, like that standpoint, focus, but a whole range of things in life. It's pretty general. But take it for what it is, just life. They want me to succeed and become a better person. INTERVIEWER: What about educationally? MATHEW: Education is very important to my parents. They want me to have a good education. I myself, I want to have a good education. I think it's really important. It's almost like it gives you a certain power. It's pretty cliché when you say, like, knowledge is power. I don't take my education for granted. I want a good education, so I strive and I'm applying myself to what I'm doing more than things that doesn't focus on education throughout their life or throughout their childhood. INTERVIEWER: I think that you'll just keep going, but what do you feel that -- are there any expectations for you to work in your grandfather's business? MATHEW: Maybe for him, he might expect me to work there, but I don't expect myself to work there just for the simple fact that I'm not very interested in something like that. If I was, sure, I might work there; but it's like some things won't interest you so you just have to think of something else to do. I don't want to have to rely on that. I'll do something for myself and I'll do whatever. I'll work 21 for myself and I'll do something. I don't want to have to rely on him to provide me a profession. INTERVIEWER: Do you ever go in and learn anything about the plastic industry? Does he bring you in and give you a tour to show you how things work? MATHEW: Sure. I've been on tour for the facility. Both in Leominster—I haven't been to Dallas or Georgia. But I've been to the ones in Leominster, both the holiday and the [unintelligible - 00:46:31]. He shows me around. He showed me how things work. I think he wants me to be involved with the plastic company, like that's what he says to me. He's kind of like pushing me to go in there, but I'm not very interested in it. Sure, it could be a part-time job or something, but I wouldn't rely on that. But definitely, he gives me tours and he shows me around. Yeah, sure. INTERVIEWER: So what are your interests? MATHEW: European history. I wouldn't say modern European history, like World War II, but I would say more like 19th century or 18th century; English, and I'd say Math. I'm very interested in theater. I do a lot of theater outside of school, but I wouldn't want to become an actor. I wouldn't think it's very reliable to become an actor. Plus, also I'm very interested in other things, not just acting. But I think acting is more fun for me when I do other things, something else besides what you're doing for yourself, especially now, like education doing in school. We covered just about everything. INTERVIEWER: [Unintelligible - 00:47:54] your sister. I think so. Thank you. SARAH: Sarah Calangelo. INTERVIEWER: Okay. Hold on. This is the second interview with the Calangelo family. This is Sarah Calangelo and sister of Mathew. You're only here until the first of January and then you're back to Italy? SARAH: I leave the 3rd.22 INTERVIEWER: Leave the 3rd? What are you doing in Italy? SARAH: I got a Fulbright grant after my graduation from Brown. INTERVIEWER: No, it was. It was on standby. I'm sorry I have to ask you about it again. SARAH: Sure. INTERVIEWER: Okay. SARAH: I got a Fulbright grant to go to Italy and about culture, women's art, movies, that kind of stuff as well. Well, it was definitely part -- it sprung from both my studies during college, which -- I studied history, modern history; definitely also from stories about both my grandparents, all four of my grandparents, told me pictures that I saw. INTERVIEWER: [Unintelligible - 00:49:02] soft voice like myself, but you have to keep testing this to you. So what is the most interesting thing that you found best? I'm sure that there are many. SARAH: Right. I guess my argument is that although women were very much oppressed during the regime, there was a lot of space for women to have social clubs to create art, to read literature, to really create their own subjectivity in a sense. That's pretty much what I've been planning out, but a lot of it is through stories of women, no one that I know. INTERVIEWER: Do you have family journals or diaries? SARAH: It's mostly pop culture items, like I haven't really interviewed anyone because that's not really what my research is about. It's not about women's life during the war necessarily. It's about, like, beauty magazines, films, novels, pop literature during the regime. Not necessarily about interviewing the women that participated in the [unintelligible - 00:50:30] or any of that kind of stuff. I grew up in Leominster. We were in that house [unintelligible - 00:50:36], and then we moved here, maybe [unintelligible - 00:50:40]. 23 INTERVIEWER: It's the house that you lived in for 19 years. SARAH: 130 Grove Ave. INTERVIEWER: Okay. SARAH: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Fitchburg? SARAH: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: And then you went on to… SARAH: When I boarded for two years at Exeter, [unintelligible - 00:50:53] Exeter, and then I [unintelligible - 00:50:55], and then I transferred to Brown. INTERVIEWER: Tell me about your maternal grandparents. SARAH: They came here in -- they immigrated in [unintelligible - 00:51:04] exactly, but… INTERVIEWER: It's okay. Just tell me about them personally. What are they like? SARAH: My grandfather is very much like a working man. Everyday he's in the office, maybe even Saturdays as well. He comes home for lunch or does lunch at some of these three or four restaurants in the Leominster area, the same ones usually. But pretty much the way I've seen him during my life is very much like a routine sort of life going to the office, very active, working a lot. My grandmother is also really active for a woman her age, I think. [Unintelligible - 00:51:58] drives the car even now. Even if she has sort of pain or whatever—she just went through a surgery. She used to walk, really doesn't feel bad for herself ever, sort of -- doesn't work, but she did, I believe, when she first came here. But when my mom and my uncle were… INTERVIEWER: Always lived in Italy. SARAH: I guess first of all I would say my grandparents here have seen much more of the world, out of different countries, moved along a lot of different continents as well, whereas my dad's mom has pretty much stayed in not only her town, but I mean, not only her 24 region but her town. She's come here maybe, I don't know, once or twice. There's a major difference in just -- it's one side have seen more of the world than the other. My maternal grandmother has also worked hard, and I think she's like my other grandmother. She still has the sort of -- not really complaining when you have pain, keeping oneself busy. A lot of those things are definitely similar. Also, the importance of family, family gatherings, I mean, I think maybe the differences I see may have to do with just modes of transportation that are available here, financial resources, that kind of stuff. But a lot of the cooking, family, these sorts of things are definitely similar. INTERVIEWER: [Unintelligible - 00:53:46] your grandmother coming here to visit? SARAH: I do, but through photos, not from my own memory. The last I have [unintelligible - 00:53:53]. One is 19. There's a lot more pressure here probably with getting into a good college, [unintelligible - 00:54:03] of the resume, is pushed here not there necessarily. I feel like here you're expected to travel by either after high school or after college. A young person would have gone in some sort of trip, colleges offer exchange programs. They too have pretty much led not an insular life, but just travelled a little bit less. But I don't know if that has to do necessarily with their being from Italy. It's hard to put my finger on what that could have been. But usually when -- I mean, they may not have money to go on luxurious trips over the summer or to see other countries often, but they definitely -- I mean, they've been to Switzerland. They've been to France. The expectations aren't -- I mean, I feel like here we're expected to by 18 or 20 to go out with friends, to travel the world. There, it's a lot different. You may 25 travel with family or you travel with your class. Because Europe is so small, their class trips are actually to other countries. INTERVIEWER: What about the expectations for college? SARAH: They're definitely different because college there is a completely different phenomenon. It's usually a seven- or eight-year process, and it actually has much higher value than the American BA. It's pretty much equivalent to an MA. So it's different. It's considered much more intense. It's not privatized in Italy. You have to really do your work independently. You have to almost fight to make it through the seven years, where here you go to an American college -- but even a college that's big, pretty much your teachers are watching you. They're taking roll class in class. It's definitely much more cozy and easy in the sense that if you're slipping, someone's going to catch you. Here. There, no one normally cares. I mean, I'm taking classes there and you don't have to pay for them, you just sit in. I've never [unintelligible - 00:56:31] being around accounting university student that a lot of them do go back home almost free weekend that they have, which is really different from my experience here. American campus is one that sort of provides social activities, movies on the main green, these sorts of things. So you want to stay there during weekends. I even remember teachers maybe during orientations they say, "Parents, let your kids stay the first two weekends here on campus." It's really different in Italy. Most kids do go home because they have also a lot more ties to their village or to their small town, whatever. They almost can't wait to go back. I mean, I think it's changing. I don't want make Corfinio all of Italy. Do you know what I mean? INTERVIEWER: But it's a village except… SARAH: I mean, it's an incredibly small village, just like 900 people. But I've noticed just being in [unintelligible - 00:57:30], a lot of kids 26 are starting to move out now, got their own apartments by the time they're 25. Definitely, it's not to such an extent as here, you're expected to be out of the house at 18 and sort of -- I mean, I guess they know that it's a thing that exists mostly in France [unintelligible - 00:57:54] such schools. But yeah, I don't think they could have -- I think it's something difficult themselves going through. They are a lot more tied to their family I guess. Yeah, I think so. I feel sort of caught in the middle too, because I don't feel quite Italian-American either, because I consider that really different than just Italian. I feel like they're two different cultures. The Italian-American way of life has almost created its own, like, myth, its own idea of what Italy is like. But, like -- I don't know how to explain, I guess I can go to Italian-American events here but knowing that I guess just having that experience Italy firsthand, almost living there during the summers too, so I see the differences between Italian-American people here but what Italy really is now there. INTERVIEWER: Can you describe it a little bit more? SARAH: Like I feel like stuff in Leominster, like [unintelligible - 00:59:08] is sort of like very stereotypical Italian, and obviously are completely different from the reality in Italy. I feel like people that have been in the States their whole lives they've, never seen Italy, only heard stories from great grandparents or great grandparents, are going to have a skewed vision of what Italy is sentimental-wise, I guess. Or I mean, something I've noticed is that what people say is Italian-American or the Italian -- I don't know exactly where I'm going with this, but I'm just saying that it's a major difference, like two cultures are incredibly different. That for sure. Yeah. They 27 expect less of me because I may not know the language as well, but I feel like I'm competing with Italian [audio glitch 01:00:17]. INTERVIEWER: I'm thinking more of… SARAH: It's a lot. It's definitely much more strict there in terms of -- gender differences are much more… I mean, even liberal Italian women still have [unintelligible - 01:00:38] in their head of how to do certain things, how to behave. It's definitely a lot more sort of loose in the city than it is in the village, I've noticed. Definitely in Corifinio it's very limiting. As a woman, I feel that I can't really do much there. [Unintelligible - 01:01:02] late, if you're out with a big group of kids, there should be at least one or two other girls there with you because if you're only with guys, that would be strange. So there's definitely little rules like that. I feel like in the village especially, the men sort of control the social center. They control the piazza. They play cards there. It's sort of their space. And if I'm there past 2 or 3 o'clock, it's a little strange, like I should be home. [Unintelligible - 01:01:36] Yeah, I always sort of pose, like, hypothetical to myself, I guess— what would I be like if I lived my cousin's life? I mean, I guess I see the actual results from my cousins. I feel like I could have easily been them. INTERVIEWER: So what was the… SARAH: I mean, I don't think I would like it. I think when I was young I really liked the village. They give me freedom because you can stay outside until midnight. Everyone knows each other. It's completely safe. You like it until you're maybe 17 or so, and you realized that it's almost suffocating. It's always the same stuff going on every year. I felt like it would be too [audio glitch - 01:02:32] to leave the village, like the transportation systems aren't necessarily [audio glitch - 01:02:36]. 28 And you form most friendships there, which are really great; but at the same time, the loyalties are so strong there that you feel like you need to stay there. I mean, I understand why a lot of these Italian kids go back to their small town. So much of their personalities were shaped there. So many of their friends are there, like everyone knows each other so there's that very comfortable feeling there. I don't think I would like to live that kind of life. INTERVIEWER: Generally speaking… SARAH: Oh, I think they feel [thankful] as well. Definitely, my older cousin is starting to at this point branch out, have friends in bigger cities near the town. She definitely wants to go away to college. I mean, I think the entire -- all of this globalization that's taking place as well is affecting young people in these small towns too because they're on the Internet. They ponder their own sort of isolation too, so they see that they can -- they say, "Oh geez, well, that looks neat. I want to go to [unintelligible - 01:03:57] here. So maybe I'll go to this big city," or "Maybe next weekend I'll go to Rome." So they're starting to definitely have more options. INTERVIEWER: And how do their parents…? SARAH: I mean, I feel like my aunts are pretty open to that kind of thing. They [unintelligible - 01:04:10] go places that they can. I mean, my grandmother didn't want me to come back to the States for this vacation, because she was really scared about the terrorist hijacking, probably planes in general. So my grandmother is definitely much more -- because she hasn't travelled too much, she has a lot more fears about traveling because maybe she hasn't really [unintelligible - 01:04:34] very much. So she's a lot more, sort of, nurturing and scared about younger family members traveling. But I think she accepts it as well. She understands it's a natural part of my life to move around like this. INTERVIEWER: … certain age that you're expected to get married, or even if you…29 SARAH: I don't think so. I think the village – people that stay in the village their entire life are people that haven't… that did not get a university diploma. But stay there now—I'm talking now because this wasn't the case 20 or 30 -- that they stay there now are probably going to get married with other people either in a nearby town somewhere in the [unintelligible - 01:05:27] area, probably going to work. If the woman doesn't work, she'll be a housewife, just have kids. But it's the same as a small town in the States too. If you didn't go to college, you're going to work or just going to start a family for the hell of it, because you're bored, because it's just the way things are. I don't think there really is any different from a small town here. I think that actually, a lot of women there are starting to marry later. Most kids are marrying in their early thirties, whereas here, I'm seeing a lot more early marriages among even my friends. Now, in Italy the [mortality] rate is negative or close to negative. A lot more kids, even kids from the village, are getting married later. They're enjoying their single life for a period of much longer. I have a lot of friends that are 27, 28, and they're in relationships but they're not married; and they're going to think about having a family later on. Definitely, these people are in long -- like for instance, these people are in long relationships that span, not going away to Bologna or Rome or Milan for school. So kind of in this town and this is your boyfriend, and you're going to get married in five years to this person and start a family, but may have to live in here as well. It's definitely strange. I felt really out of the loop, and I mean, I was reading in my room and got a phone call from a journalist. And it must have been maybe 45 minutes after the first time hit. Well, I want to know an American response to [audio 30 glitch 01:07:30]. I want to know what Americans think. I don't have any problems with other Americans. I had no idea, and of course, that's not something that you would imagine. You wouldn't sort of actively think of as -- so I said, "What do you mean? Do you mean like the embassy attack the past year in Africa? What are you talking about?" And she goes, "Oh wow, you don't know. I don't even want to tell you over the phone. I feel so bad. Why don't you turn on your television and just watch TV? Something horrible had happened." So I was sort of scared. I turned on the television and watched, and then she called me back in about two hours' time and wanted to get my response. I mean, I immediately felt more American than Italian when it happened. You sort of -- it was a time when I sort of realized my loyalty's to the States, and I sort of wished that I had been with my family at the time. I told her that it was terrifying. I told her that I was trying to track down friends in New York, but that my family members were all safe. In Italy? The Italians are very sympathetic of what happened. They were constantly talking to me about it; they wanted to know how I felt about it. And from the beginning, they're very much a part of the war effort, if you want to call it that. But there were a lot of [unintelligible - 01:08:59] left the city. There are a lot of peace demonstrations, anti-war demonstrations. But generally, the people around me were very sympathetic asking me, "How do you feel exactly? Are your friends okay? Is your family okay?" I definitely want to come back to the States and I don't think I would -- living in Italy has been great, but it's also sort of opened my eyes to a lot of things that I don't like about Italy, or don't like being a woman in Italy, for instance. I think right now I'm ready to come back here. I mean, after July, after my grant is over. I 31 think my place right now is here for at least a couple of years and then work and other things. But I wouldn't mind doing -- who knows what the future holds? I may live in Italy. I may live somewhere in Europe or elsewhere, but I think definitely right now, I'd like to live in the States. I don't think it really had much to do with September 11th. If anything, I feel safer in Europe than I do here. I felt incredibly safe in Bologna, whereas I was worrying about my family here, especially with bioterrorism and getting scared about water [unintelligible - 01:10:16]. There, I really wasn't too worried about it. Yeah, I mean I feel like the way I grew up and the values that my parents have are definitely slightly different from other people's parents. I feel like, especially my dad, pushing the whole independence thing far less than other parents do. I have a lot of friends that really -- they go home, but their bedrooms had been changed into a parent's office. I know that my bedroom here will pretty much always be my bedroom and that all of my old clothes will be in the closet, and I won't have to ever really clean out. I feel like most of my friends have moved all of their junk out of their rooms and set up an apartment elsewhere. But even when I do have an apartment -- say, I had an apartment in Providence. Even when I do have an apartment, like, my home is still here, and my home address is still 42 Leominster Road. That will probably change in five years or so, or less, but it was far later than my friends. INTERVIEWER: Do you think your friends [unintelligible - 01:11:35]? SARAH: About me? INTERVIEWER: Yes. SARAH: I mean I think some of them, my very close friends, certainly see that parenting has been maybe a little different in this house. But a 32 lot of my friends are also [unintelligible - 01:11:51] Chinese immigrants or Russian immigrants or et cetera, et cetera. So they have had similar experiences. So we may get together and just talk and laugh about the different values that they have. But my dad is very like family-oriented. When I do come back home, he wants me to stay home. He doesn't want me to immediately take off and go to New York with friends or back to Providence to see old college friends. He wants me to talk to my brothers and to sort of get back into the groove of maybe family life before I left to go to boarding school. He wants to sort of prove that kind of -- I feel like both of my parents are a little protective. If I take a car out or if I go out with friends, they still want me to call when I've arrived. That's a little difference from some of the things that my friends do. My friends don't necessarily have to call once they arrive at their destination points. I mean, small things, I probably take them for granted. That's why it's so difficult to kind of list them, but we eat dinner together at the same time usually most of the time here. That's changing now a little bit as everyone, as my dad is becoming a little bit more Americanized. My mom has started busying herself with the museum, with Fitchburg State, so she's often out of the house. But definitely when I was younger, we would eat lunch and dinner together. And we talk and would be a time for us to talk to go over each of our days. INTERVIEWER: What are the…? SARAH: … the holidays. Like Christmas is incredibly important in our house, what we eat. Pretty much they're trying to -- I feel like they're trying to preserve what they had in Italy; and in the end, it's not very different than -- I mean I spent the New Year's and Christmas in Italy with my dad's side of the family, and it's very similar. The meals are almost exactly the same. The fish, I've 33 eaten [on then], the dinner on Christmas is pretty -- they're all for sure. INTERVIEWER: Anything else… SARAH: It's like religion, we have much more part of daily life. The calendars there, I mean just the small detail, the calendars there have all the saints' days written on them. The saints, definitely the saints. And so I mean, that's a perfect example of just like every day you wake up and you look at the calendar, you see like a saint's name. It's just part of -- it doesn't mean that they're more religious. It's just a much more a part of their daily life. I would even say that because it's so a part of their just daily fabric, the fabric of their daily life, a lot of them, it's almost become they take it for granted. It's becoming much more of a cultural thing but not necessarily a spiritual thing for many. I mean, I know friends in Italy -- I mean, from my experience the youth don't necessarily go to church. They go through the motions, but they don't talk about religion. Here, I feel like it's your -- because you have much more of a choice in what religion you choose to follow or just -- your options of worship are more vast here. I feel like once you do choose that path, you're going to do it with a bit more intensity. But maybe [unintelligible - 01:15:50] because I don't really go to church. I haven't gone to church. [Unintelligible - 01:15:54] something and when I do, unfortunately it's only to really make everyone -- my dad's mom is religious, but she doesn't go to church every Sunday by any means. They say prayers at night. I mean, I feel like she feels the religion very much, I can tell. She'll have, like, pictures of little saints arranged in the house with little religious house frames. But she doesn't necessarily go to church. And I feel like people here in the States sort of want to equate going to church with religious fervor or with Christian morality or Catholic 34 morality. I think there, a lot of people, especially the older women, may not go to church necessarily, but it's so part of their way of thinking. I feel like here, it's become like a community thing, Church [unintelligible - 01:17:09] events, like, that people do to kind of get all the youth together. It's almost forced here. In Italy, it's very natural, a way of life. I feel like the youth now in Italy is less involved than my parents or my grandparents. I don't think so. When I was younger, I definitely thought that I should, because gosh, if I married an American, then how would everyone understand each other? But as I'm getting older -- I just thought that. It wasn't -- I don't think, a pressure. But I just thought, "Well, if everyone is speaking Italian at this table, and when my husband's home, you know, what's he going to do?" Now, I don't feel that way, not really. I feel a little pressure to marrying an Italian. It would be nice, especially for my dad's side of the family, to understand what any sort of husband is saying, my future husband would say. But it wouldn't change my plans to… INTERVIEWER: It was working, and then all of a sudden it slipped to the… SARAH: Both my grandmothers were never necessarily dependent from their husbands. They went from being [unintelligible - 01:18:50] by their fathers to be [unintelligible - 01:18:52] by their husbands. That doesn't mean that they were unhappy by any means, but I feel like my mom is very different from my grandmother. And she makes more financial decisions. And I'm even more independent than that in the sense that I travel around, [take life] here and there, visit friends, things that probably my mom didn't do when she was immediately out of college. I mean, I feel that -- I don't feel any pressure to get married even. I mean, that's how, I guess, extreme things have gotten around here now. 35 Really, because that sounds a little harsh, but I learned how to make -- like I know the cooking at this point, like I know how to cook meals. And I love Italy. I'm there studying for a year. It's not that I don't like Italy, but I don't have this obsession to…/AT/jf/fu/es

Part one of an interview with John Clementi. Topics include: Memories of John's father, Sandro Clementi. His father's work history and how he became an executive in the plastics business. His father's business contacts in Italy. How his father brought new designs to his company and how the company grew. His father owned a pool hall. John's memories of the family trips to Italy they would every summer when he was growing up. What Italy was like around 1960. Speaking Italian in the United States and in Italy. Italian dialects. John's thoughts on discrimination. John's experiences at Leominster High School and at Deerfield. How John went to Boston College Law School. John left litigation work and joined his father at Plastican. How he met his wife. What Latvia, his wife's homeland, is like. How John and his father divide tasks at Plastican. What sort of products the company makes. The ethnic diversity that exists within the company. ; 1 LINDA ROSENLUND:This is Linda [Rosenlund] with the Center for Italian Culture. Today we're with John Clementi, a [Plastican] located on Industrial Road in Leominster. And today is Thursday, December 13, 2001. John is the son of Sandro Clementi and brother of Anna Canlangelo. So, John, um, could you tell about, first of all, your father, your -- you were telling me before I turned the microphone on that he's really… JOHN CLEMENTI: Yeah. Um, he, um… you know, I think that people that know him, that have known him for any given amount of time would, um… what I think, would all agree that he's just a, an extremely talented, um, gifted person, uh, has the ability to, uh, look beyond the present. He, he, he has a remarkable gift for, for being able to predict trends the way that, that the world is heading. He has a wonderful knowledge of, uh, human nature, um, which is [unintelligible - 00:01:14]. And he – and he's just a very talented executive. I think he has, um, he possesses all of the skills that one would think of in terms of being a very, very effective, uh, executive. Um, and, and I, I think he, he's been able to… exhibit those skills in all sorts of different situations and venues. [Unintelligible - 00:01:34] remain a constant, at least in my experience, having worked with him over the course of the last, uh, 25 years or so. LINDA ROSENLUND:Growing up, was, was he the owner of the… JOHN CLEMENTI: Well, um, growing -- no, I think that he… Plastican really wasn't formed until, um, late '60s, early '70s. Uh, I remember my dad in various roles. I remember him as the proprietor of a, um… of a pool hall. Um, and, and going with him on Sunday mornings, uh, to go clean the pool hall up. I remember him, um, as a, um… as a foreman in a plastics factory, um, working at the [unintelligible - 00:02:21]. And, uh, him sort of coming home, um, eating dinner and then go work another job, so, you know. I 2 think I -- my first true recollections of my dad are probably in that capacity. I still remember the blue uniform and the, you know, the grease and the plastic chip. I mean, I was at an age, I think at that time, I was probably maybe four or five years old. And if he did, then I wasn't old enough to understand. I clearly remember is that, you know, he would come home briefly and back. It's still sort of a joke. At the time, the Mickey Mouse Club was the popular children's show. They came on at five o'clock. And if you would ask my father, to this day, Mickey Mouse, he sort of has this negative psychological reaction because it was sort of his signal that it was time to go to work to the other job. And so that's sort of the way I remember my dad coming home and spending with us, you know, a brief amount of time around dinner and then going back out to work another shift. LINDA ROSENLUND:Asking him how it was that he became involved with Plastican, and it's my memory that he was perhaps worked in sales? JOHN CLEMENTI: Yes. I think we need to kind of go back before Plastican. His first involvement with a proprietary company was with Yankee Plastics. And that would have been back, I think, in 1956. And I think that's where the story comes in about the real estate agent and being made aware of this particular company. It would be around the time that I was talking about earlier. He was working in a plastics company anyway. He was working at Star Manufacturing Company as a shift supervisor. And as such, he more or less had to know the ins and outs of operating the plow from -- I mean, even as a child, in those days, he was literally hands-on. He would come home, as I say, covered with grease and plastic dust in his hair and on his clothes and so forth. He knew intimately the details of running a plastics operation. 3 He was also fortunate, you know, I think he would tell you that he was, in that the owner of that company was an Italian himself. And his name was Nick Dimassa, D-I-M-A-S-S-A. And Nick had been in the United States for a long time. He was the kind of person who -- you know, he was a boy, he was a very elegant figure, you know, just sort of the [block] of white hair and always had a [unintelligible – 00:05:25]. He was a successful manufacturer back in those days and my dad worked for him. And my dad often tells me the story that… you know, I think Mr. Dimassa told him, you know, that instead of making money for him, for Mr. Dimassa, that at some point maybe… well, because he was too talented to work for other people. Then the opportunity arose with this company, Yankee Plastics, which was a small action molder or custom molder that manufactured the kinds of things that are really no longer manufactured in the United States anymore. And by that, I mean… LINDA ROSENLUND:Making that no longer made. JOHN CLEMENTI: Right. So… LINDA ROSENLUND:Like what? JOHN CLEMENTI: Like, you know trinkets and giveaway items—small, little things. And basically for other companies, for other people. It wasn't a proprietary line. It was a line of products that were manufactured for the others. And the product line, from what I could tell, at least at that time as a child, you know, seem to have evolved and that the things that he made were bigger. You know, [unintelligible - 00:06:32] larger. And that line seemed to evolve from the kinds of things that we were just talking about into things like pitchers. And the company evolved into a proprietary housewares manufacturer. And I think probably the turning point for that company, for Yankee Platsics, happened to… in the early '60s, that probably had emerged as a leader in 4 design, especially in plastic design. Because I think it's safe to say that plastics is an ersatz material, a substitute for something else—wood or net, or -- in a sort of view it's a surrogate, whereas in Italy, at the time, emerging from the war, plastics was a new material. It was different. It had a higher value to most people. And subsequently, extraordinarily talented designers in Italy were designing plastic housewares, and my dad saw that and realized that very mundane items were being designed to be extraordinarily beautiful, and brought some of those designs to the United States and began to manufacture them on a proprietary basis, and began selling them to companies that were at the time, you know, the equivalent of the big-box retailers that we know of now as K-Mart or Walmart. It would have been a Woolworths or WT Grant. And so he started manufacturing these products for those kinds of companies, and I think that's really where the company began to assume a different… LINDA ROSENLUND:Now, did he hire anyone from [ideas forward]? JOHN CLEMENTI: Well, it was interesting at the time. From around 1960 on, we would spend a good part of our summers in Italy. We would go back to the ancestral town, Corfinio, and the whole family would. And, you know, while we were there, my dad made business contacts in the north of Italy, Turin and Milan, where the plastics business was happening—not only just for Italy but for Europe, in a way. And he made contact with various designers, the most prominent of which was a house called Leonardo, and had some designs done for plastic housewares. And I mean mixer, decanter design, that was just kind of thing where, if you saw it today, it would be just as beautiful today as it was. You know, classic, modern design. And he picked up on that. And, you know, purchased some designs from that house and began to sell them, manufacture the products and sell them. 5 He didn't even know the process but continued, I think is… you know as we continue to maintain a relationship with Italy in terms of going there in the summer, I think he was probably more aware of what was going on in Europe, both by way of Danish and Swedish and Finnish. Right from the very start his proprietary line probably had an edge in terms of quality. I think he was probably… he was a leverage, I think, pretty much to the Hilton those days. But I think that what happened was, once these designs hit, they were just enormously successful. In fact, there was one item, I think if you ask him specifically, there was one item that really was all the [doctoring gamble], which item was sort of a revolutionary item. It was the decanter that now I think we all probably recognize, the one with the measuring lines on the outside and the flip top, little spout on the top, you know, where you take the soft lid and put it on top. And now it's an archaic item, but in those days I think it was a bit revolutionary in that it replaced, you know, the glass pitcher that lemonade would go in, for example. That, I think, was probably the item that provided most of the working capital to go ahead. I would say that was the most significant item. LINDA ROSENLUND:Ask for a design they have an idea of art and then they make contact with? JOHN CLEMENTI: Well, in those days there was a—and there still is, in fact—a national houseware show in Chicago. And I believe that they saw it in Chicago, because my dad would exhibit with everybody else. And I think they saw the item and liked it and tried it on, and it became wildly successful [unintelligible - 00:11:42] a springboard for other items. In fact, I think that was the first, and then the items from Italy that were really high fashion came later. So that, I think that was probably the item that really made the difference. And of course, you could -- the world thinks that 6 came from that. In other words, you had the decanter, now you make the tumblers that go with the decanter, and it sort of becomes a set, and off you go. And there are other sets then, you know, that… pitchers and tumblers, you need bowls, and so you make bowls. And then you need colanders. You know, all of that sort of houseware items that we've come to realize is sort of … you know, the staples of plastic housewares—laundry baskets, lace baskets, all of those things. The line eventually evolved and grew so that it went from things like small tumblers to wastebaskets and trash receptacles, big, 34-gallon trash receptacles. The company evolved, such that from, let's say, from, 1967 it went from a small custom molder to a full-blown housewares manufacturer with a proprietary line. There's a real difference. I mean, custom molder, you're a job shop working for other people. And then as a proprietary line, you are a brand name, and you are manufacturing for yourself. And I think that was a crucial revolution, really, as far as… LINDA ROSENLUND:After more… JOHN CLEMENT: Yeah, I think -- you know, in Leominster, where in those days there were scores of custom molders, custom molders being people who manufactured items for other companies. You know, I think everybody's dream was to have their own proprietary line because you could essentially control you own fate. And my dad was… you know, enough of a visionary to realize that even early on, and thus the importance of coming up with designs that were at the time, at least, you know, innovative and different and would provide an [entrée] in places like Woolworths, for example, that he might not otherwise ever be able to get into given the existence of companies like Rubbermaid at the time. So I think that was a big, a major factor in, you know, being successful going forward. 7 No. Mr. Dimassa was the owner and chief executive of the company called Star Manufacturing, and that's where my dad was a shift foreman, where he learned the art and science of plastics. And he left Star Manufacturing to purchase Yankee Plastics, which was not much more than a garage type operation, very small manufacturing plant with, you know, with not much in terms of sales and not much in terms of machines. But he left Star Manufacturing to buy Yankee Plastics with his life savings and start, you know, in the business as a proprietor. I heard them talk about it. And I heard my dad talk about it and… basically say, I think, with a lot of admiration, that my mother just -- my mother never ever reminded him of what he was doing and what the risks were involved and, you know, the potential downside. Basically, she was there to support him in whatever he felt he needed to do, and that she always basically had faith in what he was doing. She never had much doubt that it was going to be successful. Yes, yes, yes. LINDA ROSENLUND:… while he was at Star Manufacturing? JOHN CLEMENTI: I'm not sure of that, but I'm pretty sure, I'm pretty sure that he was doing both, yes. He was working two jobs at the time. LINDA ROSENLUND:I never really understood… JOHS CLEMENTI: Well, I think it's… again, I hate to speak for him in that regard, but I think it's because it was a [solicit] income that didn't require a tremendous amount of sophistication if terms of the language, in terms of, you know, business relationships, banks, regulatory agencies. You know? It's a pool hall. People put down money and play pool, and that's that. So it's fairly straightforward, easy kind of business to get into. That doesn't mean you're necessarily successful at it, but it's… you know, if I had to guess, I would think that was the reason. 8 LINDA ROSENLUND:Well, I don't want to put words into his mouth or your mouth either, but I can remember, when asking him about social clubs, he said, "Oh, no. I never belonged to a club," but I got the impression that the pool hall was… JOHN CLEMENTI: I don't know. I don't know about that. I think he probably met a lot of people that way that he might not have met otherwise. But I never had any impression from him that it was a social thing. To me, it was strictly, from what I could tell, a business thing. And it wasn't… again, from what I could tell, the clientele there was not… Italian. It wasn't Italian American. It was just at the pool hall in another town and, you know, in the early '50s. And my dad would always say that, you know, was unfortunate, but pool halls always did well when economies didn't do well. Because people were laid off and had time on their hands, you know, what do you do? And, you know, the pool hall is strictly, from what I could tell at least, an economic thing. LINDA ROSENLUND:At the pool hall, when he fought Yankee… JOHN CLEMENTI: I believe he did. You know, I'm pretty sure that he did. In fact, I think that it was before he did that, and it wasn't simultaneous in my recollection. LINDA ROSENLUND:Are there any differences in your whole life… JOHN CLEMENTI: Gee, you know, to tell you the truth, no. My life, my social life was more or less the same as it always was, which is substantially different from the way things are nowadays in a sense that, you know, people visited each other unannounced. You know, people would show, you know, the Italian talking about the Italian, relatives and friends and acquaintances. There was certain informality, you know? It was not unusual maybe a couple nights a week to have people show up at your house for coffee after dinner and talk, or in the summertime to show up and sit up on the porch or whatever. You know, and that continued 9 right on through. So to that extent, nothing really changed. My dad had been working a lot of hours anyway, so he continued to work a lot of hours. And really, our lives… you know, at least for a child, which is what I was, really didn't change. I mean, I think it's fair to say things, you know, things got moved. When I was in the second grade, we moved to another house that was newer and nicer. But substantially, not different from what it was before. So I can't say that life really changed at all at that time. Again, I didn't perceive that anything had changed. The big thing that would've convinced me as a child that we, you know, that we were doing well and that, you know, my dad was a successful person, was, you know, the trips that we would take to Italy in the summertime. Because at a certain point, I realized that not everybody went to Europe every summer. You know, as time went on I realized what a big deal that really was. LINDA ROSENLUND:Were you going to… JOHN CLEMENTI: At the beginning… I can't remember exactly. I don't think she was still living there, but we had -- we just had lots and lots of relatives there. And we have -- the ancestral home was there, and it's still there, the house that my dad grew up in. And at the time, there was sort of a ritual that happens with Italian immigrants from Central Italy and Southern Italy that have kind of gone on this, you know, sort of the… the exodus from Italy, especially in the post-war. They returned in the summertime, usually for the month of August. And it's a little known fact, but there are… tens, if not hundreds of thousands, of Italian immigrants in places like Australia, Argentina, Canada, huge number of Italian immigrants. France, Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium. And these people in the summertime returned to Italy because, among other things, it's vacation in Europe the whole month of August in Italy. No one works. It's a vacation month. 10 And people -- it's kind of a class reunion for everybody. And so, for example, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that our little town of a 1,000 people becomes a town of maybe 3,000 people in August. And so this became sort of a ritual with our family that we would go back for the month of August and… you know, my dad would basically see the people he grew up with, his classmates, his friends, his relatives. And my mother too, because obviously my mother was brought up there as well. And so, you know, it sort of became, as I said, a ritual, or something that was expected. Of course, in the meantime, my dad was, you know, was also doing business, going to design houses, mold makers and talking to the people in the business in Italy who were sort of making it happen over there. And, you know, would build some tools in Italy, get some ideas et cetera. SPEKAER 1: Do you want me to stop this? JOHN CLEMENTI: Yeah. And as I say, for my dad it was business and pleasure, you know, well… nice for me because it afforded me a chance to see cities like Milan and spend some time in big cities whereas… you know, outside of the usual tourist traps, if you will, and get to visit, you know, some companies, and to see Italy as an economic entity as opposed to a tourist entity. And I have to say it was a significant education to me. Because among other things, it allowed me to keep the language, which, you know, was usually lost at some point. But that became I think a very important part of our lives, because for 10 years, I'd say from 1960 to 1970, I think we went every year. Yeah. And just last year my daughter, who is now a senior at Dartmouth, learned Italian and spent a term in Sienna. And we were able to visit her there and that was just a real joy. I was thrilled that she decided on her own that Italian was the language she wanted to learn. And so that was sort of gratifying. But we, 11 the family has been back to Italy, and… I think they enjoy very much and I think they're proud of that side of the family that it's of Italian heritage. I hope that they, you know, continue on and will… learn more about Italy and become more involved with the culture. But that's something they almost have to do on their own, simply because having married someone who is an Italian, it becomes a little bit more difficult. LINDA ROSENLUND:… recruit some of his friends in Italy that have come to America? JOHN CLEMENTI: No. I think… interesting, going back to Italy in those years… I never perceived an overwhelming desire on anybody's part at that time to come to America. Because I think by then, it was pretty much over. Italy was enjoying an economic boom. People were doing well. There was a migration in Italy. People from the south went to the north to work—places like Turin and Milan—to work for companies like Fiat, you know, Pirelli. You know, big companies. And so, there was very little impetus at that time for anybody to come to the United States. I think that was pretty much over. LINDA ROSENLUND:Now, when you… JOHN CLEMENTI: All the time. And it was, it was sort of a wakeup call, because when we first went to… Italy in 1960, it… it was a lot different from what it is today, in many ways. Our little village was primitive. There were maybe three automobiles. There were only a couple of television sets, and they belonged to fraternal organizations. There was no television before until eight o'clock in the evening. It was just so different from what we as Americans expected in terms of lifestyle. Most of the houses didn't have full indoor plumbing. Animals—horses, oxen—were used for transportation. People worked in the fields largely with their own physical labor. It was a very rudimentary agrarian 12 economy, much like what you would see in a third world country today. It would be unfair to call it a third world country because there were obviously other things going on in the big cities, et cetera. But for a ten-year-old child, it was a real eye opener. It was very exciting in many ways to be able to be stepping back in time. But by the same token, I realized that it was a life that was substantially harder than what I was used to. And the natural result of that was to think, "Boy, if we didn't come to the United States, this is the way we would be living now." LINDA ROSENLUND:… back to the village? JOHN CLEMENTI: Well, extraordinarily well. All of our relatives and friends were happy to see us. I mean, they really couldn't have done more for us. They were very lavish in their hospitality and would just about do anything for you to the point of almost being an embarrassment. And so to that extent it was just wonderful. For me, it was a lot of fun because, as I said before, at that time there was a language gap. I'd learned Italian before I learned English, but then I went to school, and, like most American kids, children of immigrants, you don't want to speak the language in public. And so the Italian, while you could understand it, you were always hesitant to speak it. And so when I got to Italy, if I wanted to communicate, I realized that I got to try to speak it as well. And… they had some fun with me and, you know, my brand, my version of the dialect that's spoken in our little village. But we got along well and we had a lot of fun, and it just sort of drew from there to the point where when I was in high school, going back -- I don't think that it was sort of like, "Oh, he's back again." And, you know, I knew everybody and they all knew me, and it was sort of like going to a summerhouse, like [unintelligible - 00:29:35] or something. It was, it became that kind of thing. 13 LINDA ROSENLUND:… dad must have spoken the dialect as well? JOHN CLEMENTI: Yes. LINDA ROSENLUND:So how did he communicate with the businessmen…? JOHN CLEMENTI: Oh, it's interesting, this whole notion of the dialect. I think you'll find, even in Italy today, that some sort of switch goes on and off when you enter the region or when you enter the village. You speak dialect, but when you're anywhere else you speak Italian. It's a phenomenon that I don't think exists here in the United States, where people speak both pure Italian and dialect. And this is true wherever you go. And I noticed this when we do business, as we still do today, with companies in Italy, especially up north. We communicate in Italian or in English, but I know that the people that I'm dealing with, the principals, they'll communicate with their employees in their dialect, which I absolutely don't understand. And if I communicated with my relatives with them present, they wouldn't understand me either. LINDA ROSENLUND:I thought that was more of a recent… JOHN CLEMENTI: I would think, and I hate to speak for Italians, but I think what they would tell you is that people who -- descendants of peasants, say, for a lack of a better term, when they would go to the big city, would speak relatively poor Italian, simply because they spent all their time speaking dialect. But they would know, they would know what they should be saying. And so as time has evolved and education became such that everybody is literate, everybody in Italy speaks the same language. But when they go home, they speak their dialect. And it's a really interesting phenomenon that I don't think as an American I would ever come close to understanding if I didn't go over there to see it firsthand, how someone could be extremely literate. Well, for example, I have a cousin who has written a book—actually, I think books—about classical history, Julius Cesar et 14 cetera. Extremely literate in Italian, and yet when he walks down to the piazza to talk with the guys, boom. He speaks dialect, and just as quickly can go in and out of that mode. So it's a phenomenon that I think still exists, probably to a lesser extent, because I think young people with mass media, watching television, listening to the radio, the Italian becomes modernized, and it is what it is. LINDA ROSENLUND:… now there find it difficult being [unintelligible - 00:32:44]? JOHN CLEMENTI: It's in central Italy. LINDA ROSENLUND:But did he found it difficult going to the north and being taken on seriously by the businessmen up there? JOHN CLEMENTI: You know, I don't think that occurred because… let's not forget, I mean, in the business world he was American. And it was an American company. And even though he spoke Italian, speaks Italian, knows the culture, you know, I think that's the way he was dealing. I think he was always taken very seriously. However, that doesn't discount the fact that there is a, to this day, a dichotomy between north and south. There is a certain… I don't know how to put it, but there's a definite culture clash between the north and the south of Italy. And the northerners view themselves as much more sophisticated, refined than the southerners. And as the southerners, you know, have a similar view of themselves compared to the northerners. In fact, there was actually a movement in the north of Italy to secede from the country. There were this movement, as recently as four or five years ago, for people from the Po Valley to create a country called Padania and secede from the country of Italy. And it doesn't look like it could be real, but I assure you, very real phenomenon. But that was there, and I think that's still there. But I don't think it ever affected my father's ability to do business there. 15 LINDA ROSENLUND:What about accent? JOHN CLEMENTI: You know, again, I think that America has been remarkably fair and welcoming to my father and people like my father. I've probably been -- you know, my father, and people like him who have accents that become self-conscious about it and so forth, I think my dad would tell you that he's been treated fairly, you know, by banks, local banks, who had faith in him early on. And I don't think he's ever forgotten that. I honestly believe that when it comes to discrimination, I think it's there, but I think that to be fair about it, I don't think it's ever been an impediment to me or to meet people, Italian Americans who have a certain sensibility, a certain sensitivity, you know, that it exists. I mean, you know, there will always be… you know, the untoward comment, the, you know, the references, you know, the mafia references that [unintelligible - 00:36:02] me personally. LINDA ROSENLUND:Not even at… JOHN CLEMENTI: Not even at Deerfield. In fact, particularly not at Deerfield. And that's one of the reasons why I personally love the place so much. Because, you know, I think everybody knows and everybody knew at the time, you know, Deerfield was sort of the quintessential Yankee. But the headmaster at the time, Mr. Boyden, Frank Boyden, who's sort of a giant in secondary education, he treated us all the same, and I never… certainly institutionalized from Deerfield. You would get a wise comment from a kid here or there, you know? I chucked out to the usual ignorance that you would find in a high school. I felt that Deerfield, to me, was crucial in my life. I think it was the single most important… Well, let's see. The ethos at Deerfield then and even now was, work hard, play hard. And a certain discipline at the place. By discipline I don't mean a military style discipline, but there was a 16 lot of work to do. It was hard. It was a real interaction between the faculty and the students. And I often tell people, we were as students probably respected by the faculty far more than we deserved. And the place sort or inculcated a sense of responsibility, a sense of giving back to the community. You know, a sense of [unintelligible - 00:37:50] your affairs in a courtly manner. You know, being mind and being understanding. You know, I don't think that was necessarily happening in high school for me. I think it just took my… just took who I was and sort of took me to another level, sort of challenged me, stretched me. I often feel I could've graduated from Deerfield and not gone to college, I'm not sure how much of a difference… It was mine. I mean, I was just going through my sophomore year. You have to realize, it was 1966, and the world was sort of getting to be a little topsy-turvy. You know, the drug culture had made [unintelligible – 00:38:38] in Leominster. And, you know, it was just a confused age. I was doing well in school, at least in terms of grades, but I didn't feel I was achieving very much. But I was probably doing well in a group of… really doing all that well. I thought I was just going through the motions, to tell you the truth, and I felt this sense of malaise about it that, you know, that hammer is going to fall here sometime. And you know, I don't like the way this… and, you know, I just started researching prep schools. I just thought I need to get out of here, down to Deerfield. There were kids that I'd gone to school with who had left and gone… More than anything, what happened was I went --when I was feeling this malaise, I just decided to go to the library and pull out catalogs, where I can get some catalogs. And, to tell the truth, they were very exciting. You know, [area in Dover], 17 Deerfield, you know, the idea that you could play sports on any level, you could study subjects that weren't necessarily offered in high school, and I think the idea of being away from home. I wasn't afraid of it because I've, you know, gone to Europe. It was kind of all of those things put together. I mean, my parents were a little bit taken aback, "Why do you want to leave? What's this all about?" But, you know, after going through the process, the tours and all of that, I think they kind of said okay, and so off we went. LINDA ROSENLUND:So you apparently knew… JOHN CLEMENTI: Yeah. But at time it was fairly clear that we could afford it. I think I knew that in my mind. After all, as I said before, we've been going to Italy now for, you know, at that time, seven, eight years, six, seven years. And so I didn't doubt that that was the case, so… LINDA ROSENLUND:… get the sense that your family was very successful and perhaps -- so [unintelligible - 00:40:58] the other students. JOHN CLEMENTI: [Unintelligible - 00:41:01] at Leominster High? I mean, I had that sense, you know, occasionally, but it really wasn't an overriding factor. I mean, I was pretty much of a happy camper in a way. I had a lot of friends, I loved sports. I was on teams with people. I never felt different, I never felt singled out, I never felt exceptional. It was really… as I said before, it was more a question of worrying about sliding down the slippery slope, if you will. Because, you know, I knew friends that, you know, one year were afraid to go to a dance and in the next year were dropping acid. So it became a kind of thing where I really felt that I wasn't going to progress hanging around. I thought I needed a change of venue. You know, I mean, the factual answer is yes. But I never -- it was important in a sense that they monitored my grades and spoke to my teachers and made sure 18 that I was doing what I ought to have been doing. But I think as time went on, as I got into high school, I think their ability to influence what was going on became less and less, simply because the issues I think became more and more complex. And, you know, they were dealing with them was less and less, simply because now instead of talking to a teacher, you have to talk to every one of these teachers and you need to have a better knowledge of what was going on. I think another thing that I've realized quite honestly is I think is the reverse of what you were asking. I was a sophomore in high school. I believe there was a switch for my philosophy of tracking students to a philosophy of open classrooms. And I have been attending school with same group of kids more or less since seventh grade. And as a sophomore, all of a sudden I realized I was in classes with kids that I'd never been in classes with before. And I think I came to the realization, and then I looked around and I thought it was me, and I thought, "Oh, I'm no longer in the top group. I'm now in the lesser group." But then I realized there were another two, three kids that I knew were very bright, that I knew were, you know, smart as anybody in the class, if not smarter, that were with me, but that there were classes where all the kids were bright. I don't know if this is true, but I surmised that if your parents were on the ball, if your parents knew what the score was in school, that they knew who the good teachers were. And along with the program, then you would be one of the guinea pigs in the open classroom. And this is sort of getting back to your question, "Why did you go to Deerfield?" I think what really set me off was an English class that I was in, in which… it was pretty clear that the class remain in the [gamut] from the brightest kids in the school to probably the least talented in the college curriculum. And the class 19 became a series of same kids putting up their hands, coming up with the answer, being ridiculed by the kids that didn't have the answer, who felt insecure and [badly]. And then what would happen is you would just realize this wasn't advancing the knowledge of the class. And so I thought: "If this is the way it's going to be, then it may be time for me to…" that was another; that was a pretty important fact that I neglected to mention, but… I felt badly for the teacher. Because what happened was she just started teaching to the mean. It all fell apart, in my opinion. [Laughter] SPEKAER 1: And I'm talking about… during high school. JOHN CLEMENTI: You know, I hate to speak for him, but wouldn't have surprised me if he did. I think he probably did. LINDA ROSENLUND:Did he push you for an education to go to college, or… JOHN CLEMENTI: Oh, I don't think he ever did. I don't think he ever expected me not to go to college. And by that time, having gone to Deerfield, you know, that was a totally different culture. And, you know, everybody was going to go to college. In fact, the game changed when I went to Deerfield. Another big reason why I went to Deerfield is in those days I really wanted to go to an Ivy League college. Go to on Ivy League college? Well, interestingly, my sophomore year in high school I was on the debate team, and we had a pretty good debating team in those days. And we went to [unintelligible - 00:46:37] which were up at Dartmouth and Hanover. And I remember to this day, because it was in February and it was classically Hanover, snowing all day long. But… I just, you know, I want to do it, this is where I want to go. You know, I want to go here. At that point, I think that kind of finalized the decision to leave Leominster, because my ability to get there would be seriously stained. And so, you know, I started applying to these other places, [unintelligible - 00:47:11] whole 20 thing evolved. My parents had interestingly -- it's funny, because I had a discussion with my dad about it. You know, my dad, his recollection is he sent me there. My recollection is I wanted to go there. Because really, we have no relationship to any of those kinds of schools. Back to funny story. When I… about that time, and it was in the winter, was in February, I think, I had applied to all these schools and I was now on my schedule. And my dad was still working, you know, hands-on. And I'll never forget, we had an interview at Phillips Andover Academy. And my dad was still, you know, he picked me up, he was still dressed in his work clothes. We went to Phillips, sitting in the admission's building. You know, there's old piano, old room, books, and a fireplace roaring. And it was really warm, and dad was just exhausted. And he just fell asleep. Officer was critiquing my [laughter]. And so, you know, that was kind of my recollection of that episode, which now I think is really funny and is really kind of -- but now I think about it, it's like, "Sure, he was tired. The guy was working really, really hard. He was exhausted." I mean, I dragged him out of the plant to come to this… I knew what was going on, you know, in those days. Not then, you know, they didn't know. They kind of got it from other people, it's the kind of deal was, you know, Philly, you know, that kind of thing. And I think in Deerfield they kind of started to get the idea, because Deerfield was the soul, it really still is. It's just, you know, [unintelligible - 00:49:12]. And don't forget, it was 1966. You know, [GI dye] shirts, long hair, the whole bit. Boom, Deerfield, you know? Coats and ties, suits, you know? You think they were kind of blown away by that. I think they thought to themselves, "This is the best thing that ever happened." You know? My mother tells me now that it broke her heart when I left. 21 LINDA ROSENLUND:What were parents' weekends like or parents'…? JOHN CLEMENTI: It was… it was fine. You have to realize, going back, in a way. And so, you know, I think that kind of went away. There's a kid growing up and that's why I see these Hispanic people working here a lot, and I really emphasize. I know what it's like. You know, they want the same things we want. We all want the same things. But Deerfield was… my parents, I think they're very proud of Deerfield. They… it's something I wish they had, gone to public schools, but quite frankly, I just… in this day and age I just never felt… I just didn't feel that public schools were living up to -- I went to Bancroft school in Worcester, and then they went to Deerfield. My girls went to Deerfield and my son is at Deer- -- I have a long Deerfield tradition. LINDA ROSENLUND:You keep the tradition? JOHN CLEMENTI: But I can get them to go elsewhere but they keep following me. So [unintelligible - 00:51:06] letters at Dartmouth. I have senior and freshmen, both of whom went to Deerfield. They've had wonderful careers. Now I have a son, Alex is a freshmen at Deerfield, and… yeah, I think when I went it was $3,700 a year. It really is. It's a… LINDA ROSENLUND:Follow up with you a little bit, then you decided to pursue a law degree? JOHN CLEMENTI: Yeah, I went to law school. You know, it's something I wanted to do from when I was in high school, really. And you know, it was… I went to Boston College Law School. But, you know, I had to decide what I wanted to do—did I want to go to a big city and, you know, could I come back here. I'd been interning here for this firm that I eventually joined. And they liked me and I liked them, and so when it came to, you know, the time to figure out what I wanted to do for a living, I'd lived in Boston at that time for three years. And that was great, but I -- there was a 22 chance to, you know, make an impact going back to my hometown and going to a small town all the time. You know, all the time. And, you know, I think it was just… have a guaranteed job in the city and all that stuff. I thought that that's what I wanted to do. So I joined the law firm and… I enjoyed it and had fun. I liked the people a lot and I liked the law a lot. And it was really a joy with people I met in the law. And at the time I was doing mostly litigation. I was mostly in court doing mostly criminal work. And… that was fun. But at a certain point I realized that's not what I really wanted to do for the rest of my life. And just about at the same time I came to that conclusion, this company, Plastican had been formed and had been a going concern for about… seven or eight years. And… we had a plant; you know, in Leominster, about 70,000 square foot plant, and there was potential to get it bigger and to do other things. But my dad, at that point the jobs and so forth became much more specific in a point became this, "Listen, there's a lot to do here. There's a lot of potential here, but I'm at the age where I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to go [unintelligible - 00:53:56] all over the United States to do what we need to do." And so, I thought about it and realized that it was exciting, it was a lot of upside potential, and so I left the law and joined the company, and in sort of a COO, beneath my father. And the first task at hand was to set up some sort of a operation in the west, and so I went out and scouted the west and decided upon Dallas. And we… at the warehouse operation there we built a plant, begin to manufacture product there, and established a plant in Dallas in Texas. That was in 1978. And off we went. And then, a few years later, we realized that we had a plant in the east, a plant in the west, but there was a lot of business in the southeast. Florida 23 was a growing state. Georgia, the Carolinas. We really needed a place, a plant there. And so I, you know, we did the same thing, and I went down to and scouted the Southeast and came upon Macon, Georgia after much research and lots of trips to Georgia. In the meantime we add it on to the plant in Dallas, and since add it on to the plant in Macon. And then three years ago we built, we purchased a plant in Phoenix, Arizona, and so now we have a plant in Arizona. As for the Plastican side, we have four plants, and we're selling people coast to coast, so to speak. LINDA ROSENLUND:Now, you get an experience with the plastic industry? JOHN CLEMENTI: Oh, yeah. You know, in high school was the summer job, you know, was… you know, before it was time to go to Italy, in June, July, we worked in the plant, and so… but it was all about in terms of how it works and what you do. I had experience with that. I was here all the time in the summer, so I knew everybody and I knew everything that was going on. Well, you know, that's interesting. Yes, because I did have a part time job after school working at a local accountant's kind of doing arithmet- that was sort of after school from, like, 2:30 to 5:00. So I guess the answer is yes. I don't know how that happened, but I did have a part-time job, yeah. I think it was just the winter, because I didn't play any sports in the winter. LINDA ROSENLUND:… that you were [soft]? JOHN CLEMENTI: No. To be honest with you, I don't remember. I think I probably wanted the money. You know, in high school you could use a little more money. Yeah, I played baseball. It's the sport I cared about most. And I played football too. And that was another reason actually that I went to Deerfield, because Deerfield had great baseball, got my hand at another level. And so that was another impetus. 24 I think they just assumed that that's what kids do. It's interesting because… my parents never saw me play. You know, my dad was always working and my mother, you know, didn't really care, which was fine with me. And… it's another story. My dad saw me play the last game I ever played on the parents' weekend, right before graduation. And it was interesting, because he… you know, he was sitting in the stands and so forth and so on. And… so, we played the game and that was at that. After the game he said to me, "You know, I was talking to this really nice man in the stands, and he said that he thought you were a pretty good player." "Well, that's nice," I said. He said, "Well, you know, it's interesting. His name was DiMaggio." Well, it wasn't Joe DiMaggio, and I don't know if he was related to him. As it turns out, it was Dom DiMaggio, who played for the Red Sox, played centerfield for the Red Sox, and his son Paul was in my class. And, you know, it was kind of funny that, you know, Dom DiMaggio tells my father that kid's pretty good. Who's that kid? And he says, "That's my kid." And it was the only game he ever saw me play. And to this day, I have this sort of… conflict, you know, when I see, you know, soccer moms and little league parents and so forth. I think myself, all the fun I had playing, my parents weren't there. And I'm thinking, "You know, maybe I had a lot of fun because they weren't there." And I didn't have to do anything for anybody, you know? You know, I played, and whatever would happen, happened. And inevitably I had fun, and that was at the end of it. You know, I didn't have any dad telling me what I should have done or mom screaming at me for doing something or -- you know, it was kind of -- I left it there. So when I talk to parents now about that whole thing, you know, who feel compelled to see every single game, the every single practice. And I personally don't feel that way; I just don't 25 feel that way. I go to watch my kid play football, but, you know, if I don't go I don't feel it as a big deal. I don't have to do it. You know, that's another story. And so, the Dom DiMaggio thing was really, was a fun thing, to this day. LINDA ROSENLUND:Did you ever feel like you could go beyond? JOHN CLEMENTI: As I got older I realized how far I was away from going on. At Deerfield I played with guys that went to the major leagues. And, you know, I realized what the difference is. There's a difference, you know? [Laughter] LINDA ROSENLUND:… like who? Who played in the major league? JOHN CLEMENTI: Well, there's a guy who's now the coach at Brandeis, a guy named Pete Varney who's a footnote in history because he was the fellow that caught the famous pass in the Harvard-Yale game, 29-29 tie with the… the headline in the school paper was: "Harvard defeats Yale: 29-29." They scored I think, 26 points in, like, three minutes to tie the game, and he caught the extra point that tied the game with no time left on the clock. So Pete Varney was a footnote in history. But he played for the Chicago Red Sox and, you know, he's a big, strapping guy that could really hit. And the, [Ralph Teiner], the announcer of the [unintelligible – 01:00:45] for the Giants was at Deerfield. You know, just the slew of kids. A kid named Willie Roberts who played for the Houston Oilers and footballer Gary Bonner who said, "All the Russian records are…" you know, you can tell. I mean, there's a difference. I wasn't a very good athlete. I was a good player because I really liked the game and I knew how to play it, but I didn't have the ability to become [laughter]. I wish I did, but I didn't. LINDA ROSENLUND:And getting back, we talked about this just a little bit before I turned the recorder on.26 JOHN CLEMENTI: Oh, well. I mean, I ask the same question you were asking me. Because their kids, you know, they were… people from our village, from Corfinio, that are living here in Leominster who gave their children Italian names—Sandro, Pulino, Vega, Rosana—I mean, real Italian names, which are lovely and I love -- you know, I love them. And I said, "You know what's this, John? Why not Giovanni?" And dad and mother both said, "No! We named you John on purpose so you wouldn't get stuck with one of those names." Kind of interesting that they were thinking that way. To me it was kind of surprising that they were thinking that, because, you know, I think about it now, my dad was 22 and my mom was 21. It took a little bit of thinking, you know? No, I was born… LINDA ROSENLUND:But coming in, I thought you were born in Italy. JOHN CLEMENTI: Well, that's kind of interesting the way life works too, because she is very similar to me in the sense that her parents immigrated at just about the same time. And they were born in Latvia and were displaced people because they were invaded by the Russians, and then by the Germans. And they were taken to war camps in Germany. And her parents met in the war camp in Germany. All of these people who were displaced people were given the option of returning to their homeland or [remain there]. And because Latvia had been occupied by the Soviet Union, by the Russians, the word had gotten out as to what life was like on the other side. They decided not to go back to Latvia, and I guess were able to immigrate to the United States through the auspices of a church group, essentially as refugees, but even more so. So my wife was born in Germany. They didn't emigrate until… they immigrated though. It's interesting, you know, marrying a Mediterranean, marrying a [unintelligible - 01:03:52], 27 essentially in Nordic culture. But I think the common bind, you know, bound, being bound together by the immigrant thing, we understand a lot of the same things. You know, the bit about all of that stuff. All of the things, the feeling awkward, the sharing understanding of those things. Grew up in New Jersey. And it's really funny, you know, I've… her dad was a very successful contractor. And… she and her siblings all went to private schools. She went to private school. It was sort of like the same thing. The same thing happened, you know. You think you're unique and you realize you're far from it. LINDA ROSENLUND:How did you meet her? JOHN CLEMENTI: Blind date. Blind date. It was the Feast of St. Anthony in the North End. And law school at the time and a friend of mine who was living in Boston who said, "J, you know, my girlfriend has a friend, you know, up from New Jersey," and, you know, "would you like to go out with her?" "Sure, why not?" In those days, and I guess still today, every week in the summer there's some feast or another, and I go up there. It was a bit of a happening, and so… we had a blind date, and that was that. LINDA ROSENLUND:[Unintelligible – 01:05:29] JOHN CLEMENTI: Yes, it's really… I think back now, and it really is. Because you know, immigration, from Western Europe was over for the most part, by then. You know, there were very few immigrants that came to this country, you know, much after, 1948, '49. I meant, from Western Europe. I mean, they came from other places, from South America and Asia, Africa, but not many from Western Europe. So, it was -- yeah, it was… I think so. Yeah, definitely. You know, I guess, of the heart, it doesn't work that way. [Laughter] LINDA ROSENLUND:And a different religion. 28 JOHN CLEMENTI: Yes, she's a Lutheran. Yeah, I think it… my parents were remarkably disciplined in bearing, in that regard. And so were hers. They were both smart enough to know that, you know, if this has been what's… you know, go along and let's respect the choices and… you know. You know, it's been fine. It's really interesting. They feel both. As I say, my oldest one speaks Italian. My middle one really looks Italian. And my little guy, you know, I think he's at that age where, you know, he doesn't really feel -- but, we went to Latvia last summer, visited Latvia for a week. And it was great because I wanted to go, I wanted to see one of these former Soviet countries and see what life is like there. But it was good for them to see where their grandparents came from and, you know, to really get -- when I say, you know, they've been to both places and I think it's fair to say they feel a real affinity for both places. It really was… the impression you come away with is that it's a country that's really trying hard. Very interesting. You see construction cranes everywhere in the capital city, which is Riga. And very interesting phenomenon there. The country is divided in half ethnically. Half of them are ethnic Russians and half of them are ethnic Latvians. Who are, the Latvians are basically Teutonic in what they are, you know? They're very Germanic. And the Russians are Russian. And there's a real split there. And there's a great deal of resentment left over from the Soviet occupation. And there's resentment both ways. And the leadership of the country is very interesting, because when the country was liberated, children of immigrants -- and immigrants could come back as citizens. And so the prime minister of Latvia is a Canadian woman. And all of the signs in Latvia are written in three languages: Latvian first, English second, and Russians are not too thrilled about that. But the Latvians understand that, 29 you know, English is the -- it's really interesting. I mean, it's just, watching the country develop. You know, the average income there is, like, $250 a month, you know? They email some in Latvia. They're fully aware of everything that's going on in our culture, movies, CNN. Kind of, like… community is in sort of a weak fog, everything that's happened in the last 20 years up an away, and kind of bringing the country into the modern period without having to go through all the baggage of what has gone before. So, it's a real eye opener because all of the vestiges of Soviet domination are still there. I mean, these horribly snotty apartment buildings that are so depressing. You know, it's depressing architecture. And on the other side, avant-garde, hard music. It's a country that is leaping, you know, just jumping right out of the '40s into the, you know, the 2000s without anything in between. And it's happening. LINDA ROSENLUND:Are you hoping to do business…? JOHN CLEMENTI: Honestly, we don't export much of our products, so I never really thought -- on a personal level, no. I think it's just the… it's interesting. You fly through Frankfurt, boom. You know? Connect to Riga. Yeah, it's only an hour. Then from Riga we went to Stockholm, Sweden, which is only an hour. And there's a flight to Estonia. LINDA ROSENLUND:From Stockholm? JOHN CLEMENTI: Mm-hmm. Probably. We were in Stockholm this summer ourselves, we were in June, been there in June. LINDA ROSENLUND:Is there actually, by Stockholm, it was the… JOHN CLEMENTI: Yes, I was surprised. I don't know why I was surprised, but Stockholm just impressed me massively. It's a really beautiful, beautiful city, very impressive. You know, they have that magnificent park across the bridge, really impressive to me. LINDA ROSENLUND:… all of a sudden they've been able to…30 JOHN CLEMENTI: Infiltrate [laughter]. You know, that's a funny kind of situation. By the time that I became a member of the club, I think there was no longer any need to infiltrate. I think that that had changed completely. I remember a very dear friend of mine who was a member at the time—I was a lot younger—asking me if I wanted to be a member. Really hadn't given it much thought, and I said no. And since I've spoken to Jewish people, it was a real thing there. You know, there was, there were clear notions of the time when a Jewish person couldn't be a member. And I think some of those people sort of said, "Well, you know, that was then. This is now." So, you know, to me, I kind of view it as a… doesn't have nearly as social significance it might have had 20 years ago, or 25 years ago, when it really [unintelligible - 01:12:13]. It's no longer relevant to me. I don't think it's any longer a symbol of anything. I don't think so. LINDA ROSENLUND:No? JOHN CLEMENTI: No, I really don't. No. I think those days are long gone, honestly. You know, they may exist somewhere, you know? In the South, or you know, New York. Maybe it's important what club do you belong, but I don't think it's important at all. SPEKAER 1: … product these days at Plastican? JOHN CLEMENTI: Five-gallon bucket is and always has been the most important product. It's the workhorse of the rigid packaging industry. You know, we package everything from swimming pool chlorine, driveway sealer, paint, driveway, drywall compound, detergents, industrial chemicals, you name it. And back then it's five-gallon buckets. So it's a staple item. Lots of them, but that's the good news. The bad news is there are lots of us doing it, and so it's a very competitive business. You know, technology has always been an important part of what we do, and so…we try to keep on the cutting edge in terms 31 of technology. And only can make them quickly but also to make them well, so that the quality of the product is consistent over time. Packaging products get transported vast distances, and so it's important that the seal is really good and that the product is real good. We purchase recycled resins, and so we manufacture product out of recycled plastic, reclaim containers from customers that want us to so that we can assist in closing the circle. We have a very interesting product, which is the curbside recycling bin, the blue boxes you see on the side of the road. We manufacture those as well, and we manufacture those for the state of Massachusetts. And what we do there is we use recycled resin to manufacture the recycling bins, and so it's kind of -- well, I don't know. The way we kind of divided the tasks in the end, I basically run the day-to-day operations. I'm [unintelligible - 01:14:42] marketing personnel, human resources, purchasing, for the most part, the day-to-day operations of things. My dad, on the other hand, is concerned with things like capital purchases, big machines, molds. And he purchases raw material, resins. You know, the raw material. That's kind of the way we divide things. So, you know, the day-in-day-out headaches are mine. And [unintelligible - 01:15:19] aspect is his. That way, you know, we're constantly talking, so it's… we're always engaged in a dialogue about how we should do this how we should do that. And when one of us is on vacation or away, obviously the other takes up the slack. You know, I think it will continue to be more competitive going forward, you know? With globalization and consolidation, there are fewer and fewer companies to sell to. And this is an issue, that more and more purchasing power. And so the only alternative is to become more and more competitive. So… you know, I will be focusing our efforts on ways in which 32 we can make the company more competitive and more user-friendly to the buyers. One of the things about consolidation is with the added mass these companies are adding, what they do is they expect their vendors to provide more and more by way of service. Whereas you might have had good quality and good price, I think going forward that might not be enough. We have some products for the swimming pool industry in particular that are really innovative. "How I get these darn things off?" And with consumers [unintelligible - 01:16:50] is that you have to make sure that they don't come off. And so if you run into a conflict -- but we think we designed some products that make it easier to take the lid off and put it back on while making sure that nothing leaks in the meantime. So that's where -- I think that's the most exciting item that we're introducing. For those who have a one-gallon paint can, that has revolutionized things as well. LINDA ROSENLUND:Packaging? I mean, do you do everything on…? JOHN CLEMENTI: R&D? Marketing, mostly. So yeah, I will do that here. So this is our latest baby. LINDA ROSENLUND:Is that on the market yet? JOHN CLEMENTI: No. Not yet. LINDA ROSENLUND:… revolution. I think the other… JOHN CLEMENTI: Maybe. [Laughter] LINDA ROSENLUND:Well, you never know… JOHN CLEMENTI: You never know. SPEKAER 1: Is security an issue here? JOHN CLEMENTI: In terms of intellectual property? Yeah, it's an issue everywhere. So far so good, though. I mean, our products have been patented. We spend a lot of time and effort. I think we're pretty secure, but who knows? Here, I think in Plastican we have about 300. I think companywide we -- I think we have a very good 33 track record. I mean, I'd bet that fact that four employees that are going to be celebrating 30 years with us in a couple of months. We have very little turnover management, almost none. As far as our shift employees are concerned, the day shifts are very stable. It's really the -- it goes with the nature of the beast. When you're running 24 hours a day, there are some people that would only work 11 to 7 and 11. And there are other people that would never do it. The toughest shift tends to be 3 to 11, because it's kind of in the middle of the day and… that shift. But other than that, we're pretty fortunate with turnover here. Yeah, I think it's safe to say that we're no different from any other manufacturers in the Commonwealth. We have a lot of people of Hispanic -- I think we have a cross section of the people who live here. LINDA ROSENLUND:Can you mention that again? JOHN CLEMENTI: Yeah. Well, we have a lot of Hispanic employees. I'd say it's probably the major ethnic group that we have. And we also have a lot of Asians—Koreans, Vietnamese, Hmong. And so it's pretty much the reflection of the people that live in our area. I would hope so. I'd like to think that we've give people opportunities to advance themselves, you know, professionally, economically. I too provide opportunities to people. As I said before, we've been fortunate in that our recruitment and retention, we've just been very successful people come here. But I think everybody wants to leave a legacy of fairness and opportunity, and I hope to do the same./AT/lj/es

Issue 55.6 of the Review for Religious, November/December 1996. ; lived experience of all who find that the church's rich heritages of spirituality support their personal and.apostolic Christian lives. The articles in the journal are meant to be informative, practical, or inspirational, written from a theological or spiritual or sometimes canonical point of view. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: FOPPEMA@SLUVCA.SLU.EDU Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP 1150 Cedar Cove Road ¯ Henderson, NC 27536 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, ,\IN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©1996 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy 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 ~:ommercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. for religious Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Regina Siegfried ASC Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Jean Read James and Joan Felling Iris Ann Ledden SSND Joel Rippinger OSB Edmundo Rodriguez SJ David Werthmann CSSR Patricia Wittberg SC Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1996 * VOLUME55 Q NUMBER6 contents directions 566 583 The Dialogue of Conversion: Toward Jubilee 2000 Jeffrey Gros FSC proposes ways in which religious communities can participate in the ecumenical dimension of preparing for and celebrating the bimillenary jubilee of the incarnation. A Way of Being Church: Journey, Serve, and Evangelize Erik Karl Riechers SAC explains the Union of Catholic Apostolate as a Pallottine family model for sharing a spirituality and ministry. models 593 Frances Cabrini: A Woman for Today Rita E. Goldman paints a w~rm and human portrait of Frances Cabrini as we celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of her canonization. 601 The Cistercian Martyrs of Algeria, 1996 M. Basil Pennington OCSO relates the story of the seven Cistercians who were abducted and killed in Algeria. Review for Religious life and death 613 619 Death Questions and Life Questions Cathy Arata SSND builds upon her apostolic experience in E1 Salvador in facing the hard questions of life. Prophetic Sorrow a Sign of the Times Beverly Anne LoGrasso OSU presents the Ursuline community's grief response to the rape and murder of two of their sisters. consecrated life 625 640 Full of Grace: Another Look at the 19th-Century Nun Dolores Liptak RSM relates the congregational stories of the 19th-century American sisters who transformed negative images and made of their own lives powerfully attractive invitations for service. "Objective Superiority" in Vita Consecrata Dennis J. Billy CSSR critiques the phrase "objective superiority" and presents an interpretation in the context of both Vatican II documents and Vita consecrata. 564 646 651 departments Prisms L.,'¢~,-s Canonical Counsel: Canon. 127 Technical Requirements for Advice or Consent Book Reviews 666 Indexes to Volume 55 November-December 1996 prisms Life and death issues are always with us. At times they touch more poignantly into our experience. Traditionally the November liturgical calen-dar is~ associated with death since we begin by remem-bering all the faithful departed and through the Sunday Eucharists we face somber scripture readings about the end times. December's liturgical calendar, on the other hand, looks more to life, celebrating Mary's conception as the "immaculate one" within a hope,filled Advent sea-son which culminates with the star-bright birth of Jesus our Savior. Prisms provided by life and death issues-have us face the God- and faith-questions in our lives. They are prisms necessary if we are to value realistically who we are, who we are becoming, and what we do, what happens to us. God provides us with many other prisms which help us see and appreciate the everyday richness of our lives and ministries as Christian men and women. Some people seem to little appreciate that we all use prisms to view life, accept values, and relate to God. Perhaps many of us fail to make use of the variety of prisms available through which to develop a more ade-quate and vibrant understanding of God, self, church, and world. Rather, some seem to choose to look at life through a single monochromatic lens or through a spattered one that allows only darkness and light and voids the rich sub-tlety of dawn and sunset beauty. Christmas presents us with an ever startling prism through which we see God's presence to ourselves and our world. We celebrate God's dialogue with us through the Word by whom all things came into being and in whom we find life. In listening to John's majestic pro- Review for Religious logue about the Word becoming flesh, I find the imagery of prisms and of dialogue all of a piece. John Paul II says, "By dialogue we let God be present in our midst; for as we open ourselves in dia- 'logue to one another, we also open ourselves to God." Dialogue-- entering into the presence of the Word--is similar to the various prisms of creation which allow us to truly seek and find a labor-ing God active in our world. Paul VI, too, had boldly proclaimed that "dialogue is a new way of being church." Drawing upon the imagery of the Word made flesh, he was reclaiming evangelization as an essential ele-ment of living ~the Christian life. Just as some people close them-selves from appreciating God's pervasive love that is visible in creation only through a variety of prisms, we can be people closed to the call to be church through dialogue. We can talk only to those people who think exactly as we do. We can read nothing that would challenge 6r broaden our mind-set. We can ,enter into conversation not to listen or to learn, but only to accept agreement or refute and "win the day." Not only evangelization, but life itself is being closed down--with other~ and so with God. It can happen to any of us--bishop, priest, religious, or layperson--who may claim the possession of truth in such a way that dialogue is neither possible nor desired. Every Christmas morn faces' us with this question: How do we find the Word in a manger--today? Like shepherds on the watch or like teachable magi, are we avail-able to an alien messenger's voice for direction or to a light from afar to help guide our way? As we approach the third,.millennium, John Paul has indi-cated that dialogue encouraged by the church is fourfold: the dia-logue of life found in people's sharing as neighbors, the dialogue of actioti collaborating for a world more humfin and more divine, the dialogue of sharing the riches of offr spiritual experience and helping one another find the Absolute, the dialogue of special-ists exchanging theologiFal insights to deepen understanding and appreciation of religious heritages and spiritual values. No one of us can remain aloof today from at least some aspects of this fourfold dialogue. Dialoguemprivileged prisms in our Christian responsibility to be neighbors, ecumenists, and evangelists! All of us who dialogue with you our readers in each issue of this journal pray that you be blessed with many grace-illumined prisms .coloring your Christmas season. David L. Fleming SJ November-December 1996 directions JEFFREY GROS The Dialogue of Conversion: Toward Jubilee 2000 Zeal for the unity of the church is central to Roman Catholic spirituality. As Christians move, toward the cel-ebration of the opening of the third millennium, we have been called to gospel, renewal in all dimensions of church life, especially church unity: "Among the most fervent petitions which the church makes., is that unity among all Christians of the various confessions will increase until they reach full communion.''1 For religious this is a particularly opportune moment for service in the church. Prayer, conversion, and spiri-tual renewal--to which religious have long known them-selves to be consciously called--are essential for understanding and engaging in the church's ecumenical commitment: "Concern for restoring unity pertains to the whole church, faithful and clergy alike. It extendS to every-one, according to the ability of each, whether it be exer-cised in daily Christian living or in. theological and historical studies.''2 This is a special time .for renewal of commitments already made and for deepening the knowledge, dialogue, and prayer that will serve the unity for which Christ prayed. This .essay will suggest how religious communities, especially communities of contemplative and retired per- Jeffrey Gros FSC writes from the National Conference of Catholic Bishops' Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs; 3211 4th Street, N.E.; Washington, D.C. 20017. Review for Religious sons, can participate in the ecumenical dimension of preparing for and celebrating the bimillenary jubilee of the incarnation (see Pope John Paul's apostolic exhortation dated 25 March 1996, Vita consecrata §44). After the brief introduction, we will discuss~ (1) the jubilee theme and its preparation, (2) a schedule of prayer, (3) a program of spiritual reading, and (4) the ministry of hospitality for dialogue. Of course, the social-justice and evange-lization elements suggested for jubilee preparation also entail ecumenical dimen-sions and possibilities. The reception of the results of ecumenical dialogues is a key element in the new evangelization of which Pope John Paul so frequently speaks. With the publication of Directory for the Application of Principles and Norms on Ecumenism, religious communities have been challenged to set up commissiofis within their institutes and appoint coor-dinators for ecumenical leadership.3 Obviously the tasks of such a commission and coordinator can begin with seeing to the ecumenical component of initial and continuing formation and with applying the directory's suggestions to hospitals, schools, retreat centers, social-service and advocacy, programs, and the many other are~is where religious provide leadership and witness. Vim consecrata further spells out ways that religious can contribute to church unity (§§2, 100, and 101). However, the publication of the apostolic letter Tertio millen-nio adveniente, with its detailed program leading up to the year 2000, gives such commissions an opportunity to design a prayer cycle and educational program that can enable all, especially retired religious, to participatei a.ccording to their station in life. Obviously, diocesan ecumenical officers and local ecumenical agencies can be of great help in such planning and' implementa-tion in the communities. The specificity of the Holy Father's pro-gram lends itself to rich adaptation in local communities. The publication of the encyclical Ut unum sint, with its enthu-siasm and rich spiritual emphasis, provides a significant resource for religious community reflection. As Pope John Paul notes in the The publication of the encyclical Ut unum sint, with its enthusiasm and rich spiritual emphasis, provides a significant resource for religious community reflection. November-December 1996 Gros ¯ The Dialogue of Conversion . encycl!¢.al: "A new task lies before us: that of receiving the results already achieved," which "must involve the whole people of God" (§80). The five years in preparation provide the church an oppor-tunity to pray and reflect over the results offered to the church for reception: "With regard to other Christians, the principal docu-ments of the Commission on Faith and Order [of the World Council of Churches] and the statements of numerous bilateral dialogues have already provided Christian communities with use-ful tools for discerning what is necessary to the ecumenical move-ment and to the conversion it must inspire" (UUS §17). These statements can find their way into the spiritual reading, prayer, and discussion of religious communities during the course, of the years of preparation for the jubilee celebration. The Jubilee Theme In the pope's letter on the jubilee, he emphasizes the social-justice implications of reordering society implicit in the theme selected, Leviticus 25, which recounts the biblical jubilee in which captives and slaves are liberated, land redistributed, and relations among God's people reordered. In addition to unity among Christians, conversion to a' new way of viewing society and widespread study of the church's social teaching are essential ele-ments. The World Council of Churches has already selected this same text, °under the theme "Return to God, Rejoice in Hope," for its fiftieth jubilee, to be celebrated at its 1998 assembly in Africa, In the first section of the pope's letter, he addresses the ques-tion of God's will .for the church, remarking that ~'Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today," and in the second section he lays out his own philosophy of Christian history, which is based on the theology of the incarnation. Within this theological and his-torical context, he elaborates in the third section his vision of the jubilee preparation and, in the fourth, its specific stages. We will enumerate some of the ecumenical challenges and resources that come into play on the road toward the realization of this hope. We present the stages of preparation. There are five specific stages proposed for the years between the letter's publication and the jubilee. The first phase is remote preparation, 1994-1996. It includes reflection on sinfulness and the need of repentance, iden-tification of the difficulties on both sides of the sinful divisions in the church, preparation of a program of prayer for the Holy Review for Religious Spirit's gift of unity, "the promoting of fitting ecumenical initia-tives," and repentance for acts of violence and intolerance. This will entail careful historical study and reconciliation of memories (UUS §2). For this, members of religious orders and institutes may wish to look into their own histories to discern what role their predecessors may have played in the negative his-tory of relations among churches and religious groups. They can be led by the examples of religious orders (Oblates and Jesuits) during the celebrations of the 500th anniversary of the European discovery of the Americas. Also there will be attempts to deal with the religious indifference, the widespread loss of percep-tions of transcendence, and the crisis of obedience that are the experience of our time. Finally, there will be an attempt to create an ecumenical martyrology of common heroes in the faith who have suffered and whose commitment to the cross of Christ can bring us into deeper unity with one another (UUS §84). Again, religious orders and institutes may figure prominently on these lists, particularly members who gave their lives in the past fifty years in the common struggle against communism and totalitar-ianism. This remote preparation will be followed by three years devoted to specific themes: (1) 1997 will be devoted to Christ, recalling the common baptism in which all Christians share and which is the root of .the real, if yet imperfect, communion .that supports our common pilgrimage toward full unity. (2) 1998 will focus on the Holy Spirit .fostering the many charisms of the peo-ple of God, linking Christians of the northern and southern hemi-spheres, and giving strong impetus toward church unity. This will also be the year of the World Council Assembly. Catholic engage-ment in this jubilee celebration and its preparation can be integral to the program of the churches moving together toward the year 2000, (3) 1999 will be devoted to God the Father, with a focus on penance, the preferential option for the poor, the dialogue of cul-tures, and women's rights. In this year the Holy Father suggests an interreligious focus, especially with our fellow monotheists, Jews and Muslims. Here the leadership of Pope John Paul is well ahead of the church as a whole,.with his pastoral visits, his gath-erings of religious leaders in Rome and Assisi, and his Vatican documents and addresses on dialogue.4 Finally, the jubilee itself is to be planned "and carefully pre-pared in an attitude of fraternal cooperation with Christians of November-December 1996 Gros ¯ The Dialogue of Conversion other denominations and traditions, as well as of grateful openness to those religions whose representatives might wish to acknowl-edge the joy shared by all the disciples of Christ" (TMA §55). Certainly such an ambitious project ~will take skill in dialogue and outreach at ever} level of Catholic life, building on the thirty years of developing bonds of trust and affection among the churches. Religious have a significant contribution to make on this spiritual journey. ~, Prayer Cycle in therJubilee Preparation ¯ Some will participate actively in the planning and designing of the jubilee events and the engagement of the Catholic and ecu-menical communities in the dialogues, prayer opportunities, and 'study that will contribute to reconciliation. However, all religious can participate in prayer, which is at the very center of ecumeni-cal activity. In this section we will suggest particular themes according to the years leading up to the jubilee and, in the next, themes for spiritual reading which can enhance the prayer. A province or community can ask some of its members to work with some ecumenical partners to develop a set of petitions for prayer ,during the course of each year, and possibly to draw on the prayer resources of the partners.'If it is feasible, a religious com-munity can invite a leader from another church, or even a number of members of the congregation, for common prayer and reflection. Such prayer arrangemen.ts can be more or less detailed, depending on the prayer styles and flexibility of different communities,s During the time focused on early preparation and repentance, the encyclical Ut unum sint and the apostolic letter Tertio millen-nio adveniente can be reviewed to develop prayer intentions, read-ings, and themes. The themes of charity and conversion,the common martyrology, and the healing of memories all provide material for prayer of .thanksgiving, repentance, and petition to dispose the community .for the journey toward the jubilee cele-bration andthe fostering of closer Christian relationships, Specific prayers and readings on the communion (koinonia) among the churches and the goal of full communion can be drawn from World Council resources.6 General agreements on such themes as Scripture and Tradition, Eucharist and Ministry, Authority and Teaching, and Mary can provide a prayerful preparation for more specific intentions as the jubilee draws closer. Review for Religious The year 1996, because it calls specifically for the Roman Catholic Church to recall its own failures and to repent its own complicity in the divisions among Christians, might well focus on the African American churches and the peace churches (the Brethren, Hutterites, Mennonites, and Quakers). Slavery and the continuing racism and violence in American society make it par-ticularly appropriate to pray.with and for these two groups of churches in repentance, confession, reconcilia-tion, and thanksgiving.7 The historic peace churches have been persecuted by members of almost all the churches, including Roman Catholics, because of their refusal to compromise with state-sponsored and church-legitimated violence. We should not only pray for and with these Christians, but also let our prayers and actions for peace benefit from their spirituality and the discipline of their nonviolent lifestyle. Because these churches are small, it may not be easy to find members in each community, but their spiritual literature is rich and widely available. Christ, our common baptism, and the grace we share with other Christians will be emphasized in 1997. During this year, the 450th anniversary of the Council of Trent's, Decrees on Justification, it is hoped that Roman Catholics and Lutherans can proclaim, in a binding joint declaration, a common understand-ing of Christ's justifying grace received in faith by Christians. If such an agreement on grace, sin, merit, and faith were to be suc-cessful, it would be a great contribution to our common spiritual life and a basis for effective movement beyond the 16th centur)i's condemnations. Prayer for and with the Lutheran churches, for the success of such an agreement and for the influence it could have on the life of church members, and quiet meditation on the meaning of God's love in Jesus Christ, as proclaimed especially in Paul's Letter to the Romans, can make this a year that sees our commitment to Christ renewed and our full .communion with the Lutheran churches realized. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America will also be considering proposals for full communion with Episcopalians and with three Reformed or Calvinist churches: Presbyterian, United Christ, our common baptism, and the grace we share with other Christians will be emphasized in 1997. November-December 1996 Gros * The Dialogue of Conversion Church of Christ, and Reformed Church in America. These hopes and proposals for reconciliation will suggest opportunities for prayer and reflection too. Wherever Christ's will for the unity of the church is being realized, spiritually sensitive Catholics will be prayerfully attentive. During this year we can als0 include in our prayers the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches and the Assyrian Church of the East. These three traditions all share with us the sacraments and bishops in the apostolic succession; a common Trinitarian and Christological faith, some elements of which have been clarified only recently in ecumenical dialogue; and a common understanding of the catholic demands of full communion in a visible, sacramental church. Existing tensions, however, especially in Eastern Europe .but also occasionally in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, call for sensitivity, repentance, and reconciliation. Prayer for particular Orthodox and Catholic churches around the world, for their peace and reconciliation, is an important contribution to Christ's will for unity. The rich liturgical traditions of the Christian East can provide resources for community prayer and celebration for and with these churches. During 1997 we can also focus prayer on our relationship with Episcopalians and Anglicans worldwide. We share many spir-itual gifts. The dialogue has moved forward with unexpected pos-itive results, so much so that in 1994 the Holy See could say that "no further work" was necessary at this time on the theology of Eucharist and ministry, indicating that the agreements produced to date and the subsequent clarifications show a common faith as regards these two areas of our life. Obviously, the question of women's ordination and under-standings of authority and papal primacy are still under discussion. The Archbishop of Canterbury indicated, on behalf of the Anglican communion, a willingness to accept Pope John Paul's 1995 invitation to talk about how the papacy can be renewed to better serve the unity of the church. Regarding all the progress made to date, there is much for which to be grateful; for the broad common heritage of spirituality, there is much to celebrate; and, in anticipation of future steps toward full communion, there is much for which we must pray. The Episcopal Book of Common Prayer provides many resources for prayer in our religious com-munities as we yearn for the day when full Eucharistic communion can be celebrated together. Review for Religious The year 1998 will be characterized by the celebration of the Assembly of the World Council of Churches. This is an oppor-tunity to make use of the Bible-study and prayer materials that will be produced for the occasion.8 This will also be a year dedicated to the Holy Spirit, to the role of the laity, and to enhanced rela-tions between peoples in the northern and southern hemispheres. It will be a year to raise up special prayers for the Roman Synod for the Americas and its contributions to Christian reconciliation and a year for leadership by laypersons in ecu-menism. There are local ecumenical confer-ences and agencies that can provide partners in getting prayer materials ready to help com-munities focus on the churches' common wit-ness in their immediate areas. In particular, with the year dedicated to the Holy Spirit, religious communities may wish to pray with and for various Protestant churches with which the Catholic Church is committed to full communion. United Methodists, Presbyterians, the United Church of 'Christ, Disciples of Christ, and the Reformed Church in America all participate in dialogues with the Roman Catholic Church with the hope of full communion. Most of these churches have participated with the Catholic Church in the liturgical move-ment and have common prayers and liturgical texts that can form the basis for prayer services. Their local representatives and mem-bers of religious communifies could profitably share with one another their common or different experiences and perceptions of their church life. Our relationships with some other churches look, at this time, more toward mutual understanding than toward full sacramental communion. The year 1998 should provide opportunities for prayer for and with Baptists, Pentecostals, and other independent Evangelical churches. More often than with them, we may find ourselves prayingJbr them and for their conversion to an open communication and dialogue with the Roman Catholic and other Christian churches. However, some of these Christians may be willing to pray with us even if there are few other areas of col-laboration to which they would be open. Pope John Paul suggests that 1999 be dedicated to the Father The year 1998 will be characterized by the celebration of the Assembly of the World Council of Churches. November-December 1996 Gros ¯ The Dialogue of Conversion and to interreligious dialogue. We can pray particularly for Jews and Muslims and engage in common prayer when this is possible. While there are some fine resources available for Christian and Jewish prayer, little has been produced for local use in interfaith worship.? Care should be taken to produce any materials jointly with those with whom prayer is planned. The diocesan ecumeni-cal officer can assist. As with Christian groups, this can be a time of reflecting on the sad heritage of past relationships (here, for example, the cru-sades, the inquisition, the holocaust) as we move through repen-tance to reconciliation and solidarity. This is a time when one can raise i~rayers to God for other families of faith and draw on some of their traditions, like Hindu yoga and Buddhist meditation, to enrich our own Christian prayer life. Also during this year, prayerful reflection on the poor, on the roles of women, and on the maternal aspects of God can nourish the spirituality and prayer life of communities and individual religious. Finally, the year 2000 is devoted to the anniversary of the incarnation, with the Holy Father hoping for a major ecumenical gathering in Jerusalem, an interfaith gathering (possibly at Mr. Sinai), and planning a Roman Catholic Eucharistic gathering in Rome. During this year, thought and prayer can look towards the harvest time, when the years of ecumenical dialogue and prayer yield their fruit: a thoroughgoing ecumenical council of Orthodox, Anglican, Roman Catholic, and Protestant Christians celebrat-ing full communion. The fruit of much prayer and study can show itself in local prayer meetings and events of celebration. On the first Sunday of Advent there will be a celebration of reconciliation in the United States for several Protestant. churches that will come together, after forty years of dialogue, to become the Church of Christ Uniting (COCU). Prayers for and with these churches for the Holy Spirit's blessing on this venture will be impor~tant for all Christians. During this period before the event, the Episcopal, Presbyterian, United Methodist, African Methodist Episcopal, Christian Methodist Episcopal, and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion churches and the United Church of Christ, the Disciples of Christ, and the International Council of Community Churches will be deciding whether they are ready for this step toward full communion. Catholics can join with these Christians in prayer as they walk the path towarO unity. Catholics can be with them in longing for Review for Relig4ous the day when more Christian churches join in similar celebra-tions of full communion. Spiritual Reading in Preparat~ion for the Jubilee As a time of prayer before the great celebration of the incar-nation, these five years can include reflection informed by read-ing that serves the same goal of deepened conversion to Christ's will for the unity of the' church. The practical suggestions here will touch three levels of reading: church documents, ecumenical doc- ¯ uments, and more general spiritual-reading resources. Partners from other churches and communities, if they are familiar with their own spiritual traditions, can provide appropriate sugges-tions to meet particular spiritual needs. While there are many church documents that can provide understanding and stimulus for our prayer life, only four recent texts will be suggested here. The most useful may be the encycli-cal Ut unum sint because of its spiritual core and the enthusiasm with which it is written. Like all of the encyclicals of Pope John Paul, it includes much that is.familiar to those following the ecu-menical movement over the'last thirty years. However, if a para-graph or two are taken for meditative reading each day, with reflection on how the pope's comments relate to one's own expe-rience~ and how one is challenged by the values he lays out, this text can be of significant help. The Holy Father's emphasis on renewal of the individual and the church, on the centrality of prayer and dialogue to nourish prayer, on the dialogues of con-version and charity, on the centrality of love and truth, on the reception and celebration of gifts from others, and on openness to repentance and change, all provide profound opportunities for conversation with God about his will for us and for the church. The apostolic letter Tertio millennio adveniente is of a different character. Its first two sections, on theology and history, are rather dense. Careful reading, however, and even exploring of events and ideas laid out here and in the rest of the letter will be a help-ful orientation as one begins these five carefully programmed years of reflection and prayer. Some of the anniversaries recalled in the second section of the letter will lead us to want to read about certain segments of the Christian community, about certain saints and Christian leaders, and about the development of the church in different cultures. OUr prayer life can be nourished by November-December 1996 Gros * The Dialogue o~ Conversion biography and Christian history as we carry our heritage toward the future. Some may find the other two documents less spiritually nour-ishing since they have a more specific purpose. For those, however, who would choose to reflect on them prayerfully, they have a sig-nificant contribution to make. The Directory for the Application of Principles and Norms on Ecumenism is a more formal document, with theological and juridical content. For those who are involved in leadership or who wish to reflect on the position of the Catholic Church, this text is foundational. The sections on Ecumenical Formation and on Communion in Life and Spiritual Activity pro-~ vide important bases for reflecting on one's community's and one's own spiritual formation and on ministry in the light of what God is doing in the church. The apostolic letter on the churches of the East, Orientale lumen, will help, during the year 1997, in ini-tiating reflection on Christological understandings that have emerged in dialogues and on the spiritual riches of this half of the tradition catholic?° Much of what one finds in this text is also outlined in Ut unum sint. From our dialogues with other churches, we are fortunate to have very rich results to nourish our spiritual reading and our spiritual lives. Though some of these are technical texts, all of them are oriented toward bringing us closer to Christ and his mysteries and to one another in the church God has willed for us. The reconciliation which they are meant to serve is as deeply spiritual as it is theological and institutional. Therefore, it is use-ful for every religious house and spiritual renewal center to have a library where these ecumenical results are available for reading and reflection.11 These documents should facilitate for us a pro-cess of spiritual .reconciliation by giving us a deeper appreciation of the gifts of the other Christian churches and help us make the unity to which they witness a part of our own spiritual life. For each year coming up, there are significant resources for our reading and reflection. In 1996, getting to know the African American and peace churches can enrich our own faith and com-mitment to justice and peace in our spiritual lives.12 In 1997, deci-sions will be before the Catholic and Lutheran churches concerning the doctrine of grace, a focus on Christ's saving love that can renew all Christians.~3 This theme of justification by faith has produced some important spiritual-reading volumes in English.14 The Anglican-Roman Catholic dialogue has already Review for Religious produced some marvelous results that enrich our sacramental understanding.~5 We are fortunate to have the texts of the Orthodox, both Eastern and Oriental, available.~6 For special attention in 1998, various documents already recommended and the specific preparatory materials for that year's World Council Assembly provide ample resources. In this year many could well reflect on the history and future of the churches together in the World Council.17 An extensive set of materials on Christian-Jewish and interreligious dialogue has been developed for reading and reflection; it can be especially useful during 199928 For more general spiritual reading, there is a variety of resources available. For 1996, books on conversion, ecumenical journeys, rec-onciliation, and ecumenical spirituality are widely available29 The African American and peace church traditions provide rich prayer and meditation resources for 1997.20 Spiritual biographies are a way of understanding the spiritual journeys of early and later Orthodox, Anglican, and Protestant Christians. Lives of Luther and resources from Orthodox and Anglican spiritual writ-ers can enrich one's sensitivity and appreciation for these tradi-tions. 2 ~ In 1998 (and earlier too) a wide variety of Bible-study resources will be available from the. World Council of Churches. That would be a year to reflect on the spiritualities of John Calvin, John Wesley, and Roger Williams and on the Christian commu-nities of which they were leaders.22 As a result of Thomas Merton's influence and the East/West monastic dialogue, religious are per-haps more acquainted with some interreligious resources than they are with such ecumenical onesfl3 In any case, 1999 provides an opportunity to deepen and broaden our reading in various living spiritual traditions of world religions.24 Approaches to other believers can, moreover, enrich our understanding of and rela-tionship to fellow Christians of other churches.~5 Finally, the jubilee year itself can be a time of reflection on the hopes of the whole Christian community for an ecumenical coun-cil that will truly unite Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican, and Protestant churches.26 Our prayer life can be nourished by biography and Christian history as we carry our heritage toward the future. Noventber-Decentber 1996 Gros * The Dialogue of Conversion The Ministry of Hospitality Institutional and theological efforts have their contribution to make toward visible unity. More importan( are the spiritual resources that foster zeal for God's will for the church. But the relational dimension of ecumenical spirituality can be realized only by people's concrete experience of the "dialogue of conver-sion" of which Pope John Paul speaks so eloquently in Ut unum sint. These five years provide an opportunity for any.community, no matter how mobile or sedate, to invite fellow Christians of other churches in for prayer, a meal, and possibly a discussion, depending, on people's time and interest (see VC §101). If more care can be given to such an invitation, communities can share some common reading before, the visit and can invite a Christian leader, her or his spouse, and even some members of their church. The ecumenical officers of the diocese can be of particular assis-tance in making these contacts and advising on appropriate ser-vices and programs. Pope John Paul outlines the basis for this dimension of the ecumenical spirituality: , If prayer is the "soul" of ecumenical renewal and of the yearning for unity, it is the basis and support for everything the council defines as dialogue. This definition is certainly not unrelated to today's personalist way of thinking. The capacity for dialogue is rooted in the nature of the person and his dignity. As seen by philosophy, this approach is linked to the Christian truth concerning man as expressed by the council: Man is in fact "th~ only creature on earth which God willed for itself"; thus he cannot "fully find him-self except through a sincere gift of himself." Dialogue is an indispensable step along the path toward human self-real-ization, the self-realization both of each individual and of every human community. Although the concept of dialogue might appear to give priority to the cognitive dimension, all dialogue implies a global, existential dimension. It involves the human subject in his or her entirety; a dialogue between communities involves in a particular way the subjectivity of each. (UUS §28) Religious, with their experience of community and renewal, of dialogue and governance since Vatican II, are in a particularly advantageous position to model and expand this dimension of ecumenical spirituality in preparation for the jubilee. As we Christians move toward the third millennium with hopes of full communion growing ever stronger, we support our Review for Religious prayer with the disciplines of spiritual reading, meditation, com-mon worship, and dialogue. In Vita consecrata the Holy Father calls upon religious to notice their excellent opportunity to con-tribute to the experience of koinonia, which lies at the basis of hopes for full communion among the churches: "A great task also belongs to the consecrated life in the light of the teaching about the church as communion . Consecrated persons are asked to be true experts of communion and to practice the spirituality of communion as 'w.itnesses and architects of the plan for unity which is the crowning point of human history in God's design.' The sense of ecclesial communion, developing into a spirituality of communion, promotes a way of thinking, speaking, and act-ing which enables the church to grow in depth and extension" (VC §46). The first thirty ~,ears of Roman Catholic ecumenical involve-ment have been characterized by getting to know our ecumenical partners and understanding their churches, theology, and spiri-tualities. The theological dialogues have been most productive. In 1997 we are beginning.a third phase of the dialogue,27 This spir-itual journey from dialogue to decision is a spiritual resource that needs to be available to all Catholics. As our relationship with the Lord deepens in preparation for the celebration of his incar-nation, so "in the deep personal dialogue which each of us must carry on with the Lord in' prayer, concern for unity cannot be absent. Only in this way, in fact, will the concern fully become part of the reality of our life and of the commitments we have taken on in the church" (UUS §27). Notes ' John Paul II, Tertio millennio adveniente ("As the Third Millennium Draws Near"), Origins 24, no:' 24 (24 November 1994): §16 (hereafter Ta4A). 2 John Paul II, Ut unum sint ("That All May Be One"), Origins 25, no. 4(8 June 1995): §19 (hereafter UUS). 3 Directory for the Application of Principles and Norms on Ecumenism, Origins 23, no. 9 (29 July 1993): §§50-51. 4 Red}mptoris missio, Origins 20, no. 34 (31 January 1991): §29. s One might suggest a prayer for each year. For example, the Magnificat for 1996 (repentance), the Te Deum for 1997 (Christ), the Veni Sancte Spiritus for 1998 (Holy Spirit), and the Nicene Creed for 1999 (God the Father). November-December 1996 Gro~ ¯ The Dialogue of Conversion 6 Thomas Best and Gtinther Gassmann, eds., On the Way to Fuller Koinonia (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1993). Gtinther Gassmann, ed., Documentary History of Faith and Order: 1963-1993 (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1993). 7 The Office of African-American Catholics provides a kit, Love One Another, including prayer materials that can be used for such services (U.S. Catholic Conference Publishing Services; 3211 4th Street, N.E.; Washington, D.C. 20017). Other prayer materials, designed by the African Methodist Episcopal, Christian Methodist Episcopal, and African Methodist Episcopal Zion Churches. Liberation and Unity, for ecumeni-cal Lenten use, is available from Consultation on Church Union; Research Park; 151 Wall Street; Princeton, New Jersey 08540. ~ Available from: World Council of Churches U.S. Office; 475 Riverside Drive;New York, New York 10115; tel. 202-870-2470. 9 H. Schlesinger and H. Porto, Prayers of Blessing and Praise for All Occasions (Mystic, Connecticut: Twenty-Third publications, 1987). Leon Klenicki and Bruce Robbins, Jewish and Christians: A Dialogue Service about Prayer (Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, 1995). ~o Orientale lumen, Origins 25, no. 1 (18 May 1995). 11 Lukas Vischer and Harding Meyer, eds., Growth in Agreement Reports and Agreed Statements of Ecumenical Conversations on a World Level (New York: Paulist Press, 1984). Jeffrey Gros and Joseph Burgess, eds., Building Unity (New York: Paulist Press, 1989) and Growing Consensus (New York: Paulist Press, 1995). Also the volumes noted in n. 5 above. 12 William Watley, Singing the Lord's Song in a Strange Land (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1992). Marlin Miller and Barbara Nelson Gingrich, eds., The Church's Peace Witness (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1994). 13 H. George Anderson, T. Austin Murphy, and Joseph A. Burgess, eds., Justification by Faith (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1985). Karl Lehmann and Wolfhart Pannenberg, eds., The Condemnations of the Reformation Era: Do They Still Divide? (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990). 14 Jared Wicks SJ, Yearning for Grace: Luther's Early Spiritual Teaching (Philadelphia: Coronet Books, 1969) and Luther and His Spiritual Legacy (Wilmingtom Michael Glazier, 1983). George H. Tavard, Justification: An Ecumenical Study (New York: Paulist Press, 1983). is William Purdy, The Search for Unity (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1995). Christopher Hill and Edward Yarnold, eds., Anglicans and Roman Catholics: The Search for Unity: The ARCIC Documents and their Reception, (London: SPCK/CTS, 1994). 16 John Borelli and John Erickson, Orthodox and Catholic in Dialogue (Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimir Seminary Press/Washington, D.C.: U.S. Catholic Conference, 1995). Ronald G. Roberson, ed., Oriental Orthodox-Roman Catholic Pastoral Relationships and Interchurch Marriages (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Catholic Conference, 1995). Paul Fries and Tiran Nersoyan, Christ in East and VVest (Macon: M. ercer University Press, I ~87). Review for Religious ~7 W.A, Visser't Hooft, The Genesis and Formation of the World Council of Churches (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1982). 18 "Dialogue and Proclamation," Origins 21, no. 8 (4 July 1991), "Interreligious Dialogue," Living Light 32, no. 2 (Winter 1995), Eugene Fisher and Leon Klenicki, eds., In Our Time: The Flowering of Jewish- Catholic Dialogue (New York: Paulist Press, 1989). 19 For the Conversion of the Churches, by Groupe des Dombes (Geneva, Switzerland: World Council of Churches, 1993). Dianne Kessler, Lorelei Fuchs, and Gillian Evans, Encounters.for Unity (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 1994). Michael Hurley, ed., Reconciliation in Religion and Society (Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, 1994), and Timothy J. Wengert and Charles W. Brockwell Jr., eds., Telling the Churches' Stories: Ecumenical Perspectives on Writing Christian History (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1995). Louis Dupr~ and Don Saliers, eds., Christian Spirituality: Post-Reformation andModern (New York: Crossroad, 1989), and E. Glenn Hinson, ed., Spirituality in Ecumenical Perspective (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993). 20 James Washington, Conversation with God: Two Centuries of Prayers by African Americans (New York: HarperCollins, 1994). Daniel Liechty, ed., Early Anabaptist Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1994). 21 Bengt Hoffman, ed., The Theologica Germanica of Martin Luther (New York: Paulist Press, 1980), and Roland Bainton, Here I Stand (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1991). William Wolf, Anglican Spirituality (Wilton, Connecticut: Morehouse Publications, 1982). Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way (London: Mowbrays, 1979) and The Art of Prayer: An Orthodox Anthology (London: Faber and Faber, 1966); Georges Barrois, ed., The Fathers Speak (Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1986). 22 J.L. Richard, The Spirituality of John Calvin (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1974). Alexander Ganoczy, The Young Calvin (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1987). Richard P. Heitzenrater, Wesley and the People Called Methodists (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995). Frank Whaling, ed., John and Charles Wesley (New York: Paulist Press, 1981). Edwin Gaustad, Liberty of Conscience: Roger Williams in America (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1991). 23 Thomas Ryan, Prayer of Hear.t and Body (New York: Paulist Press, 1995). 24 Aloysius Pieris SJ, Love Meets Wisdom (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1988). William Johnston sJ, The Still Point (New York: Fordham University Press, 1980). Patrick G. Henry and Donald K. Swearer, For the Sake of the World: The Spirit of Buddhist and Christian Monasticism (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989). Anthony de Mello SJ, Sadhana: A Way to God (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1979). M. Thomas Thangaraj, The Crucified Guru (Nashville: Abingdon, 1994). Achiel Peelman, Christ Is a Native American (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1995). Leon Klenicki and Gabe Huck, eds., Spirituality and Prayer: Jewish and Christian Understandings(New York: Paulist Press, 1983). Bernard Lee, The Galilean November-December 1996 Crros ¯ The Dialogue of Conversion Jewishness ofyesus (New York: Paulist Press, 1988). The Paulist Press's Classics of Western Spirituality series includes many Muslim and Jewish titles. zs Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural. Research, Confessing Christian Faith in a Pluralistic Society, (Collegeville, 1995). 26J.M.R. Tillard, A Church of Churches (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1991). Aram Keshishian, Conciliar Fellowship(Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1992). John Zizioulas, Being as Communion; Studies in Personhood and the Church, (Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1985). Lewis Mudge and Paul Crow, eds., "Toward the Year 2000: An Ecumenical Celebration," Midstream 24~ no. 4 (October 1987). 27 John Hotchkin, "The Ecumenical Movement's Third Stage," Origins 25, no. 21 (9 November 1995): 353-361. I Am the Bread I am the Bread baked of the Father's fine flour, molded in Mary by Spirit's pure power. I am the Bread Bethlehem born, kneaded and nailed, scorching with scorn, rising from death and the dead. I am the Bread. Come, eat me, hold me, share me, held by death, never. Living forevert. We are the bread. Jean Miriam Donachie SC Review for Religious ERIK KARL RIECHERS A Way of Being Church: Journey, Serve, and Evangelize Together I~rhere is any one way of describing the quandary of modern atholic life, I would suggest this: that we are groping for a way of being church. Small Christian communities, lay-associate programs, lay-formation programs, justice movements, secular institutes, and a host of other ecclesial forms all seek practical, concrete ways of living the reality of church. It is to ecclesiology that people generally go for a deep under-standing of the nature and purpose of the church. Yet a second, com-plementary avenue is open to us, namely, seeking in our.own praxis of church life specific principles that other ecclesial groups could apply to themselves. It is a good thing to celebrate our own local church history and Spirit-filled growth, but it is regrettable that oth-ers derive litde profit from it when we neglect to share it with them. Here I intend to share the exl~erience of the Union of Catholic Apostolate (UAC). While its experience is not automatically adapt-able to the church at large or even to every institute of consecrated life, the UAC has learned some essentials that could easily serve the entire people of God, helping it on its way of being church. One Way of Being Church: The Union of Catholic Apostolate When people first hear about the UAC, they almost Erik Karl Riechers SAC last wrote for us in March-April 1995. His address is Pallottine Faith Enrichment Centre; 6 McMillan Avenue; Red Deer, Alberta; T4N 5X8 Canada. November-December 1996 Riecbers ¯ A Way of Being Church always assume that they are being introduced to yet another form of third-order spirituality, that of the Pallottine Fathers and Brothers. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. The UAC is a radical and very challenging break from the model of spiri-tuality that led to the third orders. In the 1980s the conservative theory of "trickle-down" eco-nomics became popular. The concept was simple. If great wealth and prosperity could be produced at the top levels of society and the state, then benefits and positive effects would trickle down to lower levels. The idea of third orders might well be described as "trickle-down" spirituality. The concept was that an order would have a rich and vibrant spirituality and that, after a time, this spiritual wealth would be shared by other religious with a similar interest or direction. These would be the second orders. Finally, lay people would want to share in the founding spirituality, and some of it would trickle down to them, allowing them to par-ticipate in some derivative fashion, but never fully and certainly not in the same sense as the first order. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with this model, and it is not my intention to belittle or ridicule it. However, for the Pallottine family it leaves a great deal to be desired, for it fails to recognize the element that is always at the heart of our UAC spir-ituality: that all Christian men, women, and children are called by name to an apostolic life. This vocation, this life, does not trickle down from the Pallottine Fathers and Brothers, nor is it but a shadow of someone else's spirituality. The calling of Christians is directly from God, not delei~ated to them by the hierarchy. Their spirituality, therefore, must be as unique as their vocation, and not just an offshoot of the spirituality of another person or group. The UAC is a concrete expression of Vatican Council II's teaching on the universal call to holiness that insists that "all the faithful are invited and obliged to holiness and the perfection of their own state of life" (Lumen gentium §42). Imagine a great shimmering pool. For this pool's water a num-ber of tribes have various needs. Yet each of them goes to the common pool in order to satisfy those needs. The tribes procure the water and carry it home in distinctive containers, yet each has taken life-giving water from the same source. Some will use the water to cook, others to drink, others to wash the grime from their bodies, while yet others intend to douse the plant~ that will grow to still their hunger. Review for Religious The image reveals to us the way in which the UAC approaches Pallottine spirituality. The pool is Pallottine spirituality, and its contents are the ideals, intuitions, and insights of Vincent Pallotti. Every group of the UAC is distinctive and has a unique need for what is within the common pool of Pallottine spirituality. The Pallottine Fathers and Brothers go to that pool and realize its spiritu-ality in their own unique way. The Pallottine Sisters draw from the pool and use what they have drawn from its depths in their own par-titular fashion. Every group, lay or religious, goes to the same life-giv-ing source, goes to Pallotti, and comes away with its own manner of letting that life flow through them. We know ourselves to be one, for our thirst has led u~ to the same pool, and we acknowledge that we are all nourished from a common source. Yet we know ourselves to be unique, for that invigorating fountain of spirituality is cre-atively used to nourish many forms and variations of life in the Spirit. When we look across the world at all the expressions of the UAC, we see a web of communities, a grand alliance of spiritual-ity, and a confederation of Christians. Despite our wide diversity and exceedingly different experiences of life, we support one another as communities and individuals and share those experi-ences. This has been our ultimate strength, the power that is born of a genuine solidarity. For when we gaze upon the countenance of our Pallottine brothers and sisters, we recognize first and fore-most the people who stand beside us at the pool of Pallottine spirituality, who share our thirst, and who share our way of slak-ing it. In that gaze lies the certain knowledge that we are not alone in life. In our family no one receives a scrap from the mas-ter's table, because we all have an equal seat at that table. Despite our wide diversity and exceedingly different experiences of life, we support one another as communities and individuals and share those experiences. A Way of Forming Church I am often asked: What does the UAC offer people? I believe November-December 1996 Riechers * A Way of Being Church " that there are a number of interwoven answers to that question, each of them a principle applicable--though in varied ways--to the experience of being church. The need for spiritual growtb.~Many people today have a grow-ing awareness that their spiritual lives need more than a bare min-imum, that these lives of theirs have failed to grow beyond the confines of the catechism classes of their formative years. They come to the realization that children's catechesis does not suffice in a world of adult problems, and they begin to experience the need for development toward a responsible adult faith. Yet often they then face a second problem, namely, that they can get many bits and pieces in workshops, seminars, and adult-education classes, but that there are few places where they can get a comprehensive formation in Catholic, spiritual living. The UAC is a place where we begin to solve this problem through four movements. In the UAC we assist one another in coming to an adult faith in an adult church. Our manual of formation, titled Called by Name, offers a systematic approach to spiritual growth. Here we move the believer from the sporadic to the systematic. Called by Name takes a thorough look at eight great facets of spirituality: (1) God's infinite love and mercy and its effect in our lives, (2) the presence and work of God in human time and history, where we might experience this God, (3) the sheer power of the word of God, (4) communion as the antidote to loneliness and polarization, (5) the unrelenting call to embark on the mission with Christ, (6) the covenant according to which God creates, a homeland for Christians, (7) community that gathers under God's grace, and (8) hope and unity that,sustains and drives the Christian life. Each of these themes is tackled from three different angles. First, from the point of view of Catholic spirituality, we link our-selves with the Great Tradition and the wealth that Scripture, Vatican Council II, and Christian experience have to offer us. Here we move the believer's faith from adolescence to adulthood. Second, from the point of view of Pallottine spirituality, the members of the UAC experience the wonderful depth and richness of Vincent Pallotti's approach to God and the faith. Here we move the believer's spirituality from the common to the concrete. In this part of our formation, we make a transition from the common spirituality of all the people of God to a specifis form of realizing this spirituality in our concrete lives, the specific form of Pallottine spirituality. Review for Religious Finally, we learn together how we can integrate what we have learned into a life of prayer as members of the UAC. Employing the rich resources of the Tradition and the Pallottine heritage, we explore many forms of prayer in order that individuals may find a prayer method suited to their temperament and need and that all together we may discover the splendid variety of oppor-tunities to raise our minds and hearts to the living God. In this final part of a chapter's formation, we move the believer from prin-ciple to prayer. Hand in hand with this desire to grow in faith beyond the bare-bones basics is the need to sustain Christian life and aposto-late. In order to be church we must keep the flame of faith alive in our hearts, to "confirm our call and election" (2 P 1:10). This, however, has become an increasingly daunting task in today's society. Many people who are committed to liv-ing out their Christian commitment in the world suddenly find themselves facing unre-lenting pressures from their colleagues, friends, and acquaintances to conform to social norms that con-tradict their faith commitment. When they choose to go to Mass rather than the picnic, to be people of generosity rather than gos-sips, and to offer compassion in the place, of criticism, they often discover that the reward is outright ridicule for living in such a way as to be a "sign of contradiction." Unfortunately, no one wants to be contradicted. When Christian life is lived with pas-sion and zeal, it says to the people who live what is an otherwise unchallenged lifestyle that we would beg to differ. Yet, while this is a hard reality to live through, it is not the crux of our problem. It is hard enough to keep the flame of faith alive in our hearts without the added burden of trying to do this as a solo per.formance. People are looking for support in their lives, in their struggles. It is easy enough to fall away from the Way of Christ, but hard to resist the many temptations and avoid the pitfalls constantly presented to us on that way. Therefore, many people are experiencing the need to find a place where the spiritual life they have formed can be sustained and strengthened. The UAC is a place where people can find a spiritual homeland for Hand in hand with this desire to grow in faith beyond the bare-bones basics is the need to sustain Christian life and apostolate. November-December 1996 Riecbers ¯ A Way of Being Church themselves. It offers the chance to speak of our faith, the daily struggles that affect it, and the many experiences and encoun-ters at work, rest, or play that challenge it. The UAC is the place where committed Christians share the many ways in which their faith can be lived as parents, professionals, business people, and citizens of the nation. It is the place where we heed the admo-nition of the Letter to the Hebrews: "Keep encouraging one another so that none of you is hardened by the lure of sin" (Heb 3:13). In the UAC we offer one another courage by teaching one another the joys of fidelity, giving one another a hand when we stumble along, speaking of our hope in moments of despair, and walking the way together, even when the path leads through dark-ness. Then, and only then, do we consider our Christian call to be fulfilled. Encouragement is the UAC's way of keeping the hearts of our brothers and sisters from being hardened.~It is all too easy to point out the lure of sin, to make people aware of the dangers lurking on every side that threaten to devour them whole if they are unwary. In the UAC we choose the harder Way of encourag-ing one another, resisting easier ways. This way is much harder because it demands that we get involved. The members of the UAC are committed not just to spreading faith, but also to keep-ing it alive in one another, and that means being committed to one another. It is the way of our Pallottine spirituality not just to point .to solutions, but to be part of the solution, part of the heal-ing. When we are lost, it is a pleasant thing to find someone who can give us directions. It is, however, without doubt a better thing when that person offers to guide us directly. Together to Evangelize A guiding motto of the UAC has been "Together to Evangelize." Over the course of the last years, three components have helped our reflection on our role within the New Evangelization: the scripture passage of the road to Emmaus, the person and charism of Vincent Pallotti, and the call to mission. So that we may be guided yet again to the place ~of renewal for .all the Pallottine family, I take a word from Reinhold Niebuhr as a lantern to light our path. With piercing insight this great Protestant theologian wrote: Review for Religious Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our life-time; therefore, we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, no matter how virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we must be saved by love. Let us bring this word to Emmaus experience, to Pallottine perceptivity, and to people who are together for evangelization. "Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; there-fore, we must be saved by hope. "Two despairing disciples walk away from a life once brimming over with aspirations, hopes, and dreams. To follow Christ--ah, here was the achievement of a life-time, an endeavor worthy of discipleship, an undertaking for which you could put your life on the line and leave your "fishing nets lying on the shore." In .Christ they thought they had found the One worth investing their entire lives in. Their words speak of their hearts' discontent: "But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel" (Lk 24:21). And why not? After all, this man's words gave wings to the hopeless spirit, set sinners' hearts a-soaring, and suffused beaten men and women with vibrant new life. Here was a prophet "mighty in word and deeds," whose power calmed waves and curbed fears, sent healing grace rippling through the bleeding woman and peace to the demoniac's shattered soul, The dream of liberation from the heavy foot of Rome, glory for God and royal dignity for themselves, was vividly real; it was a dream wor-thy of a lifetime of sacrifice. It was a dream not to be! "Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime." Pallotti clearly concurs. "On my own I can do nothing; with God I can do everything." What Pallotti sees with a clarity begot-ten of grace is that no effort of ours, regardless how noble, how ideal or how cloaked in dignity, will find fulfillment in our lifetime. Our effort, strength, stamina~ and speed will first thrill us and then tantalize us with their obvious inability to coerce complete-ness out of our life's work. God alone can deliver more than we may manufacture. God alone can write an ending beyond our endings. "Not the intellect., not the will., not worldly goods ¯. not riches., not honor., not dignity., not promotions, but God." With Pallottine conviction we profess that God alone is our hope: "therefore, we must be saved by hope." Born of this Pallottine conviction is the UAC's task for the November-December 1996 Riecbers ¯ A Way of Being Church Z---ygOJ New Evangelization. We must turn to the busy world with its many worthwhile pursuits and offer it the hope that comes from God alone~ Otherwise the worthy work of our people will become their downfall, as they rdalize that no fulfillment is forthcoming in their lifetimes. You can go out and combat poverty with leonine ferocity, but, for every Ethiopian fed yesterday, a Somali starves today. You can dedicate yourself to nobly terminating racism, and do it with a Schwarzeneggerian swagger, but today's apartheid-free South Africa yields its ~place in the news to a genocidal Rwanda. Gorbachev tears down walls for freedom; elsewhere someone loots the bill for terrorists. Desmond Tutu seeks to set his people free with the South African Truth Commission's airing of stories buried too long and too deep; others, far away in various direc-tions, distort ,the truth in hate-mongering rhetoric. Into this world we have been sent. To these men and women we must speak of the God of infinite love who can give every worthwhile human endeavor the blessing of a consummation that human history will relentlessly, ruthlessly deny it. We are together to evangelize so that people may be saved by hope. "Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we must be saved by faith." The Emmaus-bound disciples have tasted beauty, truth, and goodness in their time with Christ. "Before God and all the people', (Lk 24:19), Jesus revealed the beautiful heart, that wel-comes children; the true heart of the teacher lecturing tirelessly, openly, and authoritatively in temple and boat, on mountain and plain; and the good heart weeping for Lazarus in the tomb, heal-ing the centurion's servant, and shielding Mary from the harangu-ing of her harried elder sister. Now they stand in a puzzlement born of betrayal. For this beauty, truth, and goodness called Christ has been condemned to death and crucified. Moreover, even the empty tomb, the vision of angels, and the women's confident assertion that Jesus yet lives is now nonsensical to the disciples. The resurrection with the gaping truth of the tomb, the celestial beauty of an angelic news flash, and ~the gripping goodness of tidings that Jesus is 'risen from the dead~all remain meaningless because the only context these two know is death .and destruction with their definitive finality., "Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate, context of history." Review for Religion's Pallotti continually points to faith as the only context big enough to allow us to make heads or tails out of life's maddening complexity. If the span of our days is all we have, if the psalmist's seventy years (or eighty for the strong) are all we have for com-prehending life's events, then no avenue save futility and absurdity is open to us. Vincent Pallotti prescribes faith in the God of infi-nite love as the antidote: God's infinity offers a context in which we can live beyond the immediate experience. While Pallotti himself does not understand every why and wherefore of God's will, he has faith that God is not to be outdone in generosity. Puzzled and likely hurt by the rumor-mongering jealousy that made his pastorate in Spirito Santo a nightmare lived in waking hours, and eventually caused an unjust and unjus-tifiable suppression of the UAC, Pallotti has faith in the inex-haustible mercy and mystery of God, which will open up the present hour of harrowing agony to a meaning beyond the momentary. Here we find the UAC's second task in the New Evangelization. We must teach faith as a means of finding mean-ing beyond the momentary. The immediate context of history has to be broadened to the eternal horizon of faith, which is God himself. The now is simply not enough. Try as we may, the death of children by abuse does not make sense in our immediate context alone. What does truth mean in our day when wealthy people may purchase enough legal persuasion to win verdicts of "not guilty," while ordinary people of low or moderate incomes may find themselves convicted after minimal arguments for the defense? Can the immediate context alone help us cope with the drunken driver who walks away, unsteadily but alive, from the crash that claims the life and aspi-rations of the teetotaling pedestrian? Unlike Disney movies, lost dogs do not always find their way home, mermaids do not always find princes, beasts do not always marry beauties, angels are not always in the outfield, and some Cinderellas die in grinding poverty without ever making it to the ball. We must spread faith in God, for his rising from the dead is the only possibility of writing a conclusion beyond the otherwise absolute, limiting finality of human life. We are together to evan-gelize so that people may be saved by faith. "Nothing we do, no matter bow virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we must be saved by love." A final glance at the road to Emmaus revealsto us the truth of this Niebuhrian statement. November-December 1996 Riechers ¯ A Way of Being Church The disciples are doing a virtuofis thing. They are talking about all the things that happened in, Jerusalem, seeking a shred of meaning, a fleeting glimpse of God, in the morass their lives have become. Yet they do not accomplish anything until Jesus interprets everything for them. Pallotti once wrote, "My Jesus, anyone who does not love you cannot live." Why not? Because, if people do not love, they do not reach beyond .themselves, for love is self-transcendende. If we never reach past our narrow needs and greeds, we remain alone; like the gospel grain of wheat. But those who remain alone do not live. Out of this divinely, revealed and inspired love, Pallotti would have us move from self to neighbor. It is this infinite love that drove him to found the UAC. This love is the constitutive ele-ment of the UAC. This love is what Pallotti would have us rekin-dle. This love, however, we cannot accomplish on our own. We must receive it from the God of infinite love. As the UAC we find in this experience our last task for the New Evangelization. A clear-eyed view of the world shows us a devastating truth: We cannot go it alone; we must be saved by love. The rugged individualism of the 1980s has decayed into the ragged loneliness of the 1990s. The myth of ever-expanding opportunities and limitless futures has collided headlong with the era that downsizes everything, including compassion. The peren-nial quest for self-discovery has not relieved our people of their confusion. They must be saved by love. And we must be together to evangelize so that it may be so! There you have it. Our journey has been hard, but happy, touched by love and laughter, sprinkled with songs and tears. It is the price to be paid if we would find a way of being church. In the end of all our journeys, we can only hope that this rendering of a passage of Virgil's Aeneid (1.198-203) may be true of us: "And the time will come when it will gladden our hearts to recall these first trying days and the difficult things that we did, not each of us striving alone, but all of us working together." Review for Religious RITA E. GOLDMAN Frances Cabrini: A Woman for Today What if Mother Cabrini had been born in 1950 instead of 1850? What aspects of her life would be different? Personally, I think none. She was a true daughter of the church, and I am sure she would have welcomed the era of Vatican Council II. Even in her day she was considered forward. When she wanted Missionaries in the title of her religious congregation, she was told only men were mis-sionaries. At that time there was in Italian no feminine form of the masculine word missionari. A certain Father Marinoni, the director of the Foreign Mission Seminary, said, "It is not even in the dictionary." But she persisted. In Italy her sisters came to be called Missionarie del Sacro Cuore di Gesi~. We often think of saints as human beings far above ourselves, not realizing that in their lives they experienced their humanity in ways that we could recognize from our own lives. Perhaps it is the way the saints have been writ-ten about that leads us to think they were not truly human beings like ourselves. Many years ago lives of saints were written in very flowei'y, complimentary terms. The books Rita E. Goldman retired from United States foreign service in 1989 after assignments in Liberia, Nepal, Burma, Cameroon, and Romania. Since then, besides some volunteer work with Holy Cross sisters in Israel and with Mother Cabrini's sisters in Chicago, she has been involved in the RCIA program of her parish, St. Frances Cabrini. Her address is 3041 North Country Club Road, Apt. 220; Tucso.n, Arizona 85716. models November-December 1996 Goldman * Frances Cabrini 5.94 tended to portray only their "saintly" attributes, making the per-' sons seem not human to us when we read about them. In this article I hope to present Mother Cabrini as a real person, one very much like us. In fact, several prelates and business associ-ates who had known her were surprised when she was canonized. They said that in many business transactions she did not behave like a saint--she often pounded the table to make a point and would raise her voice in a heated exchange! Mother Cabrini was a modern woman. Her interests were extensive, and she certainly did not adapt 'readily to the role expected of late-19th- and early-20th-century women religious. She was a business woman and world traveler, keenly aware of the currents of thought in the world of her time. In fact, after her meditation, prayers, and Mass each morning, one of the first things she did was read the morning newspapers. This was before radio and television came upon the scene. I have no doubt that, if Mother Cabrini were living today, she would be turning on the radio or the TV to get her daily news of what was going on in the world. She would have loved the instant communication that exists today--in her day "instant" communication was onl~ the tele-graph and, later, the telephone. On 30 October 1952 Mother Cabrini was posthumously named "The Italian Immigrant of the Century" at a gathering of the American Committee on Italian Migration. Mother Cabrini was singled out because of her "unselfish devotion to humanity" and because "her accomplishments stand as monuments for all to behold and put to shame those people whose bigotry helps raise the cry of intolerance toward the immigrant." If Mother Cabrini.were living today, she would be in her element in regard to the immigrant. In our day there continue to be refugees, political, refugees, immi, grants, and displaced persons; they often make headlines. This has been a century of immigration. In the early 1900s it was the mas-sive immigration from southern and eastern Europe. Today it is immigration 7from Central and South America, Vietnam, China, and the war-torn areas of central Europe. Mother Cabrini's Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus are in the forefront in helping today's immigrants just as Mother Cabrini was. Maria Francesca Cabrini was bor.n on 15 July 1850 in a small village in Lombardy, Italy. Her parents were pious and devout, and little Franceswas certain she wanted to be a missionary. She was the tenth of eleven children, of whom seven met early deaths. Review for Religqous Only Magdalena (who was retarded), Rosa, Giuseppe, and herself lived to adulthood. As a child Frances used to launch paper boats filled with vio-lets into a stream nearby, pretending the violets were missionar-ies going to foreign lands, especially China. As a teenager Frances applied to two religious communities for admission, but each refused her because of her frail health, a problem she bore throughout life. In 1870 she lost both of her parents; she was twenty. Her sister Rosa had become a public school teacher, and Frances followed her in this. When she was twenty-four years old, her pas-tor and bishop, valuing her desire to serve, asked her to lend a hand for a few weeks at a poorly run orphanage. These "few weeks" that lasted six years were a time of great suffering and prepared Frances for the work she would eventual.ly do. The local bishop offered her his backing: "You always wanted to be a missionary. I know of no such order of women. Why not found one your- ~ self?" So in 1880 she and seven young women con-secrated themselves to God and took religious vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.~They called themselves Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, They took over an abandoned Franciscan monastery in the town of Codogno, not far from where Frances was born. Maria Francesca Cabrini now became Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini, ready to conquer the world for Christ. During the next few years, Mother Cabrini expanded her order in Italy, opening many houses and accepting new vocations. But she was still intent on doing missionary work. In 1887 she met Pope Leo XIII, who, even though he was aware of her desire to do missionary work in China,-persuaded her to go to America to assist the many Italian immigrants there who were in dire need. He said to her: "Not to the Orient, Cabrini, but to the West. Your China is the United States." At the time of her death in Chicago in 1917 at the age of sixty-seven, Mother Cabrini had founded sixty-seven hospitals, orphanages, and schools in .the United States, South and Central America,. and Europe. After her death other foundations were made in Africa, Asia, and Australia. .From an early age, after a frightening experience of near If Mother Cabrini were living today, she would be in her element in regard to the immigrant. November-Deconber 1996 Goldman ¯ Frances Cabrini drowning, Frances had a real fear of water. Yet, even with this fear, she in her missionary travels crossed the Atlantic Ocean some twenty-three tiines, going to the United States and South and Central America. The only times she really had for "rest" were during these ocean voyages. Most of her correspondence was done at these times, including long letters about her travels written to her sisters back in Italy. Mother Cabrini's favorite sub-ject when she taught school was geography, and this is very much reflected in the travel letters she wrote. She certainly researched and read beforehand about the places where she was going to start a mission. It was in reading the book of her Travels that I came across the real Mother Cabrini, and I would like to quote some passages from these letters to show how human and like us she really was. Did Mother Cabrini know and speak English? The answer to that is yes. During her second voyage to New York in 1890, she wrote: "The sisters tell him [a friendly man on the boat] in English what he has not understood from me. He is very intelligent, and from the expression on my face he understands what I intend to say. He asks me to speak English as well as I can, and he helps me with some French words, saying he can understand. Sister Bernardina is going to make a novena for me to obtain the grace to speak English, and assures me she will obtain it. What do you think of it? 1 fear the day of judgment will arrive before 1 learn English." During the voyage from Genoa to New York in 1894, Mother Cabrini related the following: "Yesterday a waiter told me how sorry he was that he could not speak Italian so that he might ren-der the sisters better service. He wants me to act as interpreter, but my knowledge of English is limited, barely enough to prevent me from losing my way or dying of hunger." Sister Mary Louise Sullivan, however, in her Mother Cabrini: Italian Immigrant of the Century (1992), says: "Mother Cabrini read American newspapers daily when she was present in her houses in the United States. The Chicago Tribune was on her desk each day. She knew what you were talking about when you spoke to her in English and would sometimes reply gently in English when you tried to address her in halting Italian. She could become quite angry and would raise her voice when upbraiding a sister in her native Italian." Some of the humorous incidents she related were, in con-junction with the roughness of the ocean during some of her voy- Review for Religious ages. On her second voyage to New York in 1890, she wrote: "Poor sisters! At every movement of the boat they think we are in a great storm. Sister Eletta would like to have the boat stopped, at least during meals. I told the steward this just to make him laugh. He is so kind." On another occasion she said, "During this tempest not one of the sisters was frightened; all remained quietly in bed, ready to perish quietly, but under the bedclothes." On the voyage from New York to Le Havre in 1899, she wrote: "What a terrible night we have passed! The steamer seemed to jump and fly out of the water. At other times we thought it would capsize . At about 9 a.m. the rocking began again. I was still in bed and could not get up, and the stew-ardess asked if we wanted some break-fast. I told her to bring us some coffee. It was the first time I had ever had anything brought to my bed, and the poor coffee reached me at a very bad moment. No sooner had it been poured out than cup and coffee pot, by a sudden jerk of the steamer, were spilled over my bed. I was forced to get up whether I liked it or not." On her trip to New York in 1890, Mother Cabrini had a com-mon experience for one who is fair-skinned. (Mother Cabrini was very fair and had blond hair--remember she came from northern Italy.) She wrote: "Meantime the heat is like summer. For three days I looked like Bacchus. My forehead is very red, even pur-ple, and this redness is spreading all over my face. At first I thought it was erysipelas. I did not like the prospect, for I should have had to retire from the open, and fresh air is life to me. Happily, however, the doctor said the redness was the effect of the air and of the water which was spraying on my face . Today the skin has begun to peel off my forehead and nose. I am chang-ing like a serpent." Mother Cabrini mentioned language difficulties more than once. In 1898, going from Liverpool to New York, she wrote up this anecdote about Sister Frances, who knew English but not much Italian: "The other day, for instance, she wanted to say cauliflower in Italian, which is cavolf!ore, but her rendering made "I always close the porthole before I go to bed, as I would rather put up with the heat than receive a surprise visit from a fish." November-December 1996 Goldman ¯ Frances Cabrini it 'fiore-cavalli,' which is 'horses-flowers.' By expressing herself in this roundabout way, she was doubly charitable, for 'she gave me the opportunity of a good hearty laugh." That same year Mother Cabrini recounted her experience with the London underground: "We entered a small station. Having gotten our tickets, we stood with many others in what appeared to us a room, waiting to proceed, when suddenly we felt ourselves descending into the earth. Then there was a stop, and we found ourselves in a large subway, lighted by electricity. People began to run as if they were running for their lives, and without saying a word. So we too followed and took our places in the train, or rather trains, for there was a line of carriages which could not be counted in the light, for it was like night so deep down. We had hardly gotten into our compartment'when the train moved off, and, as quick as lightning, we found ourselves in the center of the city, having gone all the way underground. At the station we entered a lift, though owing to its large size it did not seem to be a lift. Then we rose and came out into the daylight." Mother Cabrini related the following on her 1900 voyage from Genoa to Buenos Aires: "At dawn this morning we arrived at M~laga . I thought I would like to make a little visit to the town, and, as everyone was buying the raisins of Mfilaga to take to Buenos Aires, I also secured a box as a memento of the place. But I had better luck than the others, who went into smart-look-ing shops to get theirs, where they had to pay more for the box than for the raisins. I, however, fixed my eye on a donkey coming down a small mountain, loaded with boxes of the celebrated grapes of that mountain. In the evening everybody returned with their beautiful and elegant boxes, and I with my rustic box . At table someone offered us a bottle of M~ilaga wine, find I, wishing to reciprocate, sent to the cabin to get one of the botdes that Mother Augustine had placed there. They asked if it was Mfilaga, 'Yes,' I replied, 'this is Mfilaga.' They enjoyed the joke, drank the.wine, and were surprised at its exquisite taste. They could scarcely believe that such good wine came from Piedmont." On this same 1900 voyage, Mother Cabrini wrote about her cabin: "It is very nicely situated in that part of the steamer where the rocking is little felt, and there is a porthole to the west which I can open at will. I have to keepit closed from 4 a.m. to 7 a.m., as the sailors clean the ship during these hours and throw water about heedlessly. The water often enters through the portholes Review for Religious and causes much inconvenience to those who are not expecting it. I always close the porthole before I go to bed, as I would rather put up with the heat than receive a surprise visit from a fish." All that has been said above will give you some idea of the modernness, and the humor, of Mother Cabrini. Perhaps we can visualize her today walking the corridors of the various institutions she founded, giving comfort and solace to those she meets. Or we can see her walking the streets of New York, Chicago, New Orleans, and all the other cities in both the United States and Central and South America where she founded missions, visiting the homes of Italian immigrants and asking about their lives and their children, assisting them in all the ways that were at her disposal. She did all these things in her life, but we might ask ourselves what made Mother Cabrini tick. I would say the love of God and serving him in his people was the driving force behind all Mother .Cabrini did. She literally left everything in order to find God more perfectly and to serve human beings.God gave her the graces and she generously corresponded. From her earliest days she had this "vision" of mis-sion, and she sacrificed all in order to carry it out. This involved constant interior self-denial, not the bodily mortifications of some of the saints, but a continual going against self in order to conform more perfectly to the will of God as she saw it in her regard and for the institute she founded. It was her contemplation, her communing with God, that gave her the energy to do all she did for others. But most of all she was a woman of faith. She had a great devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and firmly believed that he did everything--she was just an instrument. The following passage in the Constitutions of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus expresses very well what made Mother Cabrini tick: "Mother Cabrini lived her experience of church with missionary fervor which captured her from the first Frances Cabrini was moved to action by the spirit of the Gospels, the word of the church expressed by the Holy Father, the cry of the suffering, the misery of the poor, ~ the tragedy of the abandoned. November-Decevnber 1996 Goldman ¯ Frances Cabrini moment she knowingly gave herself to God. It became the moti-vating force of her life. Strengthened by the Lord, nothing hin-dered her--not even the boldest undertakings--as long as it was justified by the greater glory of God and by her commitment to bring Christ to the world. Frances Cabrini was moved to action by the spirit of the Gospels, the word of the church expressed by the Holy Father, the cry of the suffering, the misery of the poor, the tragedy of the abandoned. Her courage and zeal, rising as they did from her loving communion with the Heart of Christ, impelled her to make her own St. Paul's motto: 'I can do all things in him who strengthens me.'" In proclaiming someone a saint at the conclusion of the care-ful process of canonization, the church tells the faithful that this person is worthy of imitation. The saints are our heroes, certainly more worthy of imitation than film or rock stars. In this brief essay I hope in some way I have shown you the humanness and modernness of Mother Cabrini. I hope, too, thatI have dispelled the notion that saints inhabit such a rarefied realm that they have no relevance for us. Mother Cabrini is very human and very approachable. She lived a life very similar to ours, in our century. She coped with many of the frustrations that we do, but with bet-ter motives, a better =attitude. We too can become saints, but it will take a lot of faith and a lot of love, not only of ourselves but of our neighbor. Knowing Mother Cabrini, we can ask her to help us attain this goal. By praying for her to assist us, we are asking a woman of our own times, a woman who understands what it is like to live in today's world. Icons i hear icons weep in our city their kingly gift of myrrh trickles down making holy faces glisten-glisten into sorrowing sorrowing the sorrow we refuse to bear Lou Ella Hickman IWBS Review for Religious M. BASIL PENNINGTON The Cistercian Martyrs of Algeria, 1996 )n 26 May 1996, from one end of France to the other, all across the land the bells tolled. It was a rather somber note for the glorious feast of Pentecost, Thousands stood in silence around the Eiffel Tower. It was a moment of remembrance, of pain, of joy, of awe. And yet in some ways it was strange that this should be tak-ing place. Since the early days of 1992, after an unpopular gov-ernment canceled an election it was slated to lose, blood had flowed freely in Mgeria. It was estimated that as many as fifty thousand had died in the guerrilla warfare, including at least a hundred citizens of other nations, some forty of them from France alone. Eleven priests and religious had been among those slain. But now, with the kidnapping and subsequent horrifying slaugh-ter of seven Trappist monks of Our Lady of Atlas, suddenly France and the world stopped to take note. Why? Because this was not just another moment in ongoing bloody events. It was a moment of exquisite love: "Greater 10ve than this no one has, than that one lay down one's life for one's friends."' These seven were, as the Trappist abbot general expressed it, "martyrs of love." Consciously, deliberately, these men remained among a chosen people to give an unfaltering witness of love, knowing full well what would be the probable outcome of their witness. M. Basil Pennington OCSO, a contributor to our pages since 1972, writes from St. Joseph's Abbey; 167 Spencer Road; Spencer, Massachusetts 01562. November-December 1996 Pennington ¯ The Cistercian Martyrs Who Were These Seven? The seven monks of Our Lady of Arias who gave their lives in a witness of love were, in fact, quite typical of today's Cistercians. They came from varied backgrounds, mostly the middle class, from different parts of France. Most of them began their monas-tic journey a bit later in life, after having served God's people in other ways. They entered three different French monasteries, but each in some way heard the call to go live a witness of love among the Muslims. In response to that call, they came together at Our Lady of Atlas Monastery, Tibhirine, and formed a "school of char-ity" under the tutelage of Father Christian de Chergd, the prior. All who knew the small community noted how closely these men were bonded in a true friendship. We are not surprised, then, when we learn that, as a student at the Carmelite seminary of Paris, Father Christian wrote his thesis on Christian friendship, a friendship that stands out by reason of its delicacy and its spir-itnal depth. Father Christian, .like others of the seven, first came to know Algeria and, its people during his military service. For twenty-seven months he was stationed there with significant administra-five responsibilities in service of the local population. He returned later as a monk to be another kind of presence, to give another kind of witness. After his ordination as priest, Father Christian had served for a time as chaplain at the great Basilica of the Sacred Heart on Montmartre, but his own heart sought something more. This he pursued at the ancient Cistercian Abbey of Aiguebelle in the foothills of the Alps in southeastern France and then, after some preparation with the White Fathers at Rome, with his Trappist brothers at Tibhirine. Christian was fifty-nine when he found the fullness of love he had always sought and laid down his life for his friends. Brother Luc Dochier, at eighty-two, was the senior of the " community. He was a medical doctor and brought this valuable skill not only to the community but also to people all around. The monastery's dispensary, which was tied in with the health department of the region, was the best for a hundred kilometers around. For all his learning--and he remained ever an avid reader ready to share with the brothers what he read--he was at heart a very simple man. The love of God was central, and love of neigh-bor consumed his working hours as he ministered to all who came. Father Cdlestin Ringeard, twenty years Luc's junior, was Review for Religious Brother's right-hand man. He was a man of energy and color. As a priest of the diocese of Nantes, his ministry had been in the streets; his flock, the alcoholics, the prostitutes, the gays. Like Father Christian, he had seen service in Algeria. In the medical corps he cared for the "enemy" as well as his own. With Brother Luc he cared for them again. Father C~lestin had entered the Abbey of Our Lady of Bellefontaine, in Maine-et-Loire, not far south of Paris. Bellefontaine is the motherhouse of Spencer. It was from there that in March 1984 he set out for Algeria with two others, Brother Michel Fleury and Father Bruno Lemarchand. Brother Michel was from a peas-ant family in Loire-Atlantique. He first heard the call to serve Christ in the poorest of the poor. He joined the Fr~res du Prado, who saw their life as living a "modern Trappist life in the midst of the poor." But soon enough Brother felt drawn to the fullness of the traditional Trappist life. When he joined the brothers at Our Lady of Atlas, he was given the task of com-munity cook. Michel was a simple man, a gentle man, yet very discrete. Curiously, when the abductors took the monks off, Brother managed to carry with him his monastic cowl and leave it along the route, giving the pursuers the sole indication of the direction in which the monks had been taken. Father Bruno, in a sense, no longer belonged to the commu-nity of Our Lady of Atlas. In 1990 he had been sent with three others to start a new little community of witness in Morocco near Fez. He had returned to Atlas a few days before the incursion of the guerrillas in order to take part in the election of a prior. He had brought with him to monastic life a rich background:. He had been a professor and then the head of the College of St. Charles of Thouars. His first experience of Algeria had come early in life when his father was assigned there as an army officer. Two of the martyrs came from the ancient Cistercian monastery hidden high in the French Alps, Notre Dame de Tamie. Born in the region, Brother Paul Favre-Miville was the son of a The monastery's dispensary, which was tied in with the health department of the region, was the best for a hundred kilometers around. November-December 1996 Pennin~ton ¯ The Cistercian Martyrs Savoyard blacksmith. It took him a long time to find his way to the monastery, but he came with skills that enabled him, when he got to Our Lady of Atlas, to set up a good irrigation system that served monk and neighbor alike in the cooperative gardens. His confrere from Tamie, Father Christophe Lebreton, at forty-five, was the youngest of the community. Coming from a family of twelve children--he was the seventh--he seemed to come naturally to monastic life. He was of a poetic nature, very much the lover, who expressed himself well in words, both in his journal and in poems. A mixed group, indeed, like that found in any Cistercian monastery, drawn together by a vision, a transcendent vision cen-tered on a particular, in this case, being a presence of Christ among a people that doe~ not yet understand who this incarnate God of love is. The Background Story The story actually begins over sixty years ago when the monks of Aiguebelle conceived the idea of implanting among the Muslims of Algeria a small community of monks who could be the praying heart of the Christian community in that country and also witness to Christ's love by their own lives of love. They found a site about forty-five miles south of the nation's capital, Algiers, near the city of M~d~a (Lemdiyya) at a place called Tibhirine. Although the community was fully committed to the traditional Cistercian con-templative life, along with many other third-world communities it extended monastic hospitality to providing some medical care for those who came to the monastery door. And, continuing the earliest Cistercian tradition, the brothers who worked the farm and gardens shared their expertise with their less fortunate neigh-bors, enhancing the human condition of these very poor people. As there was no possibility of local vocations, recruits had to be constantly sought in the form of volunteers from the Trappist monasteries of France. Thus the community enjoyed the enrich-ing presence of monks from a number of abbeys. In general, life was quite peaceful in the little monastery, though disturbed at times by the recurring wars. The latest period of disturbance began in December 1991, when the government suddenly canceled elections in which it seemed the fundamentalist Islamic party, the Islamic Salvation Review for Religious Front (FIS), would win control. The FIS formed a guerrilla force and was promptly outlawed. An even more radical group then formed in the mountains, the Armed Islamic Group (GIA). It was this group that warned all foreigners to leave the country, and it began to indulge in periodic acts of terrorism. As the community of Atlas gathered to discuss what they should do in the face of this new warning and threat, they realized they were not the first Cistercian community to face such a chal-lenge. This was the case with the com-munities of Huambo and Bela Vista in Angola, Butende in Uganda, and Marija Zvijezda in Bosnia. For the monks of Atlas, the question became more acute when an armed band of the GIA, the "brothers from the mountain" as Father Christian called them, visited the monastery on Christmas eve in 1993. The guerrillas wanted to oblige the monks to collaborate with them through medical aid, economic support, and logistical help. In response the prefect of M4d~a offered the monks armed pro-tection and the possibility of moving from the monastery to a protected area. Through community discussions and votes during the following days, the monks decided to remain at Atlas, to decline armed protection so as to remain a sign of peace, and to reject any form of collaboration with the armed group except medical aid given only in the monastery dispensary. Father Christian sought to express the monks' position in a letter to the chief of the GIA, Sayah Attiya: Brother, allow me to address you like this, as man to man, believer to believer. In the pre~ent conflict in which our country is living, it seems to us impossible to take sides. The fact that we are foreigners forbids it. Our state as monks (ruhbfn) binds us to God's choice for us, which is prayer and the simple life, manual work, hospitality, and sharing with everyone, especially with the poor . These reasons for our life are a free choice for each one of us. They bind us until death. I do not think that it is God's will that this death should come to us through you . If one day the Algerians judge that we are unwelcome, we will respect their desire to see us leave. With very great regret I know that we will continue to love them all, as a whole, and that includes you. The community enjoyed the enriching presence of monks from a number of abbeys. Novonber-Deconber 1996 Penning'ton ¯ The Cistercian Martyrs When and how will this message reach you? It does not matter! I needed to write it to you today. Forgive me for having written in my mother tongue. You understand me. And may the only One of all life lead us! Amin. As the danger increased, in June 1994 the apostolic nuncio invited the monks to come and live at the nunciature. The broth-ers did not judge the time had come yet to abandon their monastery. When, on 23 October 1994, two Spanish Augustinian nuns were murdered at the entrance of the parish church, Father Christian wrote to the abbot general: The'communities of men seem to be standing by their option to remain. This is clear so far for the Jesuits, the Little Brothers of Jesus, all the White Fathers. It is also clear for us. At Tibhirine as elsewhere this option has its risks. That is obvious. Each one has told me that he wants to take them, in a journey of faith into the future and in sharing the present with neighbors who have always been very close friends of ours._The grace of this gift iis given to us from day to day, very simply. At the end of September we had another nocturnal "visit." This time the "brothers of the mountain" wanted to use our telephone. We pretended to listen in, then emphasized the contradiction between our way of life and any kind of complicity with what could harm the life of another. They gave us assurances, but the threat was there, supported by arms. (13 November 1994) On 16 December, after more cflreful and prayerful discussion, the brothers again took a vote to confirm their decisions. At this time the archbishop of Algiers, Henri Teissier, thanked them for taking the risk of prolonging their presence and their witness, telling them how significant was their presence of prayer and daily work in Tibhirine for the whole Christian community of Algeria. He thanked them for their fidelity and courage. The Testament of Father Christian It was during the previous Advent of 1993 that Father Christian had composed his "Testament," to be opened only after his death. This was done on 23 May 1996 when his and his bro,thers' passing was announced. There is no doubt but that this testament will be cherished as one of the great spiritual classics of the 20th century-- though surely that is not what this humble and transparent monk would ever have intended. Let us share it,with you in full: Review for Religious When an A-DIEU is envisaged. If it should happen one day--and it could be today--that I become a victim of the terrorism which now seems to encompass all the foreigners living in Algeria, I would like my community, my church, my family, ¯ to remember that my life was given to God and to this country; ¯ to accept that the One Master of all life was not a stranger to this brutal departure; ¯ to pray for me--for how should I be found worthy of such an offering? ¯ to be able to associate this death with so many other equally violent ones that have been allowed to fall into the indifference of anonymity. My life has no more value than any other. Nor any less value. In any .case, it has not the innocence of childhood. I have lived long enough to know that I am an accom-plice in the evil which seems, alas, to prevail in the world, and even in that evil which would strike me blindly. I should like, when the time comes, to have enough lucidity to beg forgiveness of God and of my brothers and sisters in the human family, and at the same time to forgive with all my heart the one who would strike me down. , I could not desire such a death~ It seems to me impor-tant to state this. I don't see, in fact, how I could rejoice if the people I love were indiscriminately accused of my murder. It would be too high a price to pay for what will be called, perhaps, the "grace of martyrdom" to owe this to an Algerian, whoever he may be, especially if he says he is acting in fidelity to what he believes to be Islam. I know the contempt in wtiich the Algerians as a whoie can be held. I know, too, the caricatures of Islam which ,encourage a certain Islamism. It is too easy to give oneself a good conscience in iden-tifying this religious way with the fundamentalist ideology of its extremists. " For me, Algeria and Islam are something different: they are body and soul. I have proclaimed it enough, I think, seeing and know-ing what I have received from them, finding here so often that direct line bringing the gospel that I learned at my mother's knee, my very first church; finding it precisely in Algeria, and already in the reverence of believing Muslims. My death, obviously, will appear to justify those who Novevnber-Deconber 1996 Pennington ¯ The Cistercian Martyrs hastily judged me naive or idealistic: "Let him tell us now what he thinks of them!" But these .must know that at last my most insistent curiosity will be satisfied. For 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 children 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, of my sisters and my brothers and their families--the hundredfold given 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.t Inshallah.t Algiers, 1 December 1993 Tobhirine, 1.January 1994 Christian Has ever an executioner been addressed so lovingly: "my last-minute friend . , . I see your face in the face of God. may we find each other in Paradise"? The "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do" of the Master is echoed with a fullness rarely heard in the long annals of discipleship. Greater love than this no one has. The Time Approaches Two more nuns were shot in Algeria on 3 September 1995. Ten missionaries had now been slain. After the funeral Father Christian wrote a letter to the abbot general in Rome: The celebration had a beautiful atmosphere of serenity and offering. It brought together a very small church, whose Review for Religious remaining members are perfectly conscious that the logic of their presen(+ must include henceforth the possibility of a violent death. It is for many a new and radical plunge, as it were, into the very charism of their congregation., and also a return to the source of the first call. For all that, all of us clearly desire that none of these Algerians, to whom our consecration binds us in the name of the love which God has for them, ever wound this love by killing any of us, any of our brethren. Lord, disarm me and disarm them. A few months later Father Christopher wrote these prophetic lines at the end of a poem: Finally, my friends, let's get it straight: I belong to him and follow his steps to the fullest truth of my Easter. On the night of 26-27 March 1996, Mohammed, the layman who helped the monks, was roused from his sleep--he lived with his family in a cottage at the gate of the monastery--by the "brothers of the mountain." They said they came for Brother Luc, the doctor, to take him to care for some of their men who were wounded. They crashed through into the monastery. When they demanded that Brother Luc come with them, Father Christian refused to allow it in view of Brother's age and serious asthmatic condition. With this the armed band rounded up all the monks they could find. Fortunately two were sleeping in another building and escaped capture, as did the priests and sis-ters in the guesthouse. The seven monks were carried off into the night and nothing further was heard of them until a London Arabic newspaper, A1 Hayat, published extracts from a communication of the GIA dated 18 April. It said that the emir did not recognize the aman, the protection that his predecessor accorded the monks; that it was illicit because the monks "have not ceased to invite Muslims to be evangelized, to display their slogans and symbols, and to com-memorate their feasts with solemnity." He went on, "Monks who live among the working classes can be legitimately killed . They live with people and draw them away from the divine path, urging them to be evangelized. It is also licit to apply to them what applies to lifelong unbelievers when they are prisoners of war: murder, slavery, or exchange for Muslim prisoners." Only later did the French government acknowledge that on 20 November-December 1996 Pennington ¯ The Cistercian Martyrs April the GIA had made a tape on which they required the seven monks to speak as proof that they were still alive. This tape was delivered to the government a week later. There were rumors of secret negotiations. But the monks would not have wanted to win their freedom at the cost of the lives of others, which would cer-tainly have been the case if the captured GIA terrorists were released to wreak more violence. The Martyrdom Although there had been some ambiguous statements from the French government in this regard, President Chirac stated formally on 20 May that there would be no negotiations with the terrorists regarding an "exchange of prisoners." This seems to have settled the mfitter. On 23 May, Radio Medi 1 in Tangiers read extracts from a GIA communiqud announcing that the seven monks had been beheaded on 21 May. Some doubt as to the verac-ity of this report lingered. But the French government, now admitting it had received the earlier secret communication from the GIA, confirmed the authenticity of the radio report. On Thursday evening, 23 May, in a powerfully symbolic act watched by millions on television, Cardinal Lustiger of Paris extinguished the seven candles which, in the presence of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish leaders, he had lit seven weeks earlier as a prayer and a hope for the release of the seven monks. Muslim-Christian Relations The se'~en monks of Our Lady of Atlas had dedicated their monastic lives to furthering the growth of healthy and life-giving relations between Muslims and Christians, who shared faith in and worship of the God of our common father, Abraham. At first impulse one might say this sacrilegious butchery had decimated their life's mission. But in fact, according to the paradoxical logic of an all-loving God, it gave it a whole new impetus. Rabah Kebir, the leader of the Islamic Salvation Front, who had earlier demanded of the GIA the release of the seven monks, now spoke out most forcefully: "I strongly condemn this criminal act, which runs absolutely contrary to the principles of Islam." Kahdidja Khalil of the High Council of French Muslims went further: "We strongly condemn this savage and barbaric act. It is Review for Religious forbidden in the holy Koran to touch 'all servants of God,' and that means priests and rabbis as well." The High Council had issued a fatwa, a solemn religious decree, declaring the monks' abduction illegal and calling for a day of fasting to pray for their release. In his address on Pentecost to the faithful in the piazza of St. Peter's, Pope John Paul II said: "Despite our deep sorrow, we thank God for the witness of love given by these religious. Their fidelity and constancy give honor to the church and surely will be seeds of reconciliation and peace for the Algerian people, with whom they were in solidarity." Also on Pentecost Sunday, in a symbolically powerful gesture once again, Cardinal Lustiger relit the seven candles before the high altar of Notre Dame Cathedral as a sign of reconciliation, declaring that the monks had not died in vain, but rather "for life, for love, and for reconciliation." The Funeral The fullest confirmation of the sacrifice of the seven Trappist brothers came on 30 May, only a few hours before the abbot gen-eral's arrival in Algeria for the celebration in honor of the martyrs. That morning the mutilated remains of the seven monks were found in a heap beside the road not far from Mtdta. They had evi-dently been interred for a time at some other location. The remains were placed in very simple wooden coffins and taken to the military hospital in Algiers. There the abbot general had the sorrowful task of identifying the remains. On the same day as the remains were found, Cardinal L~on Etienne Duval, the father of the church in Algeria and a great friend and supporter of the monks, completed his life's journey at the age of ninety-two. His funeral Mass on 2 June would be one with the Mass in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Africa for his seven sons and brothers. The Holy Father sent Cardinal Francis Arinze to represent him and preside. The two surviving monks of Our Lady of Atlas, Fathers Jean-Pierre and Amedeus, stood at the altar with him, as did the archbishop of Algiers and the Trappist abbot general and procurator general. In the sanctuary were the cardinal archbishop of Paris, Jean-Marie Lustiger, three other French bish-ops, and five ministers of the Algerian government. Seven of Father Christopher's brothers and sisters were present. November-Dece~nber 1996 Pennin~ton ¯ Tbe Cistercian Martyrs Cardinal Arinze in his funeral oration amplified the words the Holy Father had used on Pentecost: "The monks suffered unheard of violence . They gave all men and women an exam-ple of total sacrifice in honor of God and religion . The monks of M6d6a established friendly relations with their Muslim neigh-bors. They offered their services, especially in the field of medicine . They also contributed to the development of spir-itual dialogue and in this way gave evidence that sincere Muslims and Christians are able to gather together and mutually enrich each other also in the sphere of the spirit." Two days later, on Tuesday, 4 June, a small party was trans-ported by helicopter to M6d6a and on to the now deserted monastery at Tibhirine under heavy military escort. The remains of the brothers had been brought there the day before. The Muslim villagers, who loved the monks and had so often benefited from their ministrations, had dug the seven graves in the ceme-tery by the monastic church. The funeral service within the church was simple and brief, that at the graveside even more so. No news media or outsiders had been allowed to come. The brothers were laid to rest with those of their community who had gone before. If these Trappist brothers have been singularly blessed in receiving the grace of martyrdom, in their heroic victory are not we all also singularly blessed? Their witness of steadfast faith and a love that does not flinch in the face of death not only inspires us, but wins for us the grace to follow their example, each in our own calling. We have all been baptized into the death of Christ. We live that death so that in death we may enter into his risen life, We can rejoice in the cruel death of these men because we know and believe they h~ve truly entered into that life, the life for which they longed with all their being. Review for Religious CATHY ARATA Death Questions and Life Questions Nila, short for Petronila, was a woman approaching fifty years of age when I first saw her, but to look at her one would have guessed that she was in her mid-sixties. There was little pleasure in her life, no leisure, lots of heartache, and plenty of hard work. It was now the end of September, and she had been suffering from a severe case of hepati-tis. Her doctor had told her many times that what she needed most was rest, but the doctor had no idea of the circumstances in which she lived and moved and had her being. Nila and her husband, daughter, and son lived in a small isolated village with fifteen other families. The vil-lage has no water and no electricity and is a steep, ardu-ous climb from anywhere else. All the houses are adobe, with tin roofs and earthen floors. There is no school, no health clinic, no store of any kind. To get her daily supply of water, Nila had to walk downhill for about fifteen minutes and then t.rudge uphill with a five-gallon jug of water on her head. She usually did this three times a day. When the housekeeping chores were done, she went to the stream to do the family wash. On the days that she needed firewood, it was another long walk to gather the wood and then return home carrying up to fifty pounds of it on her head. I had seen Nila a few weeks before. Her yellow eyes Cathy Arata SSND worked in El Salvador for seven years. Her present address is 6401 North Charles Street; Baltimore, Maryland 21212. November-December 1996 life and death Arata ¯ Death Questions and L~e (~uestions gave ,no doubt that she did indeed have hepatitis. But that was back in July, and now we were entering October. It was about 7:30 in the evening, and I had just driven into the village where I live. As I was getting out of the car, someone told me that Nila had just been carried down the mountain in a hammock and that she was seriously ill. At first I did not pay much attention. It had been a long day and I was tired. I wanted only to get into my lit-tle house, close the door, and not be bothered. I was also impa-tient at the expectation that I would go and visit her. Well, I did go and was taken off guard by what I saw when I arrived at the place where they had taken. Nila. It was a small one-room adobe house, dark inside with a candle or two burning. The family, too poor to have closets, had boxes of clothing piled on tables along the wall. There were three simple wood-frame beds; on each one sat three or four children. Nila was in the mid-dle of the floor on a straw mat. She was, I guess you could say, semiconscious, writhing in pain. The small house was crowded with neighbors who had come to gawk at her. Close to where she lay, there were ten or twelve chickefis scratching on the floor for a morsel to eat. I was angry and frustrated with all the people who were stand-ing around "doing nothing," probably because of my own com-pulsive need to do something. So, when Nila's brother asked me if I could drive her to the clinic about three miles away, I readily agreed to do so. I went for the car, and the men began to lift Nila into the hammock in order to carry her to a spot where I would be able to meet them with the car. It was about 8:30 p.m. and the clinic was closed. In E1 Salvador all doctors and teachers have to give one year of com-munity service after their schooling. The doctor of this little vil-lage was a government doctor and was not happy to see us when we went to her home to tell her we had a patient who needed help. She was undoubtedly as tired as I, and she angrily said, "Why didn't you come during hours?" But she relented. Nila's brother and her older daughter literally dragged her from the car to the clinic because, although she was still alive, she was dead weight. Recognizing immediately that she needed a hospital, the doctor was harsh and cold and scolded us for not coming sooner. Nila died the next day in the hospital in Ilobasco, a small city about an hour and a half away. Her older son, a guerrilla.during the war and now a member of the newly formed National Police, Review for Relig4otts was with her. He borrowed money to buy the simple, crude wooden box in which to carry her back to the village. The box, with the remains of Nila, was placed on the back of an old pickup truck and driven over a dirt road much in need of repair. The news of Nila's death jolted me because I was taken off guard, not only by her death, but also by my own coldness and lack of compassion. That evening, when I arrived at the house where the wake was to be held, most of the community had already gathered, and, as was the custom, the men were outside playing cards and drinking homemade liquor while the women and children were inside praying and singing devotional hymns. The coffin was in the middle of the floor, in the exact spot where I had found Nila two nights earlier. It had survived the journey from Ilobasco and was now surrounded by flowers of many kinds which the neighbors had brought from their gardens. Most of them were placed in "vases" of Nestl~ instant-milk cans. A candle burned at each corner of the coffin, which was so constructed that a small piece of glass made Nila's face visible. But, because the house was so hot, steam had formed on the inside of the glass, and her face could not be seen clearly. The chickens were scratching around, but no one seemed to notice. After all, it is not unusual to have chickens roaming through the house. Two pigs came in and were shooed away. As we prayed the rosary, my mind flashed to Jefferson City, Missouri, where at the same moment Mary Margaret Johanning, our former SSND international leader, lay dying. I could not help comparing the way Nila died and the way Mary Margaret was dying. Both women were too young to die, and both believed fervently in an all-loving God. Perhaps that is all they had in common. It seemed obvious that, as Mary Margaret died, her God was present to her in the doctors and nurses who tried to lengthen her life, using all the newest technology that medicine has to offer. God was present to her too in the hundreds of cards and notes she received from her sisters around the world. Above all, The news of Nila's death jolted me because I was taken off guard, not only by her death, but also by my own coldness and lack of compassion. November-December 1996 Arata ¯ Death Questions and Life Questions God was present in her devoted family and host of loving friends who accompanied her in her dying. And Nila? Was God present as she writhed on the earthen floor surrounded by chickens looking for a morsel to eat? When her husband arrived at the wake drunk and vomiting, swinging his .machete in the air, was God there too? Was God outside with the men who were drinking and playing cards? It seems as if God treats us all very differently, and for a long time I have been angry with this God of ours. I have been resent-ful and frustrated that God is not the God I think God should be! God should not allow such things as Nila's cruel poverty and harsh dying and death, nor should God allow wars and concen-tration camps and bullets and bombs and mortars that carry atroc-ities beyond human imagining. God should put a moratorium on those things insurance companies call "acts of God," such as earth-quakes, floods, typhoons, and hurricanes. I have been resentful toward myself, too, because I am pow-erless in the face of such evil. My resentment has shown itself in my impatience, my coldness, my frustration at not being able to do what God is not doing: changing unjust structures, wiping out poverty, replacing wars with lasting justice and peace, and con-trolling the forces of nature. The past few months I have been gifted by my community with some sabbatical time: time to step out of a very active min-istry spanning thirty-three years and reflect on the meaning of those years, time to pause long enough to quiet my own com-pulsive need to right the wrong in the world and, in the silence and space, allow God to intimate to me that I was forgetting who I was and that I was assuming the role that was properly God's! Most of my questions, though, remain: Why such evil in the world? Why such a disparity between those who are poor and those who are rich? Why such a disparity of natural resources from country to country? Why th

Issue 35.3 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 Building; 539 North Grand Boule-yard; 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. Robert Williams, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor Book Editor Assistant Editor May 1976 Volume 35 Number 3 Renewals, new subscriptions, and changes of address should be sent to REVIEW FOR RELICIOUS; 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 RELIGIOUS; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boule-vard; 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. Obedience to MiSsion Sister Barbara Hendricks, M.M. Sister Barbara :Hendricks .,is a Maryknoll Sister who was missioned to Peru from 1953 until 1970. Sinc_e. then, she has been President of. the Congr.e, gation. She resides at /;he Sisters ~enter; Maryknoll, NY 10545, when not vi~siting her sisters missioned throughout t,he world. Th~s arhcle is from a talk that was given "at a Renewal. 'Week-end held ~t the,Provincial House 0f the Notre Dame. de Namur Sisters in Maryland on Janti~ary 24~26~ 1976. Introduction ~ - We live~ at°a momerit when the Church is appr6achin~g a fuller interpreta-tion of ~ts mission. We are_ beginning to understand that the Good News of Salvation in Jesus is neither dee~lless worff nor woi'dless deed; it is rather an ini~gral r(spo~se to th.e many critnic naele hdsu Imt ias s a l.v a"t iio!n " w oh i"ch can 'iServade and heal the phys, i~al, ps~cliological and spiritual wounds Of the world.We are conwnced that salvation begins now and that somehow we hav6 to have an experience of it in b~urlives ~is persons an~ as com-munities. Salvation is not ~omething ihat will only~ happen in eternity, but there must be a beglnmng of the~Klngdom here on earth. If this is true, then, holiness is not only,. ,apersonal transformation but it is meant to flow ~ut~vard infb human relationshipsi~both inte.r,-personal anal S~ructural.~ In the early sixties 'in South America we began to hear .the word "evan~gelizati~n,' beiqg used to 'dbscribe ihe essential task oof the Church. It was not a new w~d for those bf us who used to call ourselves "foreign mi~siona~ries.'' It was s~rt of our ;~thi~g." It meant going out there beyond the Church community to. preach the 'Gospel and plant the Church¯ Our articulated theology of mission put heavy emphasis on our "spiritual mis-sion" but in actual fact, we spent a good deal of our time engaged in the 322 / Review /or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/3 corporal works of mercy. A lot of debate started then" about what this Mission of Evangelization really means. It has been hot and heavy. The 1974 Synod on Evangelization and the latest Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Nuntiandi, are signs that the Church is indeed deeply concerned with Mission. For some Christians "evangelization" has meant recruiting new mem-bers, religious instruction of converts, teaching catechism, cultivating an inner spirituality or preaching missions in parishes and dioceses. For others, especially in the 1960's, it began to mean serious social action: promoting civil rights and concern for human dignity, witnessing to justice and peace or liberation from all forms of economic and political oppression. In more recent years, for certain groups in the Church it has come to mean a closely-knit, mutually supportive inter-personal community of shared wit-ness and prayer, highly alert to the presence of the Spirit, healing and reconciling. Our choice of definition depended a great deal on our own personal history, and the needs we experienced in ourselves ~and in the milieu around us. I think that the Holy Spirit has something to do with the recognition of 6ach of these dimensions of the evangelizing mission of the Church, and although we engaged in heated debates during these last ten years as we struggled to live out and espress an authentic con-temporary theology of mission, most of us knew that somehow we had to bring it all together, that our mission had to reflect the mission of Jesus in its entirety. The era of debate is subsiding as we move into the latter.half, of the 1970's. We Christians are beginning to listen to each other and tq the Word of God spoken and still speaking in our midst. We are now more concerned with the message itself, realizing that method is only the sec-ondary problem. Mission is .both message and method; btit with6ut a clear understanding of the.message, the method b6comes a lifeless, mean-ingless exercise of communication skills. So our main concern, then," is what is the "Message of Salvation" and how are we as religious, as apostolic people,~ to proclairh it in life, in work and in~word. More than. ten years ago, at the close of Vatican II, we were left with three docu-ments on the natui"e of the Church and its mission in the world; Lumen Gentium, Gaudium et Spes and Ad G~ntes. I have a feeling iha~°today we should put them together in a coordinated and harmonious integration. It was typical of the 1960'siha~ three distinct documents were needed to describe the same subject--t.he Church. It will be typical of these next ten years that theology of mission will c6nstruci a ~ynthesis of the many aspe~cts of evangelization to be lived and articulated. The Obedience o[ ~lesus In Saint Matthew's Gospel (3:13-17), we read: "As soon as Jesus was baptized, he came up from the water, and suddenly the heavens Obedience to Mission / 323 opened and he saw.,the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming down on him. And a voice spoke from heaven,' 'This is my Son, the Be-loved.; my favor rests on him.'" Jesus' missior~ comes,~from the Father, who, confirms~ in i~im Lh)s missibn of salvation for hum'anity. All. mission is initiat6~ by the Father~ who consecrates and sends. This is the beginning of Jesus" public ministry ' "he is 'sent by the Father." ~ 'Immediately after his 'ba~p,t!sm, Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilder-ness, where he is confronted by the demonic power. He is° tempted three times and in his responses we have presented to. us wh~t I would call "guidelines for our mission." We can apply them to ourselves personally, to our rehg~ous °communities and to the broader Church. They have to do with the means we take.~t~pro~iaim the Good N~ws: -First. Jesus is tempted to turn stones into l~read. He responds, "man does n~'t qive on bread alone but on every word that ~omes from the mouth of G0'd." To satisfy physica~ hunger 'without at the same time" providing the Word of God, the Bread of Life, is. to otier°a partial salvation. Mission conceived of as promoung matei'i]~l well-being' without the dialogue of faith arid th~' sharing of the W6rd i~ not authentic Christian mission. ° " "Second. Jesus is tempted to display his power grid at{ract by the forc~ bf ~livine intervention.'H replies; "You must not put the Lord, your God to the test." Jesus' mission is not to perform prodigies and thus draw to him-self thos+o~vho admire power and prestige, but rather it is to transform hearts 'and relationships, i His miracles are reserved for those who are disposed to ~effr his Word'and'humbly ask his h'ealing. Third. Jesus is te.mpted to bow down before Satan~to lift up idols in place"of~'the true GOd. He ,is told that worldl~ kingdoms will be thus at ,his disigosal ~'He reslb6n~s, "You must worship the Lord your God and serve him alone." chfisti~anm :i"s s"i"on can never set up alliances with earthly po~vers or make arrangements for sycurity'at the cost of serving false g6ds. To accept the~ statu~ quo and not to struggle for th~ realization of the Kingdom of justice and holiness is to bow down before false gods. These are. the three temptations which persons, communities and the Church itself must confront and overcome both. internally and in the world: --seeking material well-being to the~detriment of the spiritual di-mension of life; using p6wer by secret, allianizes, manipulation and oppression; --setting up idols before the true God. ~ The disciple of Jesus consecrated for his mission fis continually involved in an interior struggle ,against private demons while at the same time con-testing the very same manifestations of evil in the 'institutional structures. .Jesus comes out of the wilderness and begins his mission with these words: '~Rep~nt, the kingdom of heaven is close at hand." His message is a two-edged sword; it names the evi!, inviting'closed hearts to open to love 324 / Review tor Religious, Volume 35, 1976/3 :and it points~to the signs of hope that salvation has penetrated the human reality: He went aroundthe ~vhole ~f Galilee teachinff in their Synagogues proclaim-ing the Good' News of the Kingdom and curing all kinds of diseases and sickness °among the people. His fam~ spread, throughout Syria;~, an.d those who were suffering from. dise~ises and painful complaint.s of on6 kind or another, the possessed, epilept.ics, the pa~ralyzed~. ,-were~all broughLto~h, im and he cured thi~m. Large crowds followed him . . IMt 4:23-25). Jesus Sends Hi~ Disciples ~ ¯ Jesus immediately calls ~and gathers disciples into t~h~.fi.r~t~c°m~aunity¯ ¯ of apostolic followers. Hi~ re~orded words are, brief but they cohtain the essenaal relationship of "call" to "mi,ssion~'~:,"Follow me and I wdl make you fishers.6f m~en." They are called to be sent. He gathers them in his com-pany so that they in turn will gather others~ i'n tl~e comp~ny of mission. As he has been ~erlt by the Father, Jesus w'ill send ~hem. His mission is to ,;all human hearis and huma~ communiti,es_to, .repentance of sin and to give them an experi_ence of~the nearness of the Kingdom ~f.God. Th'~y leav~ their concerns their .nets and follow him. This is. the first-recorded re-spoose of disciples in obedience to ~,the ~,ord JesuS' call~ to mission ,(Mt 4:12-17). _ Having~gather~d his t ~welve disciples, he sends them:in his name to,the House of Israel: "And as you go, proclaim that ih~ ~ngdo~i of l~eaven is close at hand, cure the sick, raise th~ de.a.~l, clean.s~e the lepers, .ca~st°~out devils." (Mt 10:7-8). And after his de~ath and resurrec~tion, his la'stwords to'his disciples are ~iearly the Universal-mandate to mission: "Go, Ihe, refore, :,mal~ disciples 6f all ~.natibns; baptize them in the name~of the, Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to, observe all?ibe comm~.nds' I ~gave you. And know that l-am with you al~vays, yes, toi.[.h.e~ .end of t'ime (Mt ~28i 19- 20) . Repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be preached to all nations (Lk 24.:47). Go out to the whole world: proclaim the Good News to all creation (Mk 16:16). As the 15~ther sent me, so am I s~r~ding you (Jn 20:3). What, then, do we perceive t~ be Jesus" obedience to mission?, ". ~He-is sent by the Father and he is obedient t6.the mission given . him, even unto death. --~As he begins his public ministry, he confronts the demonic power of evil . - 7--He calls people to repentance,~-and announces~ the nearness of the.,,Kingd0m of God. He explains God's plan for~,.creation; the',, central figure Of his concern is the human person for~whom God Obedience to Mission / 325 Wills. the,perfection of love. With his teachin~g, he completes the sacred history of the.people. --He gathers those:.who_ believe in him, calling each by name, and -~ sends them as he, himself, has been sent by the Father: He travels thrbugh the" land, proclaiming the Good News of Salvation for all. His powerful word is heard and seen and felt because it is enfleshed in deeds of love and healing. --He forms a community of faith, of service and of love in .which he will continue his presence and prolong his mission ~until the time when he will return. The mission of Jesus is both physical healing and spiritual reconcilia-tion, liberation and fulfillment; the Lord's favor rests on the poor, the oppressed, and the alienated. We have an image set before us.of Jesus whose mission i~ lived out in absolute fidelity, to his Father and in faithfulness to human persons and ~their critical needs. There seems to be no conflict-of interest between building the earthly city and praising and glorifying God~ This 6oncern for 'the whole person--physical, and spiritual dimensions-- is the ~ mission . mandate, and it is also the criteria on which we will be judged at the end:."I was hungry and you gave ~me,to eat, thirsty and you gave me to drink . " The Evangelizing Mission in the Acts o[ the Apostles In the book of Acts there is a 'recurrent sequence of events which illustrate the ~continuous movement of Christian mission in the,~ early Chu'i'ch: We~ recognize there, the essential elements of apostolic life. There is a constant ~flow of gathering and sending, healing and proclaiming, con-fronting and suffering, .reflecting and celebrating. The first few chapters concerned with the primitive Christian com-munity in Jerusalem provide us with an outline of integral-evangelization: 'Gathering and,sending." the disciples of Jesus having encountered~the risen Lord° and experienced his healing and saving love, come together to build a faith cbmmunion of love and sharing nourished by the Spirit. The community is bound ~tbgether by prayer, by mutual service, by ,shared possessions, by the instructions of the apostles, and'by the celebration of the eucharistic meal. The Spirit urges them to go outside the faith com-munity and boldly preach the Good News of Salvation, challenging-men and women to repent and to be~converted. Healing and proclaiming: the evangelizing mission thrusts outward be-yond the community'with a deed of mercy. "When Peter and John were going up to the.temple for the prayers at the ninth hour, it~happen~d that there was a man being carrie.d past. He was a cripple from birth and they used ,,to put .him.down every day near the temple entrance called the Beautiful Gate so, he could beg from the people going in" (Acts 3:1-3). The evangelizers are led by the Spirit into the market place, outside the 326 / Review for Religious,. Volume 35, 1976/3 temple gate, and the Word, not yet~slSoken, is revealed by an act of mercy which responds to wor!dly agony and bodily need. In the name of Jesus, the man walks. In the midst of the deed, Peter"speaks the~ Word: ."Why are you so surprised at ~'th~is? . . . it is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our ancestors, who has glorified' his servant, Jesus . " He pre~iches the .salvation of Jesus, incarnated, despised, suffering, re-jected, yet resurrected and triumphant, active in the midst of the world. Humans need to hear the Word of God spoken in faith and hope and addressed to their personal center, as well'as see and feel the impact of the healing act of love. Christian mission never isolates'the ministry of service from the ~ministry of the spoken Word. The evangelizing act is seen, felt and h~ard. , " Con]ronting and suffering: there is the inevitable confrontation with the principalities and powers (Acts 4:3). The priests and the officers of the ,.temple apprehend Peter and John. They are interrogated and harassed, told to ,be quiet, not to speak of Jesus and his message. The moment of :confrontation with all the suffe.ring it involves, provides the occasion for kerygma. Peter again proclaims the Ggod News even when it means resisting oppression.~_."You, yourselves, judge what is right in God's sight, to obey you or to obey God" (Acts 4: 19). Reflecting and celebrating: the d, isciples return to the community recounting their ex'~eriences, the healing act, the su~ering°-'they endured and ~there is rejoicing of all the members. They praise God, reflect together on Scripture; trying, to interpret the events in order to discover God's plan and purpose in them. "As they prayed . . . they,were filled With the Holy Spirit and began to pro.claim the Word of God boldly" (Acts,.4:3~L). The community of faith sharing and discerning together grows in creativity and valor. ~ A reflective reading of Acts steers us out of ourselves away from a one,dimensional acting out of Christian lif~ and mission. The continuous movement of evangelization in the Book of Acts links diakonia, kerygma and koihomla-~deed, word and community are not three distinct ways of carrying on the mission of Jesus; they are three dimensions of one Christie process in which we are all called to participate. Cohsecration tor Mission in Religious Community The invitation to follow the Lord Jesus is addressed" to the personal center of the one who, in some mysterious way, has been chosen to announce the Good News of Salvation. The person thus "called" perceives th6 Wbrd of God as an 'internal light or truth or warmth which presents an i~perative to stop what one is presently concerned~ about, to .turn to something new, to attend to a persistent urging and pursue a new direction. The person who listens and responds to the invitation to follow this new inner direction finds herself (himself) caught up in a new relation- Obedience to Mission / 327 ship ~with God--a relationship which requires a commitment to his plan for the transformation of human hearts and human relationships. It is 'ba, sically.the 'sanie .invitation addressed to the first disciples and many others in the history, of the Christian Church: "Follow me' and I will make you fishers of men.".The call is for mission. In the instance of a person called to apostolic religious life, there is an experience of deep significance, of the total engagement of one's being. It involves both a feeling of truth about oneself in relation to~ other~human persons and a sense of well-being even when the, commitment will require a difficult decision. A deep conviction arises'from within the person that -God is t:alling her (.him) to a celibate life in community. What is impor, tant to note here is that th~ person called has indeed~been "touched'? .by the Gospel and is motivated by that ,power from within. It .should not b~ simply a matter of having hem;d about the power of the Gospel and ~being deeply impressed by what it has done for~others. It has to be one's own experience of God beckoning. ~' Each of us at one point in our lives, be.fore we entered our particular community, had a dream or a vision. This dream was the way in which we were able to express to ourselves the significance of our inner experi. ence ~oL call. It was about what we wanted to be and what we wanted to do with our lives. ~I believe that "call" and ,mission" (the being and doing) are not two separate realities, but different aspects of the divine.~outward thrust .of love; God breaking through to us and inviting us to participate in his mission, the mission of~his Son, Jesus. God's desire to lib'erate and reconcile ,and, ultimately,, transform all that he. has;created manifests itself in a .special form of outreach to some chosen persons. He gathers these persons into commtiniiies '.for his' special pUrposes :in the historic process with its dire needs. None of us knows why his choice falls where it does, but we expe.rience it and therefore, we believe it. No_one is "called''~ to be simply for herself (or himself) alone. We are invited by God to take part in a transfoi'ming-mission which is the~:sharing of the Good News of Salvation in'4esus. We. are called to proclaim the Word to our brothers and sisters who have not heard nor experienced God's powerful healing and reconciling Word'. ' Obedience: Listening to (~od's Word and ReSponding with "Yes" Obedience is openness t~ God's deSigns and plans for the world. We do not have a blue print of his will and, therefore, obedience canhot ~imply be freedom to conform to what is already decided. It is not'a passive ac-ceptance of the way things are, but an enthusiastic search to discover the direction of the Spirit at .work in hearts, in relatiOnships and 'in institu-tional structures. Obedience, then, means openness and attentiveness to the Word of God spoken and speaking in our midst. It means listening, consultation, 328~/ Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/3 study, . dialogue and reflective prayer. Above all.it, means listening to one another in the local community, in our larger congregation, and to the different levels of Church in which we participate,° especially our local Church, but also our universal Church, as-~t struggles to articulate its experience, its insights and its consensus. It means trying to ,read the signs of our times; listening and discerning° the needs and aspirations of the society in which we are inserted, our neighborhood, our city, our nation and the .new global world in which we live today. As we listen, we need to analyze, consult and experience, the pain and violence of our times, as well as its joys and ~aspirations. We need to~name evil without despair and to point to the signs of hope with realism and ho.nesty but with Christian faith in the resurrection and promiseoof the Lord. The Spirit is working in the events of history both within the hearts of all of us, within our communities and in the world itself. In the light of the Gospel message our task is to discover the purpose and plan of God taking place in our times and to discern Our particular way of par-ticipating in the mission of Jesus. We have to listen to the Word of God in Scripture and in our own hearts in prayer and reflection. We have to listen to his Word in our own local,:communities and articulate to each other .the fruit of our reflection and prayer, so: that spontaneously together we can share :his Word and grow as a community of faith. The main problem seems to be that we lack very often, the right struc-tures and processes within our local communities and broade~ congrega-tions .which would enable a rhore enlightened obedience, to mission today. Both personally and as communities we need an asceticism of consistent, well organized"and faith-oriented "~omingtogether" for dialogue, discern-ment and. decision-making regarding our apostolic activities as well as for evaluation and growth in being communities of reflective faith-sharing. Our coming together should be characterized by, th~ same belongingness which was typical of the early Church communities. They came,,back to-gether. ,after healing and preaching, confronting.and suffering, and they shared their sufferings and joys, they reflected together to understand better God's plan for them, they offered common prayer-, and Eucharist. And, thus, they went out again with an even bolder enthusiasm to preach God's Word. Obedience, then, consists in listening to God's Woi-d, and growing in our abili.ty to understand its deepest meaning for our life and our mission: 1, Growth in taking respons.ibility for community'.s life and direc-tion, ~ 2. Growth in d~veloping meaningful ministries which tr,y ~to meet the critical needs of today's world. 3. Growth in .sharing the Word among ourselves and in the market-pla~ e. Obedience to Mission / 329 It seems to me that what we have tradition.ally called the "Vow of Obedience" is precisely the way in which each community agrees to li~,e and work and share its faith together. It is the covenant we make with God and with each other in order to grow and deepen our consecration to the mission of Jesus. Conclusion It is imperative for our apostolic religious communities to intensify and deepen our humanization commitments of the 1960's and at the same time, to pursue our hungering spiritual quests of the 1-970's. The Christian in mission to the contemporary, world is called to struggle for both personal and social transformation in Jesus Christ. The realization of the kingdom which Jesus proclaimed is, in fact, the building of an ever widening net-work of relationships of justice, peace and friendship. The personal trans-formation each of us longs for is the holiness of the Gospel, and the social transformation which our world cries out for is our challenge'to partici-pate in the mission of~the Gospel. The cries of our contemporary global society are many-~--for bread, for freedom and jusffce, ~or truth and understanding, for peace and reconcilia-tion, for independence and inter-dependence, for acceptance and friendship and for ultimate transcendent meaning. Somehow, some way, the apostolic relig~ious community must lift. up a ~lear sign for all 1o see that the kingdom of h~)liness and justic~e which Jesus preached is pos's~ible in our world today and at the very same time we must effectively minister, to the most (ritical social wounds in our milieu. ' Our problem today iia the Church and in our communities is not so much one of how to communicate the Good News of Salvation" in Jesu~s bu,,t ,prima~i'ily how to live it. Penance and Brotherly Love Michel Rondet, S.J. Readers of our pages will be familiar with Father Rondet~from his article publisrhed last July: '~Choices of Religious.Life in a SeCularized World." The present article was translated by Sister Mary Dempsey,CDP, an AmeriCan sister presently stationed in France. ~ . The"., sacrament of penance is certainly one of the Christian gestures least appreciated'in our time2 Father Maranache says that we have made of it "~the~ d~poshory .for our obsession~s or the sim~ple door-mat for the ~Eucharist . "~ It is a' gesture ihat is less and less understood today. That is something that should wo0y us, for it could be telling us that we are no longer a sin[id people.or that we no longer think: of ourselves as a sinful people. But. in that case we are necessarily going to be either a guilty peo~ ple or a pharisaical people. Guilty, that is, shut up in our guilt, in a .sense of failure, and therefore living in resentment, isolation hopelessfiess, with our fault; or else we are pharisees closed in on a feeling of our own righteousness. There are many ways of being pharisaical; it can be in the style of the pharisee in the gospel, but it can also be in more modern styles; for example, when a person thinks he is thee .only Christian, or the only type of Christian, who is committed, conscientiou.s;-adult, responsible, as opposed to the others who are only sociological Christians, vestiges the past. In both cases we are'up against a people without hope, who will not bring hope to mankind, for we are concerned with people who are travel-ing a different road friam the God who came for the sake of sinners and to 1A. Manaranche: Un chemin de liberti (Ed. du Scull), p. 91. 330 Penance and~'Brotherly Love / 331 save sinners. Historians of religions have bi~en able to show thht, in most non-Christian religions, it is the,'sinners who go to God to be pardoned. But~ in the Gospel it is always Christ who goes toward the sinners, it is God who goes to them. If we wish to be a holy pe'ople ~we must become again a sinful people, for the holiness to which we are called is not a holiness of perfection; it is a holiness of conversion. The holy people of God'are not a people of perfect beings; they are a race ,of sinners who'have been converted. ~, ~. But let us be careful! Sin is ~ religious reality. It is an attitude that has no meaning except in the context of the Covenant and in face of the love of God. Outside the Covenant there is no Sin, there are faults; there are no sinners, there are the guilty. Sin is a discovery that is made'in the context of the love of God and face" to face with that love. It is the faithful love of-. God that reveals to Israel its infidelity (cL, Ho'll). It is through the love of God that Israel is made aware'that.it is a spouse; unfaithful and at the same time loved over and above all infidelity. There isin th~ Gospel of Saint Luke a.passage that is very significant from this point of view. At the time of: the first miraculous draught of fishes and the call of the first disciples, Simon Peter says: "Leave me, Lord. 1 am a sinful man." At first sight ,this attitude is surprising: Peter did nothing reprehensible that day; on the contrary. It is not, then, the awareness of a fault that lets him~ know he, is a sinner, but the revelation of the fullness of the gift of God through what has just been accomplished before his eyes. Only in the light of the love of God is sin discovered as a religious reality. ~ If, instead of. oscillating between guilt~ and pharisaism, we would be a people made up .of sinners, we would accept-ourselves as such, we could be a hope for the world, because we would be sinners*saved and pardoned in Jesu~ Christ. And so we could make this sign of ,reconciliation which is the sacrament of penance come alive in the world. "-Guilt attd sin: The experiencing of our limitations, of our misery,of our defeat, of our infidelity, can develop in us a feeling of kuilt (~whi~h is found at that time in the°consciousness of the sinner), but there is a great difference between: -:-feeling guilty before a law, an ideal fabricated by others or that we ourselves conjure, up . The only thing to do then is to reproach ourselves or be discour-aged by our mediocrity, and the higher the ideal the more the .guilt-feeling risks being stronger and paralyzin~g., --and feeling unfaithful, guilty in the face of a person by whom we know we are loved and pardoned, abok, e all if that pardon has the absolute quality of divine love. The repentance that can then rise up in us is a strong and vigorous sentiment of gratitude, thanksgiving, hope. He who knows that much has been forgiven him becomes capable of loving much (Lk 10, 47, and 15~ 32). ~ The sense of sin in Scripture is this second attitude, and it is in this interpretation that we make the distinction here, pointing out the opposition between these often-confused ideas, a guilt,feeling and a sense of sin. 332 / Review [or Religious, Volume'35, 1976/3 The Sacrament of Reconciliation What is this sign that we are called :to live out in the Church? 1 ) It is a Memorial of the. Paschal Mystery. The sacrament.of penance is the memorial of Jesus inhis Passion forgiving his executioners and those who are responsible for his death: the leaders of his people, Pilate, the silent majority who have said nothing during the, trial of Jesus and who let himbe condemned. It is to .all those that the pardon of God is addressed in Jesus. The sacrament of penance is above all the memorial of this aspect of the Paschall Mystery, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." ~, It is a memorial of the revelation of' God as the one who forgiv(s; that is, he whose love welcomes us and creates us anew. To forgive is not tO forget,, but ~o refuse to identify the person with his fault, to shut him: up in his, past or his guilty present. Pardon' iS the attitude of hope that we continue to have toward a person, beyond what he has. been or wha't he is. To forgive is to say to someone: "To me you are not eternally, definitively, wholly, the one who has done .this or .that. I expect something else.of you." That is what Jesus did with Peter. It is in this sense that pardon is creative, re-creating hope. In the attitude of someone I can discover that I am other than what I am in this fault and in this sin. We are all sinners, but we are also hll saints in the eyes of God. .2) The'sacrament of penance, is ~the transfiguration of our sinful being into a being saved by Christ. It is the .passover from the table of sinn6rs to the table of sons through the forgiveness of God. We find a very beau-tiful representation of this in the window of the Prodigal Son in the Cathedral of Bourges. The prodigal in exile wears the short tunic'of slaves; welcomed by his father, he wears the long robe of the sons. The eider son, who had ,the long robe in the beginning, is wearing the short tuni+ in the last scene. He has the mentality of a slave. 3) The sacrament of penance is also the germ o[ a definitive and uni-versal reconciliation. Created anew through the pardon .of Christ, we be-come capable of pardoning, of looking upon one another with hope. Henceforth a new world is possible, for only love ge~erates"love. To ac-cept others, to forgive then~, the.person himself must be able to depend on the love and the forgiveness of him who is greater than our heart. And so the sacrament of penance is the gesture that creates the Church as a people of reconciliation; the Christian gesture that '-makes us "peace-makers," men who are capable of being in the world a~rtisans of peace and of reconciliation because we ourselves are reconciled through the for-giveness of God. , How Celebrate This Reconciliation? ' For the Church, the sacrhment of penance is the gesture of Christ that re-creates us. it is also the gesture by which we accept and celebrate this Penance and,Brotherly Love / 333 reconciliation. This is another way¯ of saying ,tha!, qike all the sacraments, Penance~is a Paschal celebration, penitential but joyous. In an old Bene-dictine text of the Middle Ages, this is what,is said about Ash Wednesday: "The monks Cntered with joyful hope into the sacred penance of Lent." The"stages of this celebration: ',, 1) Let the Word of God lead us to the table of.sinners, for. it is only there that we will meet Christ. The saints had a ~reat and profound insight into this truth. We must let the Word of God denounce our false righteousz ness. The table,0f sinners is not a sad table, because it is the table of en-counters. with God. What is sad is the table of the pharisees who trust in their own righteousness. Christ~will never come and sit down-at-that table. I have not said thht the first step is to examine our conscience because it ,is~ not for ,us to discdver our false justice.and injustice. This would be an illusion; it would turn us back on ourselves to excuse or justify ourselves or to be discouraged. It is necessary to let the Word of God denounce our sin ~ind bring it to light. ' ¯ There should be a celebration of the Word. You could prepare for your~ confessions by opening the gospel. ~That would be perhaps the best way to enter into the sacrament: .~ ' '2) Publicly to "confess° our s'infulness and salvation throug.h Jesus Christ, to confess through"a gesture that Christ 'alone is the Savior. It is true that contrition is a requirement for salvation in Jesus Christ. But that is '.not because contrition° saves- us," but because for us that ~contrition is a way'of uniting us to Christ the Savior. Confession is the gesture by which. we publicly repudiate,~the illusion that persists in ms, that it is our re- ,pentance, our good will,othat saves us. No, it is Christ and he alone that saves us. It is'in this sense, to, signify this, that the sacramental action is necessary. In any other perspective it is not justified~ or ii is only. the exterior sign of what our repentance :brings about. Alas, there are a'. certain number of Christians who still have this idea. They, therefore see very little impor-tance in the~sacramei~t, since all the weight of the gesture is centered on their repentance instead of being centered on the Christ who saves: .From this point of view, the monotony bf our ~accusations can be very good., I am. always~th~e same sinner, I.have not changed fundamentally,¯ but JeSus Christ saves me. The accusation is a oprofession of faith before it is an accusation. I proclaim that,Jesus Christ is Savior by confessing my sins. That is the sense that St. Augustine gives to his work Con[essions." the confession that he is~ weak and a.sinner and the profession of faith in God the Savior. 3) With .the Christ of the Passion, we must live our Christian priest-hood. This is perhaps one 6f the most profound opportunities we have to live it. Today, when we honor the priesthood of all the baptized, le't us not at the same time relegate to the shade one of the gestures by which this ,priesthood is. expressed ,with. perhaps the greatest intensity. In the 334 / Review forReli~ious~ Volume 35, 1976/3 sacrament of penance, with the Christ of the Passion, we are the Church which offers to;the Father the sinful world of which we are acknowledged . members. We present ourselves before theFather, selfish, proud, harsh, with the same selfishness, the same harshness, the same self-sufficiency as those who appear everywhere in the world and who sometimes produce bitter fruits of death and of suffering. If selfishness and pride have not pro-duced the same fruits in tis, it is because the circumstances have not been favorable. We are also the Church which accepts the pardon of the Father in the nameoof all and for,~all. It is not our own little pardon that we come to receive as a privilege that is going to set us apart fro~ others-apd justify us in our own eyes; it is the pardon of the Fathei" who welcomes .us in the name of the,sinful world of which, by the grace of God, we are conscious representatives. This is a priestly attitude." Since we are united through baptism to the pries(hood of Christ, we can, in this penitential gesture, live this priest-hood inooffering the sinful world and accepting in its name the forgiveness in 'the Father. 4) To witness through pardon "to our reconciliation in. Jesus Christ." Having tasted the love of God, proved his ur~failing°fidelity, we become capable, in our turn, of forgiveness. There is the true contrition, the true firm purpose: to enter into .,pardon, to enter into the Passover of Christ so as to become in him the people of reconciliation, example and witness of reconciliation in the world. The sacrament, then, opens us out to a -creative attitude that is very important in our time. In the world of conflict in which we.live~ where every society tends to become a closed society, pardon is a creative attitude. It cuts off the inexorable unfolding of our sin-ful history, it introduces an element of radical novelty, introduces an un-looked- for idea that causes hope to flower where it seemed impossible. That is the happy ending to which the sacrament leads us: to be, in the midst of the conflicts of this world, the artisans and the witnesses of a possible recon-ciliation. To let Christ lead us to the table of sinners, t6,profess our faith in Jesus Christ the Savior by the confession of our sins, to'live our baptis~mal~ priesthood by offering the sinful world and accepting the forgiveness of the Father, to enter in our turn into the love which,, forgives because it has been created anew'by the Father this is what it means to live and cele-brate the sacrament of penance. It is quite a different thing from ihat gloomy examination of conscience in which we look at ourselves and our failures, developing vexation and discouragement in ourselves before we pass to a nondescript legalistic action by which we make things right with~ God: To live the sacrament of penance is to celebrate an egsential and hope-filled dimension of' the Christian life. See Luke, regarding the pardoned Penance and Brotherly Love / 335 sinker: he who thinks he has been forgiven little or thinks he does not need forgiveness loves little ~gnd displays little love; but the one who has been forgiven much and' who knows he needs forgiveness can show much love; It is an essential dimension of every Christian lile. We must go beyond a calculated~_concept of the sacrament. It is expressed in 'a gesture and in a sign, but it ought not to be an isolated moment, cut off from life; if it were it would become a gesture of magic purification. Penance can be a_Sacra-ment, a sign which expresses our self and transforms us, only if faith causes us to live continually as, pardoned sinners. The sacramental gesture makes sense only if it permeates.a whole existence and a total attitude which shines forth in our prayer, our,~life, our relations with others. The sacramental gesture is the high point.of a whole life of a pardoned sinner, and that i's what gives its meaning, tO this penitential dimension of the Christian life. This summit cannot be separated from the rest without losing its signifi-cance. The sacrament of penance is, then, a gesture which sums up our whole life, from the acts of contrition that we make, the penitential rite of the Eucharist, rites of. reconciliation, the recitation of the Our Father, times of penan.ce (-Lent, Advent . ), the revisions of life that we make to-ge. ther. It is,all these_ moments that we live the sacrament of penance. All this is part of the sign and~ all ihis finds its true, fully-lived meaning at the time of the reception of ~the sacrament. Also, far from making the sacra-ment useless, all that we have just mentioned calls for it and gives it mean-ing. It is certainly necessary for tile Church of our time to rediscover-forms of celebration of the sacrament of penance which best express the signifi-cance of. this gesture. The Church has known ~any forms in the course of history (public penance in the 0rst centuries, individual confession since the end of the Middle Ages). It is precisely for this reason that the new rite of the sacrament is so important for us today. Penance and Brotherly Love 1 ) In its beginnings; religious life in the Church did not appear as an association of perfect Christians, better than others, like a little "Church of, the Just" in the midst of the larger, heterogeneous Church; but the first communities presented themselves as communities ojf repentant sinners, Christians who proclaimed their need of conversion. We are assembled ,sinners,. communities of sinners who try to love much because much has been forgiven us. This is a constant "of the spiritual tradition of the rel.igious life: a state of conversion, of penzance. 2) A religious community is not a group without tensions and prob-lems, but it is a community that endeavors to make,pardon ever possible, where this pardon can always be asked because each one knows that it will always be given. It is a community where-each one lives amid proffered 336 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/3 forgiveness, where each can be himself without grudgessor complexe~,,~a ,dommunity where hope is possible because the others look upon,you with hope and forg(veness. A person can become a new,creature in the forgive-ness of others. Par~on always possible makes .hope al~,ays present. 3) "In this sense a religious community can ,be a "vision of. peace,~' as the Church ought tO be and tries to be, not because it is an .idyllic,witness to 'understanding and friendship, but because it is a place of~ pardon ,and of reconciliation. ~ '~ . ~ , Reconciled with my fellowmen, living in theoview, of my brothers and sisters who pardon me in the strength of thd.,pardgn o1' Christ, I can, in my turn he,in the world an artisan of peace, a witness to'reyonciliation. This is .an essential dimension of our life of profound charity, ,not easy to live day by day. Let us'try to live it, and many difficulties will .recede to the background and it will be possible to shoulder them in' hope: Celebrating Reconciliation in. Brotherly Love o ~ I ) We mugt r'ediscover in our lives gestures that celebrate hnd express the penitential dimensioh of our lives. Formerly thei'e~were in the congre-gations traditions of penance on certain days and for certain feasts. They had become formalistic and have'~been suppressed. P¢0bably°it was neces-sary to do this and t6 pas~ .throuffh thig healing step~of purification. But now we must rediscover and re-create something else; otherwise, it~i~; a dimension of life that will not be celebrated. 2) We must rediscover times and intervals of mutual forgiveness. We mu~t find thefia again at the heart of a liturgical act. You have certainly had the experience already: there is sharing that c'an take place only in a liturgical set~ing~ for at that moment we are entirely centered on the Lord. There are things that can be said then arid will be accepted as they would not be in another context, because there wo'uld'not be the 'same climate, the same charity, the same grace, the same presence of Christ; There are times and places of pardon to be rediscovered, during the eucharistic cele-bration, liturgies of the Word, Compline . 3) We must also integrate into the sacrament more'consciously atti-tudes which in. fact already form a part of. it. For example,, certain revi-sions of life,./~ certain search ['or spiritual discernment'made in community in which we are helped t~ become aware of'our deficiencies, our infidelities. . . . We.could make the connection and end a revision of.life, ['or instance, by an aci.of contrition, an imploring of God's' pardon that would 'recall the sacrament bf penance and woiald be ['or each one a preparation for it. In this presentation, 1 have not stressed much the role of the priestly minister in the Celebration of penance. This role is precisely to signify, the 'necessary bond with Christ and this. necessary presence of Christ without which no Passover is realized and actualized. In the sacrament of penance Penance and Brother~ly Love'/,. ,337 the priest; who acts in the name of the Church, is the necessary witness of what reconciliation, forgiveness, salvation, are given to us.in ]esus Christ and through him. We cannot attain to it of ourselves. On the other hand, a celebration always presupposes a people. It is important that the community, whether small or' large, recognize itself always, when celebrating the sacrament of penance, as the Church of Christ. Faith and Justice Francisco Ivern, S.J. Father Ivern, until the Jesuits' recent congregation, had been Father Arrupe's special advisor on the social apostolate and the chairman of his special commission for the same: Since the congregation, he has been named General Counselor as well. A Spaniard by birth, he studied in the United States and worked for some years in Bombay. His present addi'ess: Borgo S. Spirito, 5; C.P. 9048; 00100 Roma, Italy. Introduction In one of its decrees, the 32nd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus (Dec. 2, 1974--March 7, 1975) has defined the,mission of Jesuits in the world of today as the service of faith and the promotion of justice. It was the most import,ant and specific contribution of that congregation for the future of the Society of Jesus as an apostolic order at the service of the universal Church. Some might argue that, as far as priorities are con~cerned, the decree on "The Union of Minds and Hearts" issued by that same congregation,1 deals with an aspect even more basic for the survival and maintenance of the Society of Jesus: i.e. the spiritual and commianity life of its members. Others might stress the importance of the decree on poverty and the radical changes it introduces into the practice of that vow by communities and apostolic works.~ Finall3}, others might rightly emphasize that the future of the Society will depend on the religious and apostolic formation of its members, and hence the decree treating that topic deserves top priority) All this is in a way true. But the decrees on spiritual and community life, 1This decree will be the subject of a future article in this series. -~See REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, March, 1976, pp. 191, ft. :*This decree will not be treated in this series as being of too narrowly Jesuit interest. 338 Faith and ,Justice / .339 on formation and even_on pov.erty represent the natural and expected evo-lution of a process already on the way since the 31st General Congrega-tion ~(1965). To a great extent; they simply develop and complement what was already expressed in that congregation. On the. other har~d, the decree on "Our Mission Today: the Service of Faith and ~he Promotion of Justice" marks a relatively new development and poses~.a new.challenge. Its influence is felt in all the,bther major documents of the~32nd~General Congregation; it gives them their apostolic motivation and orientation and thus conditions their fruitful interiorization and effective implementation. ~The decree on faith and justice, how6ver, has also becon]e-6ne of~ the most controversial pronouncements Of the last Jesuit congregation find it will ~,probably be one of the most difficult to implement. On the,one side, it is true that, in spite of its long ,and laborious genesis and° its obvious defects of form, the~decree was finally approved by an overwhelming majority. It can also be said, one year after its promulgation; that the decree has been gen.erally well accepted by most Jesuits. On the other side, how.ever, it~:is also true that not a few have received it with mixed fe~lings and reservations. Some ffonder about the scope and universal applicability of" the.decree for the ,Jesuit apostolate. Doubts have.also arisen about the precise meaning of justice ,an~l of the inter-relationship b~tween faith and justice in the ,context of the decree: Others feel that, the "specific contribu-tion of priests and religious to the promotion of justice should be further clarified. _ It is also a ~fact that the longest and most "substantial" remarks of the Holy, See concerning the congregation's documents, were aimed at this decree in particular.-A few have'even said that the Holy See's observa-tions have greatly.~ weakened the decree's thrust, if not crippled it al-together. . . It is myoview that, in spit6 of all these difficulties, the d6cree keeps all its basic strength and importance. It presents today for the Society of Jesus a big challenge and a unique apostolic opportunity. Perhaps like none Other, the decree on "Our Missiofi Today" can help Jesuits td'rediscover again, in:a new light,,what it means to be an apostle, a religious and a priest ifi the, modern world: It can help infuse~ new" vitality and dynamism into an aging and shrinking international organism. It can strengthen the union of all-Jesuits around a common apostolic ideal whbse"relevance and actuality appe.ar today with renewed clarity~ ° The criticism, reservations 'and evefi fears that the decree has aroused can be explained partly becau~se of its all embracing nature, partly because of some obscurities and difficulties of interpretation to which the text some-times lends itself. In this context, the remarks'made by the Holy See, though perhaps not absolutely ~necessary, can ~ greatly h61p to dispel some of~these fea'rs, and reservations. They can help i-eveal better ttie basis on which the potential of the decree for a profound religious and apostolic re-newal~ ultimately rests. However, we have also to admit that a decree that 340 / Review .]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/3 demands from every individual Jesuit and from every Jesuit community and apos.tolic work .a reassessm(nt in depth of their own, basic orientation in the light of the service of faith .and the ,promo.tion of justice~ was bound,to cause some uneasiness, set in motion defense mechanisms and even pro-voke negative reactions. The earlier 31st General Congregation recognized that, in order totface ,new needs and-conditions, the entire,.Jesuit,~tpost01ate had to be thoroughly :rethought and r~vised:~But while some channels and structures were prd-posed for. that revision, there was no clear ~ttempt at providing the overall criteria ands.objectives that should inspireoand guide it. ,A general sociological survey of the Society of Jesus that was launched by Fr. Arrupe towards the end of.1965, shortly after the 31st General°Con-gregation, provided.some apostolic guidelines and objectives and also con-tributed to develop some mechanisms of response to new needs. But itS; out-come was very, uneven and its best achievements-remained at the level of some provinces or regtons. There was no serious attempt, therefore, to ap-ply its conclusions, in terms.of some general policy guidelines¢.to the whole Society. This explains why, except for those .provinces or regions in which a considerable effort owas made to" determine general ~ind corporate apos-tolic objectives in the light of the survey findings,'the ov~erall pattern~"of apostolic worl(s and ministries in the Society of Jesus underwent relatively few changes from 1965 to. 1975. - o During;the.se years, however, under the ,leadership of Fr. Arrupe, .a good deal was done to give some new direction and contents to,the J~suit apostolate and to,emphasize some of the dimensions that~ should distinguish it as a whole, independently from the particular works or meahs through which it was to be carried out. This was specially true of the comriiitment to bring about a more human and just society,,which'was more"and .more presented not so much as a separate sector of activity, but rather as a dir~eri~ sion that should mark all Jesuit life and apostolic work. This led to a more interdisciplinary, "intersectorial" and integrated apostolic approach. It also contributed to give to the Jesuit apostolate a new sensb,oof direction, an '~identity" that had been somewhat, obscured and weakened~'during a period of rapid change. It also prepared the ground for the decree of the 32nd General Congregation on."Our Mission Today." ~ Unlike previous congregations, the 32nd did not issue b~ief and separate decrees restating the importance of the major~apostolates;,old or new, in which Jesuit.s are or should be engaged: missionary activity,.education, ecu-menism, pastoral action, scientific apostolate, artistic endeavors, social in-volvement, mass. media, and so forth. The brief references in the decree on "'Our Mission Today" to theological reflection, "conscientization" according to the Gospel, education and modern media of social communication, were to emphasize the level at which Jesuits should work, their main role as "educators" and the instruments that they should use in their apostolate iri Faith and Justice / 341 order to have thewidest possible, influence, rather than to single out spe-cific works, institutions or sectors of activity in'which they should engage: The main apostolic concern of the last Jesuit congregation was to define what should be the.~corporate mission of Jesuits today, whether they work in Jesuit controlled institutions or not, alone or in collaboration with others. Not only should whatever Jesuits are already doing contribute, more~or less directly or explicitly, to reconcile men with God and with each other, to serve the faith and to promote justice; but today Jesuits should preferably do what is more conducive to th~ attainment of,,those objectives. The Service:' of' Faith" " The mission we are called to share is the mission of the Church herself: to make known.to men the love of God our Father, to bring to our fellow-~ men the omessage of-salvation, to work that they may have life, and have it to the full.~ The decree does not hesitate to reaffirm, with different words and. expressions, the basic religious and supernatural nature of the Society's mission: the service of faith, the task of evangelization.'~ It is because we are commit~ted to the service of faith, that we are also called, always, but par-ticularly today, to promote love and justice among men, as one of. faith's main and more basic requirements: "The mission 'of the Society of Jesus today is the service of, faith,, of which the promotion of iustice is an abso-lute requirement. This is so because the reconciliation of men among them-selves, which their reconciliation with God demands, must be based on ius-tice."~, For many,- however, the specific contributioh of the decree on "Our Mission Today" still remains in having officially proposed the promotion of justice as the main apostolic objective for the Society of Jesus today3 though, it is true, side by side with the service ~of. faith and inseparably connected with it. The service, of faith would be affirmed simply as a pre-condition for that promotion. The fact that the very text of the decreetalks more 6ften of justice than of faith and that,what is said of faith is rather incomplete and far from being an exhaustiv~ presentation of all the demands of faith for religious life and apostolate, would seem to confirm this view. This explains why .in some regions and for some Jesuits the decree has become known as "the decree on the promotion of justice" or simply "the justice document." Its title has gradually undergone small but important modifica-tions. The mission of the Society of Jesus today would be defined no longer as "the service of faith and the,' promotion of justice," but ~rather as "the service of faith in or through the promotion of justice," or "the service of faith ]or the promotion of justice." It should be recalled that the promotion of justice was not the top prior- 4"Our Mission Today," n. 13. ~lbid., nn. I1, 13, 14, 18, 24-26, 51, 52, 55. 61bid., n. 2. 342 / Review for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/3 ity chosen by the General Congregation for its work and that the document was ttie~outcome of the combined effort of three different commissions, only one of which dealt with the justice question. The others were con-cerned with the apostolic mission of the Society in general and with the criteria that should guide Jesuits in their apostolate: questions to which the congregation had assigned a higher priority than to that of the promotion of justice. The call of the 32nd General.Congregation to the serx~ice of faith is not Simply a reminder of the primary and fundamental Jesuit.apostolic mission, nor the mere statement of a premise from which to draw later the concl~u-sion that the promotion of justice is a necessary dimension of the Jesuit apostolate 'today. The congregation wants to emphasize that in the light of today's conditions, of the needs and aspirations of the men of our time, the service of faith not only keeps its primary importance~ but that its .absolute need is today even more strongly felt. The diagnosis that "the congregation makes of the apostolic needs of the contemporary world is not formulated only ,or primarily in terms of justice: The fact that today "more than two billion human beings have no knowledge of God the Father and JeSus Christ whom He has sent''T and that "many of our contemporaries, dazzled and even dominated .by the achieve-ments of the~human mind, have either forgotten or rejected the mystery of man's ultimate meaning, and thus have lost the sense of God''s constitute for the' congregation, new challenges to the Society's apostolic mission. These challenges not only condition our efforts for more human and just relations amo.ng men,~' but have for us a value of~their own, 'because "people today are, somehow aware ~that their problems are not just social and technological~ but personal and spiritual. They have a feeling that what is at stake here~is the very meaning of man,: his destiny and future. Men are hungry: but hungry not.just for bread, ~but'for the word of God~TM The fact that today the.~service of faith has to face new demands, new situations, new cultural contexts, which will put to the test not only our religious dedication, but all our resources and creativity11 does not diminish in any way the need for that service, but ,on the contrary emphasizes it: ". the goSpel,.should be preached with a fresh yigour, for it is in a posi-tion once again ,to make itself heard. At first sight, God seems to have no place,today ih public life, nor even in private awareness. Yet everywhere, if we only knew.how to look at it, we can see that menare searching for an experienCe of Christ and of his kingdom of justice, love and peace.''~-~ rlbid., n. 4. Slbid., n. 5. °lbid., n. 27. aOlbid., n. 21. lalbid., nn. 24-26. r'lbid., n. 21. Faith and Justice / 343 The realization that today there is a L"new need" for the service of faith, by itself and also because of the ethical and religious roots of many of today's problems, is expressed in the decree with,an insistence, which some might° find even. exaggerated, on the need to "evangelize," to lead.men gradually to the acceptance of God and:of his salvation in C.hrist, wherever° we may be and through whatever apostolates, or ministries we might-be, called to exercise_, including social ministries and the promotion of justice itself.13 ¯ It is evident that the conviction about the need for a renewed service of the faith in contemporary society; if it has to inspire and guide effectively all our apostolic efforts, cannot be the o.utcome of a mere sociological sur-vey or scientific analysis of today's needs and aspirations. It has to grow out of a personal and-lived experience of the enriching and liberating role that faith plays in our own lives, in the lives of the groups and communities in which we !iv.e. To think that we can commit~ourselves to the service-of faith, without first realizing that we ourselves stand in need of being evan-gelized and of knowing how to meet Christ as he works in the world through the power of His Spirit,'" is an illusion. The Promotion of Justice Those acquainted with the text of the Synod of Bishops of 1971, "Jus-tice in the World," w0u_ld ,recognize some of the arguments that led the Jesuit General Congregation to propose the promotion of justice as one of the primary apostolic objectives for the Society of Jesus today. In some re-spects, however, the treatment of, jus._tice in the decree is less qomplete than that found in4he synodal text. The decree attempted to bring together into one single document the two basic dimensions of the Society's.mission to-day, while trying at the same time .to draw some conclusions and provide some directives for. Jesuit religious life and apostolic activities. The far reaching implications and consequences, both for the service of faith and the promotion of justice, of integrating into a unified and coherent whole dimensions that often had developed too much along parallel lines, are evident. The synthesis, however, reflects the vicissitudes of its long elabora-tion and is still far from being perfect and complete. It is in the light of the gospel, of the Church's magisterium, and 6f the Ignatian charism and vocation, thatthe General Congregation, faced with a ' world marked by deep and widespyead inequalities and injustices, at the na-tional and international level, commits the Society of Jesus to the promotion of justice. . This commitment, as previously statdd, flows from the very nature of the Society's apostolic mission, of a service of a faith that works through lalbid., nn. 11, 27, 33, 50-55. 141bid., n. 23. 344,/ Review [or, Religious, Volume 35, 1976/3 love: a'love that cannot become reality without justice.,~ "The injustice that racks our World in so many forms is, in fact, a denial of God in practice, for it denies the ttignity of man" man, the image of God; man the brother of Christ.''''; The establishment of God's kingdom kingdom of love, justice and peace--begins already now, ~in this world. Christian hope and,salva-lion are a gratuitous gift from God, but also an invitation to work effec-tively for the transformation of the world, to make it more human and just.~r It is the wish to be faithful to the essential Jesuit mission, "as expressed in the Formula of the Institute, approved by.Paul Ili' and Julius II!, that prompted the congregation to propose the promotion of .justice as one of the prtmary a~ms of the Jesmt apostolate.'" For Ignatius~the service of faith had to be exercised both through the preaching of the Word and by works of charity andof reconcili~ition, by the assistance to those in greater need, like "those qvho are found in prisons and hospitals." Ignatius himself vited-Jesuits to interpret this in the. light of "what will seem expedient for the glory of God and the common good." This the decree has done and, following the lead of Paul VI in his inaugural address to the 32rid General Congregation, has seen in the sick and in the prisoners of Ignatius' time, tho. se living "on the margins of society" today: the poor and the de- ~ prtved, the victims of injustice and oppression. To the many encyclical letters and other documents of the magisterium Which support the congregation's stand on~ the question of justice anti with which the' readers of these pages are. undoubtedly Well acquainted--we should add the recent apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Nuntiandi, in which Paul VI repeatedly reasserts the intimate relationship between e'vangeliza-tion and the promotion of justice. In one passage of 'this most important document, the Holy Father gives us, in a remarkable synthesis, qhe main reasons which link together these two dimensions of our apostolic mission: Between evangelization and human advancem~nt--d~ve!opme~t .and libera-tion- there are in fact profound links. These include lihks of an finthro-po~ ogical order, because the man who is to be evangelize'd is ndt an abstract being but,is subject to social and economic questions. They also include links to the theological order, since one cannot dissociate the pla6 of creation from the plan of Redemption. The latter plan touches the very concrete situations of injustice to be combated and of justice to be restored. They.in-clude links of the eminently evangelical order, which is that of charity: how in fact can one proclaim the new commandment without promoting in justice and in peace the true~ authentic advancement of man? We our, selves have taken care to point this out, by recalling that it is impossible to accept "that in evangelization one could, or should ignore the importance of the problems ~r'lbid., nn. 2, 18, 2.7, 2,8. ~C'Ibid., n. 29. arlbid., nn. 30, 31, 40, 41. ~Slbid., n. 17. Faith and Justice ~/ 345 so much discussed today, concerning justice, liberation, development and peace in this world. This would be to forget the lesson which comes to us from the gospel concerning love of our neighbor who is suffering and in need."r~ Confronted with all these arguments of an evangelical, theological and doctrinal order, it is.hard to understand the difficulties some have expressed regarding the relationships between faith .and justice and the .very notion of justice as found in thedecree. There is need, as we shall see, for placing the promotion of justice in the proper theological and pastoral context and for defining clearly what is the specific contribution of priests and religious to that promotion. But that in the world of today the promotion of justice constitutes a primary apostolic c~bjective and conditions greatly the ~redibil-ity and apostolic effectiveness of the Church's mission, seems a fact beyond all question. Some have remarked that, justice, which is so often mentioned, is never clearly defined in the text. What does the decree mean by justice, they ask? This question sounds a bit like the "quid est veritas" of the gospel." Lik'd the Synod of 1971, the Jesuit General Congregation did not want to enter into a scholastic definition of justice, with all its divisions and subdivisions. But to concltide from ,~this that the General Congregation, or for that matter the Synod of Bishops. and so many other documents of .the magisterium, dd not know what they are talking about when they propose the promotion of justice as a necessary requirement of our apostolic mis-sion, would border on cynicism. ~ This being said, we have to admit that the document sometimes gives the,!mpression of talking mainly~ about inequalities and injustices of a socio, economic order, as though justice were merely a problem of a more equal distribution of the world's material., wealth and resources. On the other. hand, .it is hard to ignore the fact that the very unequal distribution not onlyof material goods, but als~ of~the power a.nd responsibility for ad-ministering them, constitutes today one of the major felt injustices of our s~ciety and deeply affects the lives the,freedom and dignity---of a large majority of mankind. But the congregation speaks also of other injustices: racial, social, political. Religious oppression, however, does not seem to-evoke any, clear echo in the document. The presence in the congregation of Jesuits working in regions where religious rights are openly violated and the fear of possible retaliatory measures, might explain this silence and reserve, which, 9therwise, would be difficult to understand. Rather than defining justice, the decree describes it. It also enumerates the gospel demands in the justice field: "The gospel demands a life free from egoism and self-Seeking and from all attempt to exploit one's fellow-men. It demands a life in which the justice of the gospel shines out in a willing-laEvangelii Nuntiandi, n. 31. 346 / Review [or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/3 hess not only to recognize and respect the rights of all, especially the poor and the powerless, but also to work aciively to secure those rights. It de-mands an openness and generosity to one's neighbor v~henever he is in need, even if he is alienated or hostile, in a spirit of forgiveness that over-comes all enmity.'''-'° Since th6 concept of-justice in the decree is more evangelical than legal or philosophical, one can understand why justice and poverty appear so closely inter-related in the text and why, also in the name Of justice, the poor and the deprived should become the main objects of our attention, the privileged beneficiaries of our apostolic efforts. Independently from any law or human contract, the poor have a right to a fair share of God's gifts, of' the world's riches, and to have a say in all decisions concerning their individual and'collective existence. Those individuals and structures that ignore their plight and keep them in their situation of poverty and depriva-tion are simply unjust. This is very much in the gospel and patristic tradi-tion: charity is,,the source of justice, its necessary complement and fulfill-ment; the goods of the earth belong to all, particularl3~ to the poor, and those'who happen to possess them are merely their'administrators. It is in this context that we have to interpret Augu'stine's definition of justice: "Iustitia est in subveniendis miseris." To give to the poor, to be with them in their difficulties, may be an act of charity, but it is also an act of justice, the payment of a debt. Faith and Sustice - "There can be nb promotion of justice in the full and Christian sense unless we also preach~ Jesus Christ and the mystery of reconciliation he brings. For us, it is Christ who, in the last analysis, opens the way to the complete and definitive liberation of men.'''-'1 Similarly, there is no true preaching of Christ, no effective proclama-tion of his gospel, unless a firm decision is taken to promote love of neigh-bor and justice, which are the necessary consequences of a true love of God, of a faith that works through the love of men.2-° The decree not only points to a complementarity between the service of faith and the promotion of justice, but also to the fact tl~at ~many of the root-causes of contemporary unbelief and atheism are the same as those of tc~day,'s widespread injustice. The barriers, the "idols," that block man's access to God greed, ambition, selfishness and pride are also those that "close" him to the needs and to the rights of his fellow-m.en. The liberating message of Christ--which, for those who want to excel in his service, is described by'St. Ignatius in his m6ditation 6f "The Two Standards"--attacks 20"Our Mission Today," n. 18. 211bid., n. 27. 221bid., nn. 27-28. Faith and Justice / 347 at its deepest roots not only atheism, but also injustice in all its manifesta-tions: it opens,man's heart to God and' also t.o others. ~ In the ligh~ of this decree, the mission to combat the many forms of con-" temporary unbelief and atheism--a mission entrusted to the Society of Jesus by the Holy Father.on the occasion of the 31st General Congregation appears in all its individual and collective, religious and social ,dimensions, and presents itself, under the aspects of the service of faith and the promo-tion of justice, as an eminently positive and liberating task that can give unity and coherence to the Society's apostolate.::~;, However--and the decree acknowledges it faith implies much more than human justice alone and the deep causes and consequence.s of unbe-lief cannot always be reduced to the social level. ,The liberation that,faith brings "cannot be contained in the simple and restricted dimension of eco~ nomics, politics, social and cultural life; it must envtsage the whole man . . . right up to and including openness to the absolute, even the divine Abso-lute; itjs therefore attached to a certain concept of man, to a view of man which it. can never sacrifice to the needs of any strategy, ~practice or short-term efficiency.'"-'" Not all service of faith should always arid necessarily lead to.,the pro-motion- of justice as its explicit and immediate objective. But it shohld at least remain open to that social dimension. It should be exercised in such a .way and in such a context that justice is in no way compromised. If it does not contribute directly to the promotion of brotherly love and of jus-tice, it should .at least prepare the ground for it. From the point of view of justice and taking into account the concrete context ofoone's own ~life and apostolate; there are very few activities that can be. called "neutral" today. In its observations about the decree "Our Mission Today," the Holy See had this to say: "The promotion of justice is unquestionably ,connected with evangel!zation, but as the Holy Father said in his closing remarks to the last Synod 9f Bishops in October of 1974--~'Human development'and social progress in~.the temporal ., order should not be extolled qn such ex-aggerated terms as to obscure the essential significance which the Church attributes to evangelization and the proclamation of the full gospel.'"~n Though, in our opinion, the decree clearly avoids this danger, granted some of the interpretations given to it, it is nol superfluous to emphasize that faith can never,be reduced to ~the promotion of justice alone. Christian liberation is incomplete if it neglects to proclaim salvation in,Jesus Christ.~'~ Does human liberation or the promotion of justice, in the economic, so-cial, political and cultural fields, constitute always a service of faith? The "albid., n. 19." °-4Evangelii Nuntiandi, n. 33; cf. also "Our Miss~ion Today," nn. 27-28. ":'Letter of Card. Villot to Fr. Arrupe of May 2, 1975. See REviEw FOa REL~OtrS. 35 [1976] pp. 33-45. "-'~Evangelii Nuntiandi, n. 34. 348 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/3" decree is not so clear and explicit about this, because when it refers to liber-ation and justice, it is usually o"in' the full'and Christian sense" of these ¯ terms. But by placing .the promotion of justice in a ]aith context, the Gen-era[ Congregation ~of the Society of, Jesus has reminded Jesuits that for a Christian the promotion of justice is a much more demanding task than for an atheist or for a non-Christian. It is evident that "not every notion of' liberation is necessarily consistent and compatible with an evangelical vision of man, of things and of events.''-'~ If the promotion of justice is to be ,a service of faith, it should.fulfill cer-tain~ conditions regarding the motives and the inspiration that impel us to seek that.promotion, regarding the way in which the promotion is carried out, and also regarding the objectives that we want to achieve: these should never exclude, and should always remain open to,,the transcendent dimen-sion that faith implies: ". the Church has the firm conviction that all temporal liberation, all political liberation-~even if it endeavors to find its justification in such or such page of the Old or New Testament, even if it claims for itsideological postulates and its norms of action theological data and conclusions, even if it pretends to be today's theology--carries within itself the germ of its own negation and fails to reach the ideal that it proposes for itself, when-ever its profound motives are not those of justice in charity, whenever its zeal lacks a truly spiritual dimension and whenever its final goal is not salvation and happiness in.God.''~s In various passages of the decree it is emphasized that'even ,if we fight for the.rights of men in the name of justice, love should always be our driv-ing andosustaining force. Besides: ". if the promotion of justice is to obtain its ultimate end, it should be carried out in such'a way as to bring man to desire and welcome the eschatological freedom and salvation' offered to us by God ,in Christ. The methods we employ, the actigities we under-take, should express, the spirit of the Beatitudes, and bring man to areal reconciliation. In this way the promotion of justice will show forth the Spirit and. the power of God. It will respond to man's deepest heeds: not just for bread, not just for freedom, but for God who is love, and who loves all men as sons.'''-'~' In the decree, to promote justice, to proclaim, the faith and to lead men to a personal encounter with Christ, these'are not three separate realities to which correspond three .separate apostolates, but rather three dimensions that should characterize the entire apostolic effort of the Society of Jesus today.:"' We should add that, in order to promote justice in a context of faith, it is not enough that faith and justice should be well integrated at the "-'Zlbid., n. 35. z:~"Our Mission Today," n. 33. , .~Olbid., n. 51. Faith and Justice / 349 theological and pastoral levbl, but also and mainly in the lives of those who [gromote it. " ° The Role. of Religious - What has been-shid so far provides a basis for what should be the spe-cific, Christian'contribution to the promotion of justice. Most of the prin-" ci[~les that~ have been enunciated apply not only to priests and to religious, but to all Christians. They represent the ethos that should~'inspire man's efforts towards a more'0human and just society, but they'do not tell" us what~those efforts should~ be. From that ethos to the °just communities, in.- stitutions and structures .that make up a just society; there is a long way to go. Christian inspired principl.es and values have to be incarnated into '~'a way of life," at~the individual and at the collective level. They have to b~ translhted into overall policies and concreteprogralns of action. Thisqs a task for which, besides Christiaia dedication, direct involvement in the eco-nomic, social, political~anff cultural fi61ds, technical knowledge and exper: tise are absolutely required. It is the primary, and specific task of lay peo-ple' whd~e particular v.ocation: places them in the midst of~the;world~and calls them to.renew, in faith and iffjustice, the temporal order ~The role o~f- the Church is rriainly one of inspiring, forming, supporting and ~guid~ng men~qn their struggle to build a ~world at,,once more human arid divine2: Th~ Holy See reminds Jesuits that this is even more true in their casi~, since,~they belong to '~ano institute "which is religious, not secular, and "' ~Besides th~ proclamation of the gospel message of justice, and the proph~etic'deffunciation of injustices tasks which°religious, like other Chris-tihns, hre~also, called to exercise there are functions that re~ligi6us seem to be"~ particularly equipped to carry out. The General Congregation of. the Society of Jesus mentions some of these: e.g., t~heologic.al reflection, "con-s¢ ientization" and education for justice, and the service of,the poor and e, Theological and doctrinal reflection on the main, problems of our day is~ a necessary prerequisite for any effectiqe-and" lasting pastoral action in the justice field¯'This reflection, conducted in the light of faith and "in a context ~which is both interdisciplinary and genUinely integrated with 'the culture iia" which it is done," ,will help to give greater' meaning and depth to whi~t we say or do in.favor Of justice; it will" also guide men in their search 'for, just'sol6tions to the vast and difficult problem~ that. confront them today. Thanks to this 'reflection we shall be able to exercise a critical and. liberating function regarding, the all-embracing ideologies and political systems which often tend to divide and enslave our contemporary world¯ :~Letter of Card. Viliot to Father Arrupe. :~""Our Mission TQday," n. 60. 350 / Review Jor Religious, Volume 35, 1976/3 ~o This reflection should also inspire all our efforts to educate men in faith and for justice: "men for others. , . persons whose lively faith impels them to seek and find Christ in the service of their fellow-men." Besides, in a world where the power of economic, social and p61itical structures and their vfist and deep impact on,the life of individuals and groups is recognized by all, "greater emphasis should be placed in our apQstolate on the con-scientization according to the gospel of those~,who have the power to bring about social chan~e?''~:' ','A commitment to the men and women who live.~,a life of hardship and who are the victims of oppression cannot be that of a few Jesuits only. It should be a characteristic of the life of all of us as individuals, and a char-acteristic of.our communiti'es and institutions as.well,v:'' Though not all re-ligious can share closely tlie lot of the poor and~of the oppressed,-the num-ber of ,those that experience more directly what it means to be poor, should certainly increase. Even if the poor are not always the immediate benefici-aries of our apostolic efforts, it should be clear to everybody~ that they con-stitute one of'our primary concerns. ~But "above all the gospel must.be proclaimed by witness.'':'~ "The first means of evangelization is the witness of an authentically Christian life. . It .is . . . primarily by her conduct.and, by her life that the Church will evangelize the world, in other words, by her living witness of fidelity to the Lord Jesus--the witness of poverty and detachment, of freedom in the_ face of the powers of this world, in short, the witness of san.ctity.":" If this is true of the whole Church, how much more of religious. Their most spe? cific contribution still remains that of bearing witness to faith'and to justic~ through the example of their,own lives.~They should embo~dy the radical demand~ of the~Beatitudes. They should be a sign, for the,world and for,the Church, of the total openness and. availability to God and to men that faith and justice demandY. It is through their tireless apostolic dediqation, but also by their faith-" fulness to the demands of their religious vows and consecrated life that this is mainly achieved. In a world in which the attachment to wealth and ma-terial comforts, man's selfishness and ambition appear as the'main roots of unbelief andfinjustice, the meaning and liberating pgwer of the religiou~ life appears in a. new light. The women and the men who, have chosen to, fol-low Christ i,n~his,great, renunciations, perpetuate his redeeming and liberat-ing work through the ages by preaching the gospel not by words alone; but by the witness :of their own lives: "It is in this.olight, that we.are asked to renew our dedication to the properly apostolic dimension, of.our .religious :~Zlbid.; n. 60. .~41bid., n. 48. "~Evangelii Nuntiandi, n. 21. at'Ibid., n. 41. Z7lbid., n. 69. Eaith and Justice~/ life. Ou~ consecration t6 God is really a rejection of those idols which the world is always tempted to adore: wealth, pleasure, prestige, power. Our chastity, poverty and obedience must bear witness to this visibly, Despite the inadequacy of our attempts to anticipate the kingdom which is to come, our vows ought to show how it is possible in practice, through the gospel and by God's grace, to have a community of men which is based on sharing rather than greed; on a willing openness to all men rather than a seeking after the privileges of caste or class or race; on service rather than domina-tion and exploitation. The men and women of our time fleed a hope which is eschatological; but they also need to have the beginnings of its realization presented to them here and now in a way that is meaningful to {hem.'':~s 3s"Our .Mission Today," n. 16. Faith and Justice: Reflection C~trl F. ~tarkloff, 'S.J. A Socio-Pastoral Father Starkloff's studies concentrated in the areas of missi~logy and pastoral theology (Ph.D., S.T.D., Ottawa), while his interest has focused on the American Indian. After six years of teaching theology at Rockhurst College, Fr. Starkloff, author of People o] the Center (Seabury, 1974) and of various articles on American Indian .religion and religious anthropology, is presently director of St. Stephens Indian Mission; P.O. Box 294; St. Stephens, WY 82524. The most pronounced thrust of Christian theology in the seventies has been a Ioiag overdue attempt to respond tO the Marxist thesis that, while the philosophers are trying to explain the world, the real task is to change it. In this famous dictum are stated the two poles that bound the work of theological reflection--theoria and praxis. From the highly speculative and' cloistered theology of the middle ages to the nineteenth century social gos-pelt theologians have tended to gravitate to the two poles separately rather than to embrace them together. It is to the great credit of the various "hope," "political" and "liberation" theologies that they are making this attempt at synthesis. When the recent Thirty-Second General Congregation of the Society of Jesus cast its mission statement in the mold of "the service of faith and the promotion of justice," this was not merely a re-focusing of the Jesuit voca-tion upon a unified spiritual world view touching both intellectual and prac-tical issues. More important, the statement sent Jesuits the world over into varying states of agony as they seriously set about confronting such very real and threatening documents. As may be expected, along with the con-frontation came many kinds of affective and speculative responses,-from 352 Faith and Justice." A Socio.Pastoral¯ Re[tection / 353 angry rejection to a perhaps naive embracing of the letter of the new law: The most~spirited discussion has taken place, at least in North America, in the academic milieu, while many of the mission apostolates--for example those branching out from the United States into Central and South Amer-ica are already caught ,up in efforts to live the gospel within the social and political struggles of the people. The academic debate (radical, activists to the contrary notwithst~anding) is essential to, prevent our ministry of justice from being a mindless lashing out at "evil in general." But the debate alone will remain barren ~--even for the academic .world. , What liberation theologians remind us is that there must be a social-pastoral "doing" in a context of thebretical inquir.y, .if theology is to be reflection on the lived faith of the community. In the academic community 4 found that the confrontation with the "single focus" approach to faith and justice led to a great deal of con-fusion, ranging Yrom highly theoretical arguments about definitions to de-bates about the morality of multi-national corporations. All of us must ob-viously share 'this confusion in wrestling with the problems of faith and justice, but it seems evident that we must transcend.the academic world if we are to advance the study creatively, because theology° is now finding it-self face to face with radically practical demands. What. we see here. is per-haps a new version of the old reminder,to theol.ogians to spend, less time at the desk (theory) and more time at the prie-dieu o(practice), only now with the contemplation of social evils being integral toJ our meditations. -Since returning to the radically pastoral ministry to. Native Americans, have realized how intense must be the struggle to synthesize our reflection., our prayer and our pastoral activity. It is out of this experience that I offer the following brief reflections, touching upon the need to understand "faith" as it is culturally expressed, and "justice" (a stumbling block to philosophers, legists and Scripture scholars alike) as the great longing of'~the deprived. In this article I shall offer one example of how the pastoral scene chal-lengers its workers to enrich the world of theology through their closeness .to the problems that.cry for solution. In taking this rather pragmatic ap-p. roach, I shah simply bypass much of the termino!ogica[ argum'6nt and sqt~tle provisionally for rather simple definitions of faith-evangelization and of iustice. By "faith" and ~'evangelization" let us understand'the real assent to being grasped and freed by Jesus Christ and proclaiming this event to our fellows.' By "justice" 1,intend the building of a more humane existence for men and women as we await the Kingdom of God. That Christ,~has come is shown in the Church's givi0g of social signs of the messianic presence. That he has not come definitively is painfully evident from the dismaying ex-perience of injustice all around us. Failh In our ministry among the Arapaho and Shoshone Indians, we have 354 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/3 found ourselves a testing-ground for our commitment to faith and justice. The constantly pressing demands force us to Work with. "inadequate" con-cepts as ,models, as we move toward the definition of mission goals and objectives. The narrative of our efforts may' perhaps serve others as a model, not of solutions, which are far distant for us, but of the kinds of analysis and activity that must be part of a socio-pastoral situation~ It should be added that, in Native American societies, as in all groups still close to their primal origins, the social-and the pastoral, religion and society, faith and culture are so intimately interwoven that in many cases the struggle for justice is an essential part of the upbuilding of faith, and the nourishing of authentic religious expression is one of the basic problems of justice. In order not to give way to frustration, the worker in many an Indian harvest field must admit that his labor of evangelization is still in its child-hood and that the signs of faith are ,going to be fragmentary. Much of this is due to the centuries of evangelization without inculturation practiced throughout North America. Much of it may also be attributed to the terrible social shocks of the conquest of the frontier, to the perfidy of whites in their dealings °with Indians, and to the frequent ridicule heaped upon the many authentic sign~ of God's presence in Native American culture, even by missionaries. A case in point might be the example of many of the Aymara people of Peru, whose religious life has been described by a de-voted and sympathetic missionary as retaining many elements that work counter to the basic gospel message, even though they have adopted Catholic rites and symbols quite extensively over the four-hundred-year period of the conquest.' If Monast's claims are true (and there are no doubt other missionaries who will disagree with him), they would be a case in point for painstaking examination, of both the cultural presupposi-tions of church ~vorkers among Indian peoples, and for the effectiveness of the means of communicating the gospel. The failure of early missionaries to communicate with the local culture, coupled with forced conversion, created this resigned acceptance by Indians of foreign signs and rituals, without rendering these signs effective symbols of the merciful and loving God. To varying degrees, on most Indian reservations in North America, one can find less extreme examples of' the Aymara experience, alongside many beautiful manifestations of Christian and Native American devotion. It is evident how complicated the problem of Christianity and culture really is, especially in cultures that must be described as living o{~ the mar-gin between' the ancient and the modern. Among Native Americans, the process calls for careful reflection and careful praxis; To be avoided at all costs is any naive movement to "adapt" Christian rites to' Indian culture, where the result would be a shallow syncretism whose components~ would 1See J. E. Monast; O.M.I., On les croyait chretiennes, Paris~ Editions du Cerf, 1969. Faith and Justice." A Socio-Pastoral Reflection / 355, be understood as' neither truly Indian nor truly Christian. Indian people sustained devastating culture shocks .as their religious expression underwent suppression by church and government leaders. An almost equally profound shock has come to many devout Christian Indians as missionaries sud-denly show themselves receptive to long-interdicted rites like the Sun Dance, Sweat Lodge, Peyote Tipi, Medicine Lodges, Harvest Festivals, and the like. The rapid about-face of so many church leaders vis-a-vis Indian religion, ~is well as of educators in relation to Indian language, is a source of some-what grim amusement to the old Indians who remember their boarding school days. Clearly, what is needed is a contemporary Indian Christianity. A return to the past is impossible, and yet the many beautiful traditions of the past are still available to nourish a genuine Indian faith life. Reflection and pastoral practice will have to concentrate both on the negative an~ positive aspects of Christian proclamation, as well as on the signs and countersigns present in Indian tradition. On the side of white missionaries there must be discernment of their preaching: where is it truly of Christ and his Church, and where is it merely of their European-American 6ul-tural impedimenta? A glib statement, this, because by this time the cultures have become so intermingled that clear separation is out of the question. I have .experienced a number of pastoral situations in which what I have tried to convince a Catholic.Indian is merely the "white American cultural symbol" is now truly part and parcel'of his or her worship. In our liturgies and homilies too, we find it necessary to use caution in "adaptation." For example, a facile attempt to pray with the Sacred Pipe or one of its derivatives, or to pray in the name of the Four Sacred Direc-tions, or too readily to equate "power" with "grace," will lead not only to a misuse of Indian rites and language, and thus to'contempt, but may also distort the Christian message by a too easy comparison. New chapters in the phenomenology and history of religion, added to the great work of scholars like Eliade and van der Leeuw, will have to'be written to enable pastors to employ with confidence the many native symbols that may seem fitted to Christian liturgy and catechesis. Such development (zalls for long and patient listening to the old i'eligious leaders, to whom imparting in-formation to outsiders does not come easily. In our desire to "inculturate" the gospel, further, we must also realize that contemporary0Indian culture, as mentioned.earlier, is a "wounded" culture more wounded even than many of the cultures with which the Church's pastoral ministry must deal. Even more than in its primal form, Indian life now needs the healing power of the gospel. For example, while many native 'rituals are truly profound signs of faith, they often seem to have no more permanent effect on life than do many of our Christian rituals. In the~missionary-social ministry, the word "interiorization" o[ the Good, News is as important as "inculturation." 356,/ Re.view for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/3 Thus we come to the most basic requirement of a pastoral ministry the spiritual life of the apostolic community. Into the damaged culture of the Indian people the Christian .ministers have chosen to insert their own wounded lives, and here it is that we cross over into the matter of justice as the necessary component of faith and proclamation, of the sign of a living community of teaching, fellowship and service. We find that we must live with these people the struggles of material and psychological uncer-tainty, an.d experience the pain involved in bringing a people into~com-munity. This insecurity is intensified as we find t.hat f_or so many Indians, especially youth, there is little intense concern for religion--Indian or Christianwor'for moral rudders to guide by. But we likewise feel that it is the vocation of the Church to aid in restoring the vital~ elements of Indian religion to their rightful place, if not within Christian liturgical settings,, then in events occurring alongside tra-ditional Christian practices, confidently, experienced by Indians who are also. Christians. With~ the grad.ual opening up of the tribal holy men so long driven into a nearly underground .religious activity, we find that we can be6ome instructed by attendance.at Indian rites and by judicious participa-tion in.them. Thus the pastor may find it possible to aid an Indian in religious and moral growth by encouraging him or her to more devout involvement ,.in traditional native rituals, often intermingled with sound Christian teaching, or paralleling it. Employment of Indian music, language and religious leaders at Christian sacramental events, especially funerals, has enriched the exp.erienc~s of Indians and pastors and educators. Homi-letic usage of Indian mythology often renders a basic Christian truth more comprehensible for an Indian congregation not to say for whites present as well. In considering an authentic form of Indian Christian ministry, we have begun to question,., the advisability of an Indian diaconate for Arapaho Catholics. We are discovering in the loosely defined but immensely impor-tant role of tribal elder a possible indigenous mimstry of instruction and sacramental worship that might more effectively speak to the culture with-out creating rthe tensions involved in calling Indians to become leaders under an imported rubric. A recent example of this was a, day of recollec-tion given to confirmands by two respected elders using much Arapaho language a.nd prayer forms. Another case in,point is the moving eulogy given by the elder at a funeral, touching the people in a manner that sup-plements if not supercedes the homily of the priest. Alo~ng the way, mistakes have.beenomade and will occur again. But I would submit that this careful mode of pastoral praxis will be the "labora-tory" out of which new theological understanding will grow. And in turn the critical work of theology will enrich and confirm and challenge pastoral practice. The demands placed on both pastoral and speculativ~e ministries are intimidating, but they are also an exciting call to creativity. Faith and JuStice: A Socio-Pastoral Reflection / 357 Justice The pastoral worker is in a position to avoid many theoretical traps in the struggle to come to terms with the meaning of justice, as well as to show that the great, stress given to it is not misplaced. While admittedly there is the danger of a simplistic approach to social problems, a discern-ing study of the milieu of pastoral work soon"reveals many of the immedi-ate and long-range problems of creating a more humane existence.' In studying the problems of Wind River Indian people, andin listening to the people themselves, we have been able to assemble a list of social problems ttiat as missionaries we are in a position to confront, or which we must consider for our future apostolate. In the larger picture, there is the already much-discussed problem of our materialistic American society, its wastefulness, its exploitiveness, its, political corruption. This has of course been the object of attack by militant organizations, and receives the bulk of attention given by, Catholic jour-nals. But, as wise Indian leaders assert, only so much can be obtained by protest against these evils. What is more urgent is the status of Indian peo-ple now, the positive growth by which they learn to confront, under their own power, the evils of a larger social environment. Impeding this growth, we have found, ~ire several outstanding inhumane situations, conditions of injustice intruding themselves into our meditations. The worst form of slavery :for Indian people today is ignorance, an ignorance that can be overthrown only by massive cariapaigns of quality education. This education must eventually be conducted and administered by their own people, if young Indians .are to become "conscientized~' to their own condition 'and rendered capable of changing it. Only a self-governed process of education is likely to capture the imaginations of Indian ctiildren and youth,~whose indifference to learning is lai'gely due to the fact that it is presented to them asia foreign import and thus another form of bondage., to white America: Thus, many mission schools, whether forced'~to it by lack of funds, or on the initiative of far-seeing administra-tors,"~ are now sharing the Indian political struggle to obt'ain government support for contracts under which Indian school boards will run schools and dictate policies. In the last year of our own efforts to support such a drive for Indian self-determination, in cooperation with Indian leaders, we have already observed a new sense of confidence in people tasting the hope of control of their own destiny. The pain in such growth to self-determina-tion will be considerable, but the Church should see here an opportunity to enter into a non-violent struggle for political liberation and the changing of oppressive structures. A problem closely connected to this move toward self-determination is the sudden unleashing by the United States government of vast sums of money upon people long accustomed to destitution and often not prepared to handle such funds. The worl( of Christian missionaries here is at least Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/3 twofold. Firstly, we must assist the people to acquire financial and admin-istrative skills. Secondly, in the face of the all-too-human temptation to graft and pocket-lining, the Christian must be an example of detachment from self-interest aud proclaim by his deeds that he is here to serve. Tra-ditionally, Indian people have valued communal endeavor, and have of necessity been concerned with frugality. But greed and a type of self-serving individualism, whether stemming from tribal origins or from the white society, threaten to .mar the whole process of financial self-deter-mination with the ugliest scars of personal or factional opportunism. The gospel message here is clear, and it is up to the Christian to exemplify it. Thirdly, Indian tribes, partly because of the social disorders brought on by invasion and partly by natural tribal jealousies, are subject to family feuds and long-standing animosities. Tribal pressure can be the most en-slaving form of manipulation experienced anywhere. Merely preaching against this is ineffectual, but the Church has the opportunity to build re-sistance to such pressure through its practice of Christian reconciliation. First of all, we must attend to our own house: if Catholic and Protestant churches do not begin to show forth reconciliation, the preaching of unity and cohesion is countersigned by actual fact. Second, by various liturgical and social events, the Church is in a position to be a reconciler of families long at enmity, and within families themselves. The sponsoring of groups in which married couples can learn to communicate (the old forms of con-trol and relationship having been lost), is a high priority in mission plan-ning. Along with this, the providing and encouragement of simple good times is of vital necessity in the often gloomy life of a reservation. Finally, the most devastating plague visited by the invading culture upon Indian society is alcohol. Causes for Native American addiction have been argued ever since the importation of fermented liquor into North America. There are theories about Indian alcoholics that argue both physi-ological and social causes. But whatever the basic problem, the one fact cited by Indian leaders ever since the seventeenth century is that this foreign introduction is not for Indians. Once again, it is a problem of in: justice that in theory seems to defy every solution that has been offered. The churches have always struggled with the problem, most commonly through total abstinence pledges, which are weak but at least partially effective ammunition against the scourge. But again mission ~planning is called directly to the point of pastoral praxis rather than to theory. It is now, taking means to combat spiritual problems as idle and meaningless existence, loss of identity due to cultural vacuum, and inability to handle and articulate frustration, again due to loss of cultural expression. Here too missionaries have come to realize how closely related are the solution to these-problems and a strong praying community that can provide spiritual and emotional strength; the spiritual order and the social order are brought together in the prayer-life of the community. It has fallen to Faith and Justice: A Socior~astorbl Reflection / 359 the churches to nourish that kind of communal life of worship once in-spired by the great Indian prophets who arose in times of suffering and persecution. The above are examples of how a given pastoral ministry finds itself challenged by the demands of faith and justice. I present this brief essay with the hope that other ministries will continue to provide input into the discussion about faith and justice in our ministry of the Gospel. There is no doubt both need for and profit in challenging the cosmic problems of world hunger, exploitive corporations, military-industrial complexes and .the like. But there are also grave situations of unbelief and injustice right. on our present ministerial doorsteps. "Doing theology" around these prob-lems may enable us to develop a better theology and spirituality of min-istry that draws not only from exegesis and systematics, but from culture and from society as well. As this article is being written, the liturgical readings for weekdays include the Letter of James. With its roots in the rabbinic wisdom tradi-tion and inspired by that "faith in our Lord Jesus Christ" with which no "personal prejudice is to be involved" (Jm 2.'1), th~s epistle proclaims with great power thai "faith by itself without works is dead" (2:18). When the author asserts that "one is justified by works and not by. faith alone" (2:24), he is not attacking the cardinal Pauline teaching that works of the la~w cannot justify man before God. From context it is clear that James is eulogizi,ng~ a faith-filled Abraham whose obedience inspired him to .ful-fill all justice as he saw it. ' There is in the Letter of ~l~mes a spiritualit3i~that contemplates the faith-life as a life permeated by the wisdom given by God to all who stand firm, and intuits in that life ihe duties of a justified Christian. Chapter two of the epistle sets before us what is perhaps the New~Testament's most un-equivocal statement about the inseparability of faith and justice. St, Paul' is the great apostle of ,spiritual freedom based on~ the humble acceptance of our utter dependence on God'and ,On the belief that~ "ou.r" justice is God's justice, granted us 0nly as believers. But what James' message .tells us-- 6choing with greater severity thee teaching of Romans cc. 12-15, is what Alfri~d Delp Wrote to the people of.Nazi Qermany in 1945--that the most pious praye¢ becomes a blasptiemy on the lips 9f one who tolerates condi-tions fatal to mankind. As I once heard a Native American tribal leader tell an hssembly of sociologists and social workers, "Wi/h~us Indians there is no separation of Church and State!" This was no defense of an established church, but simply a statement of the Indian belief, phrased in white man's jargon, professing that wha~ is truly religious bfiilds the human community, and that what is truly just partakes of the wholeness of spiritual reality. The missionary must draw upon the spiritual-social wisdom of James and upon"the contemplative Indian integration of religion, and justice, if his theology of faith and justice is to progr.ess beyond the abstract. Biblical Guidelines to Marian Devotion J. Massyngberde Ford o Professor Ford is on the faculty of the Department of Theology at Notre Dame University. Well known for her scriptural studies and her other wri.tings, she is also involved 'in the women's movement within the Church and with the charismatic movement. Her mailing address: Department of Theology; University of Notre Dame; Notre Dame, IN 46556. 'In this essay I wish' to endeavor, as far as it is possible, t.o place l~Ia{~,, the Mother of Jesus, within her own milieu, against the historical, ~conomic.al, social and religious background of her tirde. I should like to dethrone her from any pedestal upon which we have placed her and see her as a vital historical figui'e in the vivid dram]a of heilsgeschichte as we find it in first century A.D. Palestine. The World into which Mary was Born Hengel remarks that by the time of'Jesus Palestine had been under Hellenistic rule and its resultant cultural influence and political unrest for some 360 years? Mai'y was born into a war-torn country. Her people had been under the foreign domination of the Romans since 63 B.C. when Pompey, the Roman general, not only conquered Palestine but audaciously entered the H01Y of Holies (Josephus B.J. l :152). In the eyes of Mary's co-religionists this was a sacrilege crying to heaven for vengeance. Under the Romans King Herod was permitted to rule Palestine but he was hated by the vast majority of his people. He was of despicable birth, an Idu-maean, and therefore only half Jewish: Jesus called his successor "that fox" 1Martin Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism, Fortress Press, Philadelphia, E. T. John 'Bowden, 2nd revised edition, 1973, vol. I, p. 1. 360 Biblical Guidelines to Marian Devotion (.Lk 13:32). Herod indulged extravagantly in Hellenistic customs, large building programs, games, shrines to the Caesars, and he had ten wives. He burdened the.people with heavy taxation and was unscrupulous and cruel in exactihg it. Economically the country was in poor condition especially because of the large lati[undia (large country estates) often owned by absentee landlords, many of whom were non-Jewish (cf. the Parable of the Wicked Tenants Mk 12:1-12 and par.). However, more intensified domestic or political resistance arose from the time of the death of Herod the Great in 4 B.C. It is from this period that scholars would date the rise or organization of the Jewish national-ists, the Zealots. They were a prophetic movement.~ They espoused only one master, namely, God; they refused to pay the Roman taxes and, while showing incredible witness in the face of suffering and even death, they were fanatical and violent in their opposition to Rome or those who sided with her, even their kinsfolk. They would neither look at a coin with an image inscribed on it or walk beneath the shadow of an idol. Their leaders, Judah the Galilean, his two sons and other~relatives formed a kind of dynasty which added solidity to the movement. Galilee was a hotbed of the Zealots and, indeed, sometimes the designa~tion "Galil~ans" seems to have been used for them.:' The city of Sepphoris in Galilee became one of the five Sanhedrins during the Roman rule and at one point was captured by the Jewish nationalists. The rebellion was quelled by Varus who burned it and sent its inhabitants into slavery (Josephus Ant. 17:286-298, B.J. 2:66-71). Herod Antipas rebuilt the city. Sepphoris was northwest of Nazareth. This party of the Zealots attracted both the educated and the poorer rural people and also some of the more violent school of Pharisees, the Shammaites. This is but a brief reference to the political and economic status of Mary's country but it is of immense importance for understanding both the psycholog3( and spirituality of Mary (and Joseph) and their peculiar circumstances. It is hardly credible that they should remain untouched by tile stirring events which occurred during their life-time and especially within their own district. When we ~turn to the religious scene again we witness "fightings out-side and fears within (cf 2 Co 7:5). The Sadducees were largely fromthe aristocracy, wealthy, priestly figures who took a fundamentalist interpreta-tion of the Scripture, e.g. they upheld the lex talionis, an eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth. They repudiated the afterlife, especially the resurrection of the dead, providence, and angels. They held the majority of seats on the '-'For material on the Zealots see S. G~ F. Brandon, Jesus and the Zealots, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1967; W. R. Farmer. Maccabees, Zealots attd Josephus, Columbia University Press, New York, 1957; Martin Hengel, Die Zeloten~ E. J. Brill, . Leiden, 1961. :~Brandon op. cit. pp. 54 cf. 78, 226 note 4 and 339 note 4. 36:2 / Review for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/3 Sanhedrin, the Jewish council. Then there were~the two Pharisaic. parties. The school of Hillel, the gentle, humble Hillel who strove to mitigate the Jewish law to help the poor and who was nearly lynched by some of~ the other Pharisees when he went to offer sacrifice in the Temple. His teach-ing was close to Jesus'. Consider, for example: My homiliation is my exaltation: My exaltation is my humiliation. Do not appear naked (among the dressed) neither dressed (among the naked): do not appear standing (among those who sit) neither sitting (among those who stand) do not appear laughing (among those who weep) neither weeping (among those who laugh). The rule is: Do not deviate from the usage of men? However, opposed to the school of Hillel stood the school of Shammai. They were ultrastrict observers of the law, perhaps allies with the Zealots, and once placed a sword in their academY to symbolize suffering and death for those who dissented from their views. In the forties A.D. they passed the eighteen Halakolh (precepts) which were designed to minimi~ze contact between Jew, Samaritan and Gentile? Five of the precepts in'volved the dietary laws (contrast Jesus' attitude towards the latter Mk 7:14-23). Further one must glance at the status of the priesthood at the time of Jesus. Priesthood was, of course, hereditary but Herod and the Roman procurator had enormous influence upon the choice of the high priest. In fact the Romans even kept the high priestly vestments in custody and only allowed the Jews to use them on the greater liturgical feasts (Josephus Ant. 18:90-95 cf 15:403-5; 20:6-15). J. Jeremias'; estimates that there were about 7,200 priests, and, if one adds the Levites, 18,000 clergy in Jerusalem. However, there was a serious rift between the country priests, such is th~ father bf John the Baptist, and the permanent Jerusalem priests. The former were usually of moderate means, sometimes poor. The latter carried on brisk trade especially with animals and qther items needed for the sacrifices. Man3~ of the priests had large incomes5 Some indulged in simony. Some had good relations with the Roman governors. Many of the priests also plied a trade such as car.pentry and stone masonry. Prodi-gious wealth was found among the priests." Finally, one must take into consideration the community which lived 'ICited from Nahum Glatzer, Hillel the Elder,, Schocken Books, New Yoi'k, 1956, p. 38. .- ~'Hengel, Die Zeloten op, tit. pp. 204~208. ~,Joachim Jeremias, !erusalem in the Time o[ Jesus, E.T.F. H. and C. H. Cave, 3rd ed. S.C.M. Press, l_ondon, 1969, p.200. Zlbid., p. 105f. '~lbid., p. 96f. ' Biblical Guidelines to Marian Devotion / 363 near the Dead Sea, the Qumran covenanters. They became~eventually like a sect, withdrawn into the desert, keeping the law ~Vith a strictness not even found among the Pharisees and living in expectation of two Messiahs, one political and one priestly. They believed in the Holy War. I have taken some time. in briefly reviewing the state of Palestine for it is only"hgainst this background that we can~gauge the enormous appre-hensioh, perhaps even fear, which would seize a mother's heart when she realized that her son 'would find himself unacceptable 'to most. of these parties because of his teaching and practice. The History of Mary We may turn now to the history of Mary herself. She may have come from priestly stock as her kinsfolk were Zachary and Elizabeth (Lk 1:36). The Proto-evangelium of James (written not before 150 A~D:) describes Mary's parents and their anxiety for a child. It tells how an angel came to Anna and said "Anna, Anna, the Lord htis heard your prayer. You shall c6nceive and bear, and your offspring shall be spoken of in the whole world." And Anna said: "As the Lord my Gd~l lives, if I bear a child, whether male or female, I will bring it a~ a gilt to the Lord my' God, and it shall serve him all the days o[ its lije" (4:1 ). In this gospel Mary is offered to the Temple at the age of three. When she was twelve the council of priests decided that she would marry "that she may not pollute the temple of the Lord" (6:2). It is also reported that she helped to make a veil for the~ temple of~ the ~.L.,ord (10:1).~' It is commonly supposed that this wor.k is pious fiction.'H0wever, it is not neces~ sary, either to accept or reject every detail in an apocryphal gospel: 'The Gospel of Thomas is a good example of this. Indeed some features of the Proto-evangdlium ~of James have' close affinity to Luke?° ,Concerning Mary's residence in the Temple and her making curtains it is~worth remarking that Jereoias" reports that the Temple ct~'rtains were a constant occupation. Shek, 5:1 describes Eleazar who took care of these and was obliged to find "skilled weavers and knitters to produce annually two of the Temple curtains, 20 cubits wide and 40 cubits long: these were hung in 13 places in the Temple" (Yoma 54a; Ket. 106a). Each curtain had to be woven in ~six colors on 72 strands, each with 24 threads (Shek. 8:5; Yom. 7lb. Tos. Shek. 13, 178). According to Shek. 8:5 (the variant readings differ: of. Ket. 106a; Jer Shek. viii.4, 51b. 13). Eighty-two maidens had tq produce two curtains each year. The curtains were made of blue, scarlet and purple stuffs, and byssus (fine white linen). 9E. Hennecke, New Testament Apocrypha, E.T.R. Mcl. Wilson, Lutterworth Press, London, vQI. 1, pp. 370-388. ~°lbid., pp. 380, 381-2386. X~Jeremias op. cit. p. 25. 364 /~Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1:976/3 I tentatively suggest.that it is possible-that Mary was given ~,to the Temple until she was 12 ~years old. In the Proto-evangelium of James the curtains which Mary helps to weave are made of gold, amianthus, linen, silk, hyacinth-blue, scarlet and purple.1~ The colors are similar to those mentioned in the Mishnaic and Talmudic texts. Children associated with the Temple were also required for the ~eremony of the red heifer:but the text does not intimate the gender of the children (Parah 3:2-4). But im-portantly, if Mary were in the Temple for some time, she must have been apprised of matters both good and bad which revolved round the Temple. She might realize, for example, the greed and wealth of many of the high priests and the money involved inthe sacrificial victims trade. Thus she would understand,fully when Jesus cleansed the Temple but she would be apprehensive, for the Temple had special police among its personnel. Mary was betrothed and espoused to Joseph. He was probably a land owner as he was obliged to register his property during the Roman census. "Josephus mentions property explicitly when he refers to the census under Quirinius, if this is the one to which Lk 2:1-3 refers (Ant. 18:1). We might also add the possibility of Joseph's property being confiscated either by the Romans or by Herod or the tax collectors during the family's sojourn as political refugees in Egypt. Ownerless property could be con-fiscatedY~ This author should concur with Buchanan who, commenting on 2 Co 8: 9, writes: The likelihood'thatJesus was originally from a wealthy family and that he gave up his wealth for the movement he led seems greater ~hen his rela-tionship to wealthy tax collectors "and rulers is considered. Most of his parables and teachings seem to have bee~ directed to an upper class of people who had money to lend, give, and use for hiring servants. His willingness to surrender this for the Kingdom of God would have given him more authority to ask others to give up all they had than he would have had if he had been reared in poverty. It would have been difficult in the Near East for a poor man to gain a hearing with the rich as Jesus evidently did.14 She also agrees with David Flusser1~ who states: Viewing Jesus' sayings against the background of contemporary Jewish learn-ing, . . . it is easy to observe that Jesus was far from uneducated. He was 12In an article published by the Marian Library, Dayton, Ohio, I hive tentatively put forward the thesis, that Mary was responsible for the Hebrew original of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Mary had known her son much longer than any of the~ disciples and would be an extremely prolific source of knowledge. l:~j. Duncan M. Derrett, Law in the New Testament, Darton, Longman and Todd, London, 1970, pp. 300-306. ~aGeorge W. Buchanan, To the Hebrews. the Anchor Bible, Doubleday, New York, 1972. pp. 208-209. ~David Flusser, Jesus, E.T. Ronald Walls, Herder and Herder, New York, 1969, p. 18. Biblical Guidelines to Marian Devotion / 365 perfectly at home both in Holy Scripture, and in oral tradition, and knew how to app!y.this scholarly heritage. Jesus' Jewish education ~.was incompa-rably superior to that of St. Paul. In the light of the tenets of these two scholars one is persuaded to see~the Holy Family,° not as poor, uneducated, politically uninformed peasants, but people who were fully conscious of the important .factors of the state of Palestine, people who were politically, economically, socially and religiously alert. Neither do they appear to have been bystanders to the situation. Mt 2:21ff seems to ,suggest that Joseph intended to reside permanently in Bethlehem after the, flight to Egypt but returned to Mary's village of Nazareth because of the political situation. Mary was probably betrothed at the age of twelve rand a half.TM David Daubelr has found an affinity between the book of Ruth and the Annunci-ation pericope. He gives special attention to the word "overshadow" (epischiazO) and its Semitic equivalents salalo(Hebrew) and tallel (Ara-" maic).~ These are frequently used of the overshadowing of the divine pre~sence. All three words can refer to the descent of.the Spirit of, God and also,to the spirit of prophecy; both meani'ngs are applicable in the case of Mary. However, a further usage is available. Associated with tallel is the noun tallith which designates "the cloak of a pious or scholarly man." This was distinguished by '.'wings." The rabbis used the expression "to spread the tallith (or wi, ng) over a woman" to denote marital relations. Thus Ruth can say "I am Ruth thine ha, ndmaid; spread therefore thy wing over thine handmaid, for thou art a redeemer'''~' (cf Rt 3:9). A similar phrase, in a spiritual sense, occurs in Ezk 16:8 where God says to Jeru-salem, "Thy time was the time of love, and I spread my wing over thee." Moreover, the rabbis had another.euphemism for "cohabitation," namely, ','to lay one's power (reshuth) over a woman." In the Lucan narrative of the Annunciation the a.ngel uses both the words "power" (-reshuth) and "overshadow" (-tqllel) and Luke clear!y, indicates that God will be the agent~.who im~plements this. Mary gives her consent inswords very similar to those of Ruth:: "Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according.to your word" (Lk 1:38). The.us the narrative of the annunciation is presented in terms of a be-trothal or marriage.yontract or .marital consummation, the proposal by God and the acceptance express.ed by ~Mary:. The event had been fore-shadowed in the Book of Ruth. In pondering the words of the angel, perhaps lreported by,~ Mary to him, Joseph might well say "God has laid his power over her" and "He has spread his wing over her." Tl~en, if l~;Jeremias op. cit. ~ . lZDavid Daube, The New Testament attd Rabbinic Judaist~t, Athlone Press, Londoh, 1956, pp. 27-51. ~Slbid., p. 33. ~ X'qlbid., p. 33. ~' " : 366 / Review [or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/3 used the principie of rabbinic biblical interpretation known as kal wa homer (inference frofa the minor premise to the major), he would argue that, if a woman were forbidden to her husband because she had been impreg-nated by another man, how much more would Mary be forbidden to her husband if God had laid his power over her. Thus Joseph might conclude that through her voluntary consent Mary had become the property of God for all time. She ffould be "forbidden to: the whole world" for God had chosen her like a consecrated vessel--or the ark in the sanctuary. This was an analogy used by Jews contemporary with Jesus, namely, a woman is set apart for one man as a vessel is for the Temple (Kid 2b). Joseph might also have felt that Is 54:4 was fully realized:: For your mak

Issue 54.6 of the Review for Religious, November/December 1995. ; Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ° St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP ¯ P.O. Box 29260 ¯ ~,Vashington, DC 20017. POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Second-class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©1995 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. for religious Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Adv#o~y Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Regina Siegfried ASC Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Jean Read Joann Wolski Conn PhD Iris Ann Ledden SSND Joel Rippinger OSB Edmundo Rodriguez SJ David Werthmann CSSR Patricia Wittberg SC Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living No\qt~MBER/DECEMBER 1995 ¯ VOLUME 54 ¯ NUMBER 6 contents 806 apostoJJC Witness Dorothy Kazel OSU: An Eternal Flame Cynthia Glavac OSU draws a portrait of Dorothy Kazel OSU with its spiritual implications for us today. 825 833 future church Opportunity. of the Jubilee Year 2000 Nesto~ Gregoire OMI alerts us to some actions that we might take in r~sponding to Pope Jo]m Paul's apostolic letter on the third millennium. The 1994 Synod: Uniqueness and Challenge Cassian Yuhfius CP gives a perspective on six differences present in the 1994 synod of bishops and three challenges for consecrated life. 851 868 leadership From Usefui Instruments to Willing Agents: Transforming.Leadership for the New Millennium Joseph A. Tetlow SJ reflects on the transformation of leadership through the perspective of five dimensions Religious Life Governance: Personal and Organizational Experiences of Power Beatrice M. Eichten OSF reshapes and reclaims power as a religious reality in view of authority and obedience. 802 Review for Religious 881 904 reJigious life Attachment, Belonging, and Membership: Commitment Style in Male Religious Communities James Halstead OSA draws a picture of the different lived mean-ings of membership in a r~ligious congregation. A Time of Blessing for Brothers Joel Giallanza CSC interprets the present moment in the church as an opportunity to act on the need for the word and witness of male, lay religious life. 913 918 mission The Missionary Heart Regina Siegfried ASC reflects on Precious Blood spirituality as a wellspring of a missionary heart. The Logic and Irony of Success in Mission A. Paul Dominic SJ ponders the Christian meaning of success when it involves missionary efforts. departments 804 Prisms 934 Canonical Counsel: The Potestas of Religious Superiors: Background for Canon 596 941 Book Reviews 950 Indexes to Volume 54 November-December 199Y 803 prisms One of the striking aspects of the pope's recent encyclicals, apostolic exhortations, and papal audience presentations has been their focus on a reconciling or unifying theme. Orientale lumen clearly is a call for even greater efforts in seeking a reconciliation between the Orthodox churches and the Latin-rite Roman church and the Eastern rites in communion with Rome. Ut unum sint looks to a time of unity for all Christian churches, founded on the reconciling role of the bishop of Rome. Justice for past wrongs is not a precondition, only forgiveness. Where liberation theology, in particular, helped the Christian community to see more clearly the necessary relationship of our baptismal faith and justice, the move-ment for human rights in all of its ramifications now appears to be entering a new depth. In the Christian dis-pensation, reconciliation is the heart of divine justice. God's just judgment in the face of human evil and sin takes shape in the reconciling life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Only through Christian revelation do we find that justice finds its center in reconciliation. That is why St. Paul could exuberantly proclaim that we as ministers of Christ truly are ambassadors of reconciliation. Since the 1971 synod's document on "Justice in the World," there has been a certain amount of turmoil in the church, especially in Latin America, over the shape and direction of justice efforts. Religious life communities wholeheartedly took up the challenge of faith and its rela-tion to justice in their chapters of renewal and in their 804 Review for Religious production of mission documents. Mixed signals of encourage-ment and disapproval came forth from Roman dicasteries, from national episcopal conferences, and sometimes even from a divi-sive foment within a religious congregation itself. For those church congregations and religious life groups which had grown all too comfortable with a Western world middle- and upper-class lifestyle, living a faith that does iustice (and does not escape into a charity-alone approach) is to heed the call to conversion found at the start of each of the gospels. Necessary as this call is for every age, it took on a crucial importance in the post-World War II development of nations, particularly between northern and southern hemispheres. But as our past quarter-century experi-ence has brought home, the human sense of iustice runs inde-pendently of Christian faith, and for lay Catholics as well as for women and men religious iustice efforts can break off from faith roots. Then the result appears as a burnout activism, deeper divi-siveness, and greater iniustice. The call coming to us as we prepare to enter into the new millennium is not a reversal of our Christian efforts to work for a world in which there are more iust relationships among all peo-ples. The call is for us to keep our attention fixed on the heart of all iustice efforts which Christians exercise. An emphasis on righ-teousness only has led in our experience to conflict and further iniustice. Just relations in human living are doomed to frustra-tion and failure without a centering in forgiveness and reconcil-iation. If we ultimately are not about a ministry of reconciliation in our iustice efforts, we are not about a Christian ministry. Perhaps that is why each year we need to hear anew voices from heaven singing out "peace and good will" as we welcome God's own Ambassador of reconciliation. The Review for Religious staff prays that the gift of Christ's peace be given in abundance to all our readers in this Christmas season. David L. Fleming SJ November-December 1995 805 CYNTHIA GLAVAC Dorothy Kazel OSU: An Eternal Flame Note: December 2, 1995 ~narks the l Yth anniversary of the murder of four North American churchwomen, Dorothy Kazel OSU, Jean Donovan, Maura Clarke MM, and Ira Ford MM in E1 Salvador. When people discover that I am a member of the Cleveland Ursulines, the congregation to which Dorothy Kazel also belonged, they usually ask me if I knew Dorothy. Before Dorothy died on 2 December 1980, my association with her had been minimal, even though we had lived six houses apart on the same street in Euclid, Ohio for a few years. However, when Dorothy moved to our street in 1955 as a sixteen-year-old teenager, I was only a year old. And although she might have remem-bered me as "one of the babies on the street," I certainly would not have "remembered her! Five years later she joined my congregation. My first re.collection of actually meeting Dorothy dates back to late spring 1973. At this time, she was min-istering as a guidance counselor at Beaumont School, one of my congregation's high schools, and I was a postulant who had been sent there to experience what we then called Cynthia Glavac OSU presented the substance of this article in a talk at the Second North American Convocation held at Owensboro, Kentucky in July 1995. She is an assistant professor of English at Ursuline College in Cleveland, Ohio. Her address is 137 Ruth Ellen Drive, Bldg. K, Apt. 316; Richmond Heights, Ohio 44143. 806 Review for Religious mission life, as well as to help out in the school until the end of the semester. So, for about five weeks, Dorothy and I lived and worked together as any members of the same local community would. A year later, in July 1974, Dorothy left to begin her missionary min-istry in E1 Salvador. Between that time and December 1980, I saw Dorothy only briefly on several occasions, and the reason why I even saw her was because in 1977 I had been assigned to teach at Beaumont, Dorothy's home base when she came to Cleveland for her yearly vacation. It was not until ten years after Dorothy's d~ath, however, that I really began to get to know her and develop what I now consider a fairly close relationship with her. In late 1989, as I was nearing completion of the coursework and preliminary exams for my doctorate in lit-erature, a iCriend in my congregation, Eileen Collins, suggested I investigate the possibility of writing Dorothy's biography for my disser-tation. The topic of women's biography--that is, biographies of women by women--certainly related to one of my areas of concentration, women's literature, but the members of my dissertation committee told me that I had to write Dorothy's biography within a theoretical framework. Consequently, I chose to research contemporary women's bio-graphical theory and then ",~rite a biography of Dorothy based on these theoretical findings. Two years later, in May 1992, I completed my dissertation, "A Biography of Dorothy Kazel OSU, from the Perspective of Contemporary Women's Biographical Theory." Because I plan to expan.d my dissertation into a full-length biography of Dorothy and l~ublish it, hopefully within the next two years, I have con-tinued my research of Dorothy's life these past three years. The deeper I delve into Dorothy's life and reflect upon it, the more I realize her connectedness to us as religious. Surely she plays an important role in the history of the church, but more significantly, she is a religious for usj'br thefiaure. In this context, I liken her to a flame,~ steadily glowing and unquenchable in its brilliance: What we can learn from the way Dorothy lived her life can light our way, like a beacon, into the twenty-first cen-tury; her words can fire our imaginations to the possibilities of What we can learn from the way Dorothy lived her life can light our way, like a beacon, into the twenty-first century. November-December 1995 807 Glavac ¯ An Eternal Flame religious life and of our lives as religious, even beyond the next century--or the next millennium. This article focuses on three aspects of Dorothy's life from which we can draw inspiration and thus fuel the fire of our vision and commitment to the future as religious: 1) her missionary min-istry; 2) her spirituality; and 3) her personal struggles. Within the context of these three aspects or themes, I also weave the par-ticulars of Dorothy's life as a Cleveland Ursuline, which encom-pass the years 1960-1980. Please understand, though, that these qualities alone in no way render a complete portrait of Doroth~c's character. There's much I have left out! Missionary Ministry On 4 February 1980, for Bartholomew McCaffrey, General Superior of my congregation at the time: Dorothy c6mpleted a congregational questionnaire on personal ministry choice. The statements and questions included on the form asked for infor-mation regarding the past ministry experiences of an individual sis-ter, as well as her preferences for future ministry assignments. In response to the statement, "Check the areas in which you have worked," Dorothy indicated, "disadvantaged, sacramental prepa-ration, individual program, parish school of religion, special edu-cation, deaf, and so forth, adult education, and renewal programs." Following this statement on the form is the question, "In which of the areas mentioned would you like to work or continue to work?" Dorothy's answer is "disadvantaged." A major realization I had about Dorothy after I finished writ-ing her biography and could then clearly see in great detail both the beginning and the final years of her life was that she was able to leave behind the sheltered environment in which she grew up and ultimately extend herself to a distant third-world country. To clarify, Dorothy was born and grew up in a predominantly Lithuanian neighborhood on Cleveland's east side. She socialized primarily with family members and neighbors and attended St. George parish elementary school and then Notre Dame Academy with the same classmates. However, at some point, even before she considered religious life, Dorothy ~hought about working with people whose cultures and life experiences were different from her own. She explained this desire herself in the letter she wrote in which she volunteered to go to E1 Salvador as a missionary. 808 Review for Religious This letter is dated 4 November 1967, and is addressed to Annunciata Witz,.my congregation's General Superior at the time: I have always been of the nature of a person eager to be on the move--to go to new places, to meet new people, to learn to understand these people, and to help them. Before I entered, I traveled to the West Coast four times; it was then that I was first impressed with the Spanish and Indian people. I wanted to stay, get to know them, and help them. I had even "day dreamdd" that ~ny parents would disown me and leave me there. Dorothy never gave up her desire to be a missionary. I real-ized this fact when I closely examined the nine years preceding her ministry in E1 Salvador when she served as a teacher at two of my congregation's high schools, Sacred Heart Academy and Beaumont School. During this time, Dorothy transformed her missionary vocation and transferred it not only to students but also to people outside the two schools. But all of these people were marginalized for some reason. From 1965-1972, Dorothy ministered at Sacred Heart Academy, which was located in the economically poorest area of the three high schools my congregation sponsored at that time. During Dorothy's years at Sacred Heart, she consistently taught business and secretarial courses, but as early as her second year at the school, she began to travel beyond the boundaries of her high school ministry to persons marginalized by physical handicaps, poverty, or race. For example, from 1966-1969, Dorothy taught Catholic doctrine to the deaf on Saturday mornings at a nearby parish and served at the Martin de Porres Center, located in one of the poorest sections of Cleveland; during the summer of 1969, she taught Catholic doctrine to Native Americans of the Papago Tribe in Topawa, Arizona. In 1970, Dorothy began work on a master's degree in guidance and counseling so that she could help yet another sector of the marginalized. Because of financial difficulties, Sacred Heart Academy closed in June 1972. Dorothy was then assigned to teach and do coun-seling at Beaumont School where she remained for the next two years. Although most of the girls Dorothy counseled at Beaumont were from upper and upper-middle class economic levels, and therefore not materially poor, they had their own set of unique problems that included drug and alcohol abuse and difficult fam-ily situations. Because of Dorothy's compassion, understanding, November-December 199~ 809 Glavac ¯ An Eternal Flame and natural ability to relate to young people, many of these girls turned to her for direction at all hours of the day and night. When she was not counseling Beaumont students, Dorothy volunteered her services at the Workhouse, a women's correctional facility, and at Sunny Acres, a hospital for chronically ill patients. Although Dorothy was a fine classroom teacher at both Sacred Heart Academy and Beaumont School, I believe that working with the disadvantaged and the marginalized was a natural thing for her to do. By the time she got to E1 Salvador, then, in July 1974 with Martha Owen OSU,2 Dorothy fit in very well with both the seasoned missionaries and the na.tive people. And she quickly understood how to minister to the Salvadoran people, as is evi-denced by the following excerpt from a letter she wrote to the sisters of Beaumont Convent: We know perhaps better than any Ursuline how important these contributions are3 to the lives of our 51,000 parish-ioners whom we are trying to help realize their full dignity as persons, new persons capable of reaching full develop-ment through their ability to read and write. This will make accessible to them the ways of learning and the rich pos-session of truth, both human and divine, that we enjoy. W'e hope to help them become people who can "rule the earth," that is to say, people who are able to tame the land and put it at the service of humanity (hereafter cited as L2). Dorothy loved and was dedicated to the people of El Salvador, as another section of the same letter reveals: So we continue, living through earthquakes, eating beans and tortillas in the cantones, taking attempted suicide vic-tims to the hospital, walking in dust or water up to our ankles (depends on the season), removing knifed victims from the main streets, building houses, demolishing and rebuilding churches, enduring the heat and mosquitoes, fighting malaria and dysentery and just generally having a great time in the name of the Ursulines and the Christ who is Lord! (L2). That Dorothy loved her ministry in E1 Salvador is further apparent by her desire to remain there, during the late 1970s and 1980, in the midst of increasing government oppression and vio-lence. In order to fully comprehend the nature of Dorothy's mis-sionary ministry, particularly during her last year in E1 Salvador, and ultimately, why she was murdered by the Salvadoran mili-tary, one must be generally familiar with the historico-political background of the country during the 1970s. What follows is a 810 Review for Religious brief sketch of this background. But because E1 Salvador's polit-ical situation, both past and present, is very complex, my expla-nation is in no way complete or definitive. Although E1 Salvador has had a long history of domination by a ruling oligarchy, a military government had been in power since 1932. In the early 1970s, resistance to this government began to appear. Left-wing opposition groups con-sisting of militant peasants, students, teach-ers, and workers, supported by the Salvadoran Catholic Church, emerged to campaign for basic social and economic reforms.4 The members of these groups were viewed by the government as anar-chists, terrorists, fanatics, and communists. Among the latter group, the communists, the government included priests, sisters, and lay catechists. At this time, organized left-wing ter-rorism also appeared as guerrilla groups formed throughout the country. The Salvadoran government responded to this and other types of rebellion with increased acts of violence and repression. This government sponsored violence grew to epi-demic proportions in 1977 (Carrigan, p. 10). The first attack against the Catholic Church was delivered in March of that year with the murder of Rutilio Grande, a Salvadoran Jesuit. Organized, systematic persecution of union members, profes-sionals, and teachers, as well as of laborers and campesinos,s began in the spring with the appearance of the first professional death squads. Composed of former and present members of the security forces, these roving squads kidnapped and brutally murdered any-one, including children, who they suspected had supported or expressed sympathy for any of the left-wing opposition groups. As a fright tactic, the death squads published death lists and disfig-ured and dismembered the bodies of their victims. To these muti-lated bodies, death squad members attached notes which claimed, "If you bury this body, ydu, too,will be tortured and killed." Despite reports of these atrocities and other government-spon-sored barbarisms, the United States government approved a 90 million-dollar loan to the Salvadoran government in November 1977 (Carrigan, pp. 89-90). As a fright tactic, the death squads published death lists and disfigured and dismembered the bodies of their victims. November-December 1995 811 Glavac ¯ An Eternal Flame By late 1979, increasing conflicts between the Salvadoran army and guerrilla groups developed into a full-blown civil war. To root out members of the popular leftist organizations and guerrilla groups from their rural bases, the army conducted "anti-subversive campaigns," which evolved into systematic programs of terror, aimed at depopulating regional villages and burning crops in order to create starvation conditions. At times, entire villages were bombed by the Salvadoran Air Force (Carrigan, p. 169). Such oppressive tactics, and the regular skirmishes which occurred between the army and the guerrilla groups, produced large numbers of refugees fleeing from their villages, often with little more than they could carry. A particular area or town was frequently the scene of confrontations between the fighting fac-tions. One such town was Chalatenango. Because the guerrillas had established bases in the mountainous terrain and the sur-rounding mountains of this northern town, it was victimized by the counterinsurgency tactics of the security forces. During all of this political upheaval and violence, Dorothy and the other members of the Cleveland Latin American Mission Team continued their pastoral ministry to the suffering salvado-ran people as unobtrusively as possible by planning and organiz-ing celebrations of the Eucharist and other liturgies, preparing adults and children for the reception of the sacraments, and man-aging food distribution programs. However, by 1980, the team's ministry expanded to include recovering and burying the mutilated remains of death-squad victims and transporting food, supplies, and sometimes refugees, to refugee centers around San Salvador. By this time, Jean Donovan had been a member of the Cleveland team for a year. She and Dorothy lived and ministered in the southern coastal town of La Libertad, where the Cleveland diocesan mission team had a parish, but they spent a portion of their time transporting refugees and supplies in their white Toyota van throughout the Chalatenango area for Maryknoll Sisters Maura Clarke and Ita Ford who were ministering there but had no means of transportation. On the morning of 2 December 1980, Dorothy and Jean pur-chased and transported supplies for refugees, which, unknown to them, would be the last time they would ever perform such a min-istry. That evening they drove to the Cuscatlan International Airport, located about a half hour from La Libertad, to pick up Maura and Ira who had returned together from a regional meet- 812 Review for Religious ing of Maryknoll sisters in Nicaragua. Because it was too late and too dangerous to make the four-hour trip to Chalatenango from the airport, Dorothy and Jean had decided that Maura and Ira would spend the night with them in La Libertad. Shortly after they met Maura and Ira, however, all four women were abducted by five members of the Salvadoran National Guard. The women were later raped, and finally shot execu-tion- style by the same guardsmen in a deserted field, one hour from the airport. From Dorothy's missionary min-istry- all the different forms it took---I think we can learn several valuable lessons that are especially relevant for us now and in the future. First of all, Dorothy went where there was a need, even when she did not want to go. For example, she did not want to teach on the secondary level. Before Dorothy joined the Ursulines she had earned an elementary teaching certificate and had taught third grade for one year. So, when she was assigned to teach high school, she was confused and disap-po. inted. Nevertheless, Dorothy taught high school for nine years and taught typing and business courses, something she also did not want to do. And when the time came for her to go to E1 Salvador, Dorothy had serious doubts about whether or not she really wanted to go, because at the time, she was involved in her counseling at Beaumont School and had grown to love the girls there. Another aspect of Dorothy's ministry that is particularly valid for us is her desire to find marginalized persons wherever she ministered and to take care of their special needs. Surely we can do the same in a society fraught with so many victims of poverty, abuse, and discrimination. Finally, in her ministry--actually, in whatever she did-- Dorothy took risks. Breaking her yearlong engagement to join the Cleveland Ursulines, venturing beyond the familiar walls of her high-school classroom to minister to Native Americans in Arizona, trying a recipe for chocolate chip cookies in E1 Salvador's Another aspect of Dorothy's ministry that is particularly valid for us is her desire to find marginalized persons wherever she ministered and to take care of their special needs. November-December 1995 813 Glavac ¯ An Eternal Flame 100÷ degree weather, or experimenting with new prayer styles-- Dorothy did them all, including, of course, the ultimate risk of remaining in E1 Salvador. One of Dorothy's final acts of ministry there--feeding and transporting refugees with Jean Donovan in the wartorn, guerrilla-infested area of Chalatenango--was a par-ticularly serious risk because she fully understood that the Salvadoran military considered any alliance with the poor a "sub-versive" act against the government. She and Jean also realized that they could be accused of consorting with guerrillas. Even their association with Maura and Ita entailed some risk, as both of the Maryknoll Sisters had received death threats and were being closely watched by a Salvadoran army colonel stationed in Chalatenango. The many risks Dorothy took throughout her life give me much pause to consider my own amount of risk-taking and to evaluate it. In our world today, and certainly in the future, I think that we have many opportunities to take risks. Spirituality For me, the most inspiring part of Dorothy's life is her spir-ituality. Before I began doing detailed research for Dorothy's biography, I assumed that she must have had a developed spiritual life simply because of her desire to remain in E1 Salvador. Living daily in the midst of a civil war and witnessing the brutal killing of many innocent people would require gospel-centered motiva-tions, a strong faith, and a consistent prayer life, I reasoned. But when I began reading Dorothy's journals, I discovered the foun-dation of that deep spirituality she had attained by the time she arrived in E1 Salvador. After meditating myself now for some years on Dorothy's spiritual life while she ministered as an Ursuline in Cleveland (diaries from her time in E1 Salvador sur-vive but no prayer journals),61 can describe various qualities of her spirituality at that time focusing on three that have particular appeal to us as religious now and for the future. The first quality is prayer. From the time Dorothy was a child and throughout her young adulthood, prayer was an important part of her spirituality. She attended daily Mass and said her rosary and other prayers daily. VVhen she became an Ursuline, however, prayer formed the backbone of her spiritual life. What she wanted to gain from prayer--and these ideas can be gleaned from read-ing her journals and her spiritual-reading notes--was develop- 814 Review for Religious ment of her relationship with God, imitation of Jesus, and response to God's will for her. Dorothy's personal written reflections reveal her fidelity to prayer as well as her belief in its importance in her life. The ear-liest account of Dorothy's opinion regarding devotion to prayer appears in retreat resolutions she made prior to her first profes-sion on 13 August 1963: How must I act as an Ursuline? ¯ As one who knows and loves God, for this is my specialty and can be a'chieved through prayer. ¯ All I do must show this, for this is my life! Resolve ¯ I desire to acquire a "spirit of prayer" . . . which will help me prove myself as an Ursuline--a true lover of God. Shortly after Dorothy moved to Sacred Heart Academy in August 1965, she kept a written record of her prayer life for sev-eral days before she began to teach. In most of the entries, she lists each of her prayer praF.tices and briefly evaluates her participation in them. Below is an example, dated 27 August: 1. Mo~'ning Office: distracted, drowsy 2. Mass: half awake 3. Examen: not pinpointed 4. Office: carelessly said 5. Stations: too fast 6. Recollection through day: poor--very distracted! In later journal entries, Dorothy makes resolutions regard-ing prayer. The following are from June 1973: "to make an avid study of' ChriSt through reading scripture daily SO that I may learn of His attitudes and make them my own; to do my half-hour meditation daily without failure" (hereafter cited as J6). The few diaries Dorothy kept while she was in E1 Salvador contain little comme~nt about her prayer life. However, Martha Owen, who ministered with Dorothy in E1 Salvador for five years, recalls, "Especially in th~ later years, Dorothy. took her Bible, and she meditated, every single day. She always wanted to know God's will, and she always prayed about it. She never made deci-sions for herself without getting some input from prayer." ~ Another quality of Dorothy's spirituality I noticed is that it constantly grew and evolved because, of her openness to new prayer styles and cbncep!s. Again,' when I examined Dorothy's November-December 199~ 815 Glavac ¯ An Eternal Flame writings, I initially saw a preVatican II spirituality. In notes she recorded from retreats she made from 1961 through 1966, Dorothy wrote: "vows and rules: means of perfection" (2 August 1961, hereafter cited at J 1); "exterior mortification: silence, mod-esty, self-denial; interior mortification: discipline of mind, will, imagination, and control over passions" (3 August 1961, J 1); and "offer now your death to God! (3 August 1963, hereafter cited as J2);Joy follows death to self!" (9 August 1963,J2). When she first arrived at Sacred Heart Academy in August 1965, Dorothy wrote: "Examen better than yesterday; if I can but become more con-scious of all I should be striving to perfect myself in." The subject and tone of Dorothy's writings change dramati-cally, however, in 1967 when they acquire a definite postVatican II flavor. That summer, during retreat, Dorothy wrote: A real Christian is: ¯ dominated by the presence of the Risen Christ (knows that the living Christ is here; knows that the living Christ is real) ¯ a person with a mission to the world of 1967: loves the world; is caught up with the world; must be equipped with solid learning and mature love; makes use of natural history and philosophy of our time; listens with an open heart ¯ a person who lives in the here and now. Listen to others--don't think about what you will answer. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Dorothy became involved in the charismatic movement. Her manner of praying, expressed in her journals, reflects this new style. In June 1973, Dorothy wrote: "to remainfi'ee and open to the Spirit; to listen to what He speaks and then act on it" (16 June 1973,J6). On 20 March 1974, she wrote: The more you love Jesus and the more open you are with Him--the more lovable and beautiful all the rest of mankind becomes. Praise you, Jesus, for showing yourself so vividly and openly. I love you more because of all the love I expe-rience in people (hereafter cited as J8). Although Dorothy's spirituality grew steadily and evolved during the twenty years she was an Ursuline, there was a con-stant about it, something that did not change. This is her desire for union with God. Again, I saw this lifelong desire reflected in her personal writing. For example, in September 1970, Dorothy wrote: 816 Review for Religiotts Heavenly Father, I place myself in your hands. Lavish your love on me as I need to be strengthened. I am weak--I need you . I feel empty--void. Fill up this chasm with you. Lord, that I may be one with you and in you . Open my eyes, my ears--all my senses--so that they may draw you in so that I may more and more become you. Rid me of myself, Lord--it is not an asset, for it often gets in the way of you. Purify me--make me single-minded--all for you. Four years later, Dorothy wrote: I keep watching these two wooden pieces, Jesus. My theory did not seem to hold true--they did not burst into a flam-ing holocaust for you. No, they slowly, quietly became filled with the heat and burned through the center. Maybe that's more real, Lord. Maybe we just slowly become filled with you, and when it reaches the core of our being, and there is no more we can absorb, we transcend to another being; to another way of unity; to the way for which we are longing to be with you; to the way for which we came into being. Praise you, Jesus, and thank you for such a total consuming love. Envelope me in it now. Make me one with you (19 January 1974, JS). The older I get, the harder it is for me to believe that Dorothy was only 41 years old when she died. She was whole in so many areas of her life, especially in terms of her spirituality. She knew the essence of religious life, I believe, and was therefore not caught up in exter-nals. God truly was the center of her life. Her efforts to make God her center were not half-baked or mechanical. I am reminded here of something Dorothy wrote in her journal in November 1970: Overcome J?ar of. ¯ going into deep waters: Be courageous, open. ¯ going into the depths of the V~rord: Meditate in the morning. ¯ living the crucified, disciplined life: Accept suffering graciously, willingly. ¯ submitting to one another: Listen, be open. ¯ laying down [lmy] life in very service to others. ¯ letting the cross of Christ cut into [my] very soul: Love the cross--accept it totally--it is He. And Dorothy did much in her brief life, and there was much change in her life. But the stillpoint in all of this movement was her spiritual life. I think that this is her message to us--I know it is to me--that in such a quickly changing world as ours is today, in which few things are stable or permanent, our spirituality is our only stillpoint. November-December 1995 817 Glavac ¯ An Eternal Flame If I have learned anything about Dorothy, it is that she struggled throughout most of her life. Personal Struggles As a biographer, when I look at Dorothy's life, I see it lin-early: There are many parts that form a whole, and most of the parts seem related, and they therefore seem to fit together. When I look at her life from this perspective, I am very tempted to say, "Hmmm--she must have had a plan for her life; surely she must have known what she was doing at just about every step of the way." But any biographer, me included, who delves into the character of her or his subject, which cannot be mapped linearly, knows that this supposition simply is not true. If I have learned anything about Dorothy, it is that she struggled throughout most of her life. Some of Dorothy's struggles involved decisions she had to make, such as should she marry or follow a call to religious life? Soon after she began to attend St. John College in 1957, two important events happened to Dorothy: She met Cleveland Ursuline Sisters for the first time (she had had Franciscans in elementary school and Notre Dame Sisters in high school), and she also met Don Kollenborn, a youhg soldier from Bakersfield, California, who was stationed in Cleveland. She and Don began dating shortly before Christmas of that year. In the spring of 1958, Dorothy met more Cleveland Ursulines, this time at St. Robert's elementary school where she did field work for her education courses. One year later, in the spring of 1959, Dorothy and Don were engaged. They planned, to marry on 5 August 1960 and pro-ceeded to make wedding plans. That summer Dorothy got a job teaching the third grade at St. Robert School. In the midst of all this activity--and nobody knows exactly when--Dorothy began to feel attracted to religious life. In March of the following year, 1960, she made a retreat for engaged women; and ironically, this experience convinced her that she might indeed have a religious vocation. By this time, Don had returned to California, ~o Dorothy called him and told him what she was con-sidering. He flew to Cleveland immediately, stayed at the Kazel home for a week, and he and Dorothy spent thousands of hours (as he told me) discussing her desire to enter the convent. The months that followed were difficult, certainly for Don, but also for Dorothy, who, naturally, questioned herself and her 818 Review for Religious motives. As Don told me, "Dorothy worried about whether she would be able to follow the rules that she had to live with and was she really supposed to be a nun or not.''8 Apparently, Dorothy found the answers to her questions, for on 29June, she applied to my congregation. She returned Don's engagement ring in July. Another decision Dorothy had to make was what type of min-istry would she do in Cleveland when she returned from E1 Salvador? She was considering ministering to Hispanic people in Cleveland, but she is not certain about this, as she explained to Martha Owen in a taped (cassette) "letter" of January 1980: I probably would like the Hispanic work . I don't know. You know, I just don't know what my problem is--I just don't know--I have no inclination to any special area . I feel obliged and probably feel more inclined toward Beaumont simply because that's where I have come from, and I have at least some security there. But I don't know-- I just don't know. Isn't that terrible? I've been like this for so long, and I keep praying about it, but I just don't know what the Lord has in plan (hereafter cited as L3). Dorothy was also concerned about adapting to large-group community life again. Later, in the same letter quoted above, she clailns: I got a note from Sister Bartholomew at Christmas, and she said, "You really shouldn't feel an obligation to have to go to Beaumont." After talking to Sheila [Tobbe, one of our sisters currently ministering in El Salvador], there is so much to do there, and . . . it's not that it wouldn't be interesting, but the whole house structure does worry me, and it's been a problem . That's my biggest thing: I don't know if I'm going to be able to put up with this living in community business either (L3). Some of Dorothy's struggles involved situations about which she felt helpless, such as her father's alcoholism. Because Dorothy and her father shared a close relationship, when he drank, she got especially hurt and upset. As a young person, Dorothy also got angry at her father and would then experience guilt for feeling this way. When she got older, and particularly after she began working on her master's degree in guidance and counseling, Dorothy better understood her father's behavior and her reac-tion to it. However, his dependency on alcohol was a lifelong source of sorrow for her. Dorothy also certainly felt helpless about the political situa-tion in E1 Salvador during her final years there as she witnessed November-December 199~ 819 Glavac ¯ An Eternal Flame unrelenting violence and the slaughter of many innocent people she had come to love. In an effort to help alleviate the suffering and bloodshed, Dorothy appealed to our United States govern-ment to discontinue sending military aid to the Salvadoran gov-ernment. On 23 September 1980, she wrote a letter to then President Jimmy Carter. After she described scenes in which Salvadoran soldiers had terrorized innocent villagers, Dorothy wrote: Now I realize these soldiers are looking for "subversives," and they may have a right to do that--but do they have a right to do it in this manner? Do they realize how many really innocent people they kill because they have received wrong information? Do they investigate the information they received before they come and kill people? And the most appalling thing to me is that I am a North American, and MY government gave them money for the "durable equipment" they have so that it's relatively easy to get into the worst cantones9 without much trouble and kill innocent people because of the wrong information they have received. I really would like to know what you think of this sit-uation, Mr. President, and whether you really realize how many innocent people we are helping to kill. How do you reconcile all of this? About a month later, in another taped (cassette) "letter" to Martha Owen, Dorothy describes the great difference in artillery strength between the Salvadoran military forces and the guerrilla groups: It's like Indians against the United States Marines today. Really, I don't know how these guys are ever going to win this war. These guys are nothing but campesino guys . . . they all either have rifles or pistols, but the rifles are like overgrown BB guns. I just wonder how this is all going to turn out . And, you know, nay heart just aches for these people when I see what they've got to work with. And they're really hoping to win. I just don't know how these guys think they're going to do it when we're giving money ¯. so they [the military] can get up there easier to kill these guys . It just makes me ill when I see us doing this kind of garbage. In early November, Dorothy received a reply to the letter she had written to Jimmy Carter. John D. Blacken, Director of the Office of Central American Affairs, signed the letter dated 7 November 1980. Portions of it read: 820 Review for Religious We deplore the violence in El Salvador which is continuing at a high level . In such situations involving widespread violence from a variety of sources, it is tragic that innocent people become the victims. Nevertheless, the government's plans for elections and reforms are moving forward and may succeed in alleviating some of the conditions which have spawned the violence. The letter completely sidesteps the issue of American military aid to the Salvadoran government, as Dorothy must have noticed. We will never know what she thought, however, for less than a month later, Dorothy was dead--shot, most likely, with a bullet that had been manufactured in the United States. At various points in her life, Dorothy questioned her own self-image as well as her self-confidence. At the end of her retreat before her final profession in August 1968, Dorothy wrote the following resolution: "to accept the person I am with all my weaknesses and not to pretend that I don't have them." Several years later, when she was at Beaumont, Dorothy wrote in her journal, "I still wonder why people don't like me. Do I come on too strong?" (4 January 1974, JS). Another entry reads, "Sometimes I feel totally incapable of doing anything. Many things that I want are not what God wants for me. I have not fully accepted myself and my limitations. Sometimes I feel I do not belong to this community--I feel people 'like' me--they do not love me because I do not have much to offer." Because of all I have learned about Dorothy in these past few years, I have found much to admire about her. But her insecuri-ties and struggles endeared her to me even more and brought her down a few notches on Before her final profession in August 1968, Dorothy wrote the following resolution: "to accept the person I am with all my weaknesses and not to pretend that I don't have them." that pedestal that she had been slowly ascending since her death. Here was a human, ordinary person, I discovered--one to whom I as well as many others could relate, for who does not struggle today? In what other ways has Dorothy personally touched me? In her I have found a role model for my own life. I look to Dorothy mainly as an example of a courageous woman whose particular November-Deconber 1995 821 Glavac ¯ dn Eternal Flame brand of courage included risk-taking. When I fear taking risks, I contemplate the many risks Dorothy took, in particular the one which ultimately led to her death, and I am encouraged to travel beyond the familiar into unknown territory. During my times of complacency and passivity, I am bolstered by Dorothy's spirit of adventure and independence. For me, too, Dorothy is an exam-ple of a faith-filled religious woman who strove to make central what she felt was most important in her life: her spirituality. In short, for me and my life as a religious, Dorothy is an "eternal flame," and I will look to her wisdom and guidance to light my way into the future. Epilogue Although fifteen years have passed since Dorothy and her companions were murdered, my Ursuline congregation, Dorothy's family, and the American people in general, have never learned what happened on the night of 2 December 1980, and who is actu-ally responsible for the women's deaths. However, there is evi-dence that our government and the Salvadoran government covered up the crime within days of its occurrence.'° Information about the murders uncovered by our government's investigation was either never released to us, such as the manufacturer of the bullet fragments taken from Dorothy's body or only partially released to us--that is, two-thirds of the reports sent to us from the State Department and the FBI were edited with heavy, dark lines. Three-and-a-half years after the murder of the women, and only because our government conditioned its economic and mil-itary support to E1 Salvador on the resolution of this case, a trial was held on 23-24 May 1984, in E1 Salvador, and five national guardsmen were found guilty and sentenced to thirty years impris-onment. They remain in prison today because the Salvadoran Supreme Court ruled that the killings of the women were not political, and therefore, not covered by the amnesty passed by the Salvadoran National Assembly in 1992.'~ Although there is sufficient evidence to prove that high-ranking officers in the Salvadoran military planned in advance and then ordered the murder of Dorothy, Jean, Maura, and Ira,'2 nothing has been done by the United States or the Salvadoran government to implicate and punish these officers. Currently, our government continues to 822 Review for Religious supply military aid to E1 Salvador as well as train members of its military at the United States School of the Americas, Fort Benning, Georgia.'3 If the truth of Dorothy's life and death has spoken to us, we will tell this story of ongoing violence and oppression, and the flame will surely continue to burn.14 Notes ~ I choose fire as a metaphor for Dorothy because of her outgoing per-sonality, zealous attitude toward whatever task she undertook, involvement with the church's charismatic movement (see "Spirituality" section of article), and of course, the crucible of her martyrdom. The image of fire was also a favorite one of Dorothy's when she wrote about her growth in spirituality (see journal entry of 19 January 1974, also in "Spirituality" sec-tion of article). 2 Dorothy and Martha were the second pair of sisters my congrega-tion sent to El Salvador. The first pair had gone in 1968. 3 In 1976 my congregation's silver jubilarians donated their gift money to the diocesan mission in El Salvador. These are the contributions Dorothy refers to here. 4 Ana Carrigan, Salvador Witness: The Life and Calling of Jean Donovan (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984), pp. 81-82. s A campesino is a landworker. In Latin America campesinos own so very little land that they are unable to support their families and conse-quently become dependent on nearby landowners. 6 Martha Owen OSU claims that Dorothy was keeping a personal journal up until her death. The journal was lost, however, in the trans-ference of Dorothy's personal effects from El Salvador to the United States after her murder. 7 Martha Owen OSU personal interview, 15 Oct. 1990. ~ Donald Kollenborn, telephgne interview, 17 Sept. 1991. 9 The term cantone means outpost. The villages and casarios (little group of houses) were cantones or outposys of the larger towns and cities. l0 Although it had been chronicled in various newspaper and magazine articles in the early years following the murders of the women, the story of the cover up of this crime had also been well-documented in a series of reports entitled Justice in El Salvador: A Case Study, A Report on the Investigation into the Killing of Four U.S. Churchwomen inEl Salvador which was published by The Lawyers Committee for International Human Rights from December 1980 to May 1984. Ana Carrigan also wrote about the cover up extensively in her Salvador Witness: The Life and Calling of Jean Donovan (Simon and Schuster, 1984). *~ I mean not political in an ironic sense; existing evidence, especially that evidence which was deliberately withheld leads to the conclusion that the murders were political. November-December 199Y 823 Glavac ¯ An Eternal Flame ~2 The United Nations-sponsored El Salvador Commission on the Truth ("Truth Commission"), whose purpose was to investigate human rights abuses during El Salvador's twelve-year civil war, published a report in March 1993 which confirmed the involvement of high-ranking Salvadoran officers in the murders of the four women. ~3 Three of the national guardsmen who murdered the four women are graduates of the school. ~4 For more information on the School of the kanericas, contact School of the Americas Watch, P.O. Box 3330, Columbus, Georgia 31903; Phone: (706) 682-5369; Fak: (706) 685-0280. A Different Spirit I want to tell you this: The moment will surely come when the Holy Spirit will be within you: a wild goose stretching and straining through storms with her taut body, determined. For that moment there will be nothing dove about the Spirit as she fiercely leads you through wholesome refusals and undreamt-of surrenders out into those wonderfully clear choices within the boundaries of which you will land so awkwardly; but you will be like her: exhilarated in your every part by such strong-wingdd full-feathered single-hearted fligh!! Bernadette McCarrick RSM 824 Review for Religious NESTOR GREGOIRE Opportunity of the Jubilee Year 2000 Immersed in my cultural sense that time is almost exclu-sively quantitative, I shared much of the cynical touch that was brought to any discussion of the year 2000. This appeared to be much ado about one more calendar year. A serious reading of Pope John Paul's apostolic let-ter Tertio Millenio Adveniente (10 November 1994) which launched preparations for the Great Jubilee changed all this. This document offers the opportunity to celebrate and share our faith within and outside the church. We have been given a piece of sheet music; now it is time for all committed Christians, religious and lay, to make the music that the vision of the jubilee year 2000 scores for us. Be Bold The great gift of this apostolic letter is its strong, pos-itive tone and encouragement for all of Christianity (cer-tainly not limited to the Catholic Church) to celebrate the entry into the new millennium as a time to celebrate and deepen our share in the Incarnation of God among us. Even though a strong academic background can give the tools of serious literary analysis, the mere under-standing of words, phrases, and sentences is always incom- Nestor Gregoire OMI can be addressed at: Box 1438; Battleford, Saskatchewan; Canada S0M 0E0. November-December 1995 825 Gregoire ¯ Opportunity of the Jubilee Year2000 plete when an official document is studied. All official documents have a "spirit" that may be imprecise, but it is very real and effec-tive within the life of the church at large. Nowhere in the apostolic letter is a command for the church to celebrate this jubilee. Everywhere there is a strong encour-agement; "Rejoice. Make real the great graces God has done among us." The letter does not set limitations but rather offers positive motivation to enter more deeply into the salvation of God among us. This is not a uniform program designed by people in the high levels of church bureaucracy. It is rather an open-ended invitation to become more what God wants to happen in Christ Jesus in our world today. The letter wi'ites about joy: The term jubilee speaks of joy; not just an inner joy but a jubilation which is manifested outwardly, for the coming of God is also an outward, visible, audible, and tangible event, as St. John made clear (1 Jn 1:1). It is thus appropriate that every sign of joy at this coming should have its own outward expression. This will demonstrate that the church rejoices in salvation. She invites everyone to rejoice, and she tries to create conditions to ensure that the power of salvation may be shared by all (§16). As I read through the letter I found myself stopping for a few moments: Now, how can I make this tangible in our parish com-munity? What can the parish do to express joy in the jubilee.year? The challei~ge broadens our imagination. Christ Centered The letter of John Paul seeks to bring the church to a deeper appreciation of the unique importance of salvation brought by God, past and today. "The fact that in the fullness of time the Eternal Word took on the condition of a creature gives a unique cosmic value to the event which took place in Bethlehem two thousand years ago . . . and it is .the same Word who, by taking flesh, renews the cosmic order of creation" (§3). The vision of the jubilee year is that Christ continues to give meaning, hope and direction to humanity. God is as much at work within our history in the latter part of the 90s as he was at the birth of Jesus. God's activity does not slow down and cease with the accumulation of the calendar years. 826 Review for Religious The Objective of the Jubilee The letter describes the jubilee in these words: Everything ought to focus on the primary objective of the jubilee: the strengthening of faith and of the witness of Christians. It is therefore necessary to inspire in all the faithful a true longing for holiness, a deep desire for con-version and personal renewal in a context of ever more intense prayer and of solidarity with one's neighbor, espe-cially the most needy" (§42). The turning of a millennium offers reflection on the meaning of time. Time is not merely chronological. It has salvific meaning. "In Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, time becomes a dimension of God" (§10). Time is never empty of God's purpose. "From this relationship of God with time there arises the duty to sanctify time" (§ 10). With this sense of God's redeeming power in time, the move-ment to the third millennium is the opportunity to celebrate and enter more deeply into the eternal plan of salvation. The prepa-rations that we are called upon to begin are a specific means to deepen the participation of all humanity in God's redemption of humanity. Rooted in the Church All the preparations and the actual jubilee are clearly linked with the best efforts of the church to renew itself. There is no breaking new ground here. Rather the letter offers new energy to the renewal sought by the Second Vatican Council. "The best preparation for the new millennium, therefore, can only be expressed in a renewed commitment to apply, as faithfully as pos-sible, the teachings of Vatican II to the life of every individual and of the whole church" (§20). Repentance as the Door Some Catholics may be surprised at the openness to past fail-ures and sins within the church expressed in the document. Repentance is a necessary partner in the jubilee year. "She cannot cross the threshold of the new millennium without encouraging her children to purify themselves, through repentance, of past errors and instances of infideli~, inconsistency and slowness to act" (§33). November-December 1995 827 Gregoire ¯ Opportunity of the Jubilee Year 2000 Our parish communities will be asked to cover new ground if they take to heart the teachings of this apostolic letter. "The church should become more fully conscious of the sinfulness of her children, recalling all those times in history when they departed from the spirit of Christ and his Gospel and, instead of offering to the world the witness of a life inspired by the values of faith, indulged in ways of thinking and acting which were truly forms of counter-witness and scandal" (833). A parish commu-nity might spend prayerful time identifying the ways that we have It is a time for the church to continue seeking for what is just and truthful in the world, even if the church herself is made uncomfortable by her own questions about justice. failed as a church and publicly ask for-giveness, even it is be only within the local parish community. It will take a brave spirit to openly admit past sins. Repentance does not stop with the evils of our history. We are seriously chal-lenged to be responsible for the evils of today. "Many cardinals and bishops expressed the desire for a serious exami-nation of conscience above all on the part of the church today. Christians need to place themselves humbly before the Lord and examine themselves on the responsibility which they too have for the evils of our day" (836). How do we identify and take owner-ship for our complicity in the shadow side of society and the many troubles in the world? Timid or polarized parish communities may not be able to handle this one. It could become too explosive. Mature parish communities will be able to speak to the ways that Christians are a source of oppression and sin in today's world. Risk Taking The spirit of the document clearly shows that the church and the preparations for the jubilee are anything but timid. It is a time for the church to continue seeking for what is just and truth-ful in the world, even if the church herself is made uncomfortable by her own questions about justice. A thoughtful reading shows that the church herself will be challenged by many of the questions that she asks of the modern world. 828 Review for Religious Preparations for the jubilee year involve taking risks within the church. This can happen in three ways: 1. Christianity is making great strides in understanding and building new bridges to the great religions of the world. Not everyone is comfortable with the official position that hopes "the eve of the year 2000 will provide a great opportunity, especially in view of the events of recent decades, for interreligious dialogue. In this dialogue the Jews and the Muslims ought to have a preeminent place. God grant that as a confirmation of these intentions it may also be possihle to hold joint meetings in places of significance for the great monotheistic religions (§53). Will this hope meet with sharp criticism from within the church? How do we enter into interreligious dialogue when we have been in such sharp opposition for centuries? This is cer-tainly breaking into the new territory. 2. The jubilee will certainly be a time to give strong empha-sis to the "church's preferential option for the poor and the out-cast." But will anyone be brave enough to go further with the teaching of this document? Are the people of the church willing to deal with the following challenge? "Christians will have to raise their voice on behalf of all the poor of the world, proposing the jubilee as an appropriate time to give thought, among other things, to reducing substantially, if not canceling outright, the international debt which seriously threatens the future of many nations (§51). The third risk involves women and family rights: 3. "The jubilee can also offer an opportunity for reflecting on other challenges of our time, such as the difficulties of dia-logue connected with respect for women's rights and the promo-tion of the family and marriage" (§51). 1997 - Year One: Jesus Christ The letter proposes a three-year period of reflection on the Trinity. The jubilee is clearly Christological in spirit. The general theme proposed for the first year is: "Jesus Christ, the one Saviour of the world, yesterday, today and forever" (§40). During this first year there is to be a renewed appreciation of Christ and a "deeper understanding of the mystery of the Incarnation and of Jesus' birth from the Virgin Mary" (§40). As November-December 199Y 829 Gregoire * Opportunity of tbe 3~ubilee Year 2000 part of this year of preparation there is a desire that there be a renewed interest in the Bible and the sacrament of baptism. 1998 - Year Two: The Holy Spirit This second year "will be dedicated in a particular way to the Holy Spirit and to his sanctifying presence within the commu-nity of Christ's disciples" (§44). The focus of this second year will be to "include a renewed appreciation of the presence and activity of the Spirit who acts within the church" (§45). Hopefully this year will help the church to become more sen-sitive to the movement of the Holy Spirit to evangelize our soci-ety with the Gospel and bring new hope for the gift of eternal life. 1999 - Year Three: God the Father The scope of this final year of preparation is large. "The third year., will be aimed at broadening the horizons of believers, so that they will see things in the perspective of Christ; in the per-spective of the "Father who is in heaven" (§49). The third year links all our the Christian life together. "The sense of being on a journey to the Father should encourage everyone to undertake, by holding fast to Christ the Redeemer of man, a journey of authen-tic conversion" (§50). Practical Applications The document does not give any concrete directives about what should be done. Each parish, diocese, religious community, and family will have to plan how it will prepare for and celebrate this great jubilee. Some might groan that this is another program which will mean more work. It is not meant to be an additional burden; rather it is to be integrated into the spiritual works and ministry of the parish. The preparations and actual celebration should be incorporated into what is already in place but also allow us to be open to creative suggestions. It certainly cannot be a uniform celebration of the faith. As each parish community studies the document it may find that cer-tain parts will have more influence on their life as a faith com-munity than other sections of the document. 830 Revie~v for Religious I thought of several practical suggestions after I read the letter. 1. Gathering community members together this year to study the document will bear great fruit. The importance of this study will be ~o glean the "spirit" of the jubilee. 2. Religious communities and parishes might seek to link the season of Advent each year with their preparations for the year ~000. Advent would give focus to the coming of the Messiah and thd future coming of Christ in the next millennium. Since Advent is a time of joy and anticipation, preparations for the jubilee could share that same joy and anticipation. 3. Other communities might seek to have a spiritual event each and every year. As an example it might be a parish retreat, a parish mission or other form of spiri-tual renewal that has continuity over the three years of immediate preparation for the jubilee. .4. As a sign of our willingness to come to grips with the sins of the past we Each parish, diocese, religious community, and family will have to plan how it will prepare for and celebrate this great jubilee. might have acts of prayer and repentance. In my parish our church building is located within a short walk from the site of Canada's largest mass hanging. Although this terrible event happened a hundred and ten years ago it still is a sorry mark of our treat-ment of Canada's native peoples. Every faith community could find similar instances of past sins. 5. A diocese might organize a special time for prayer for each of the parishes throughout the year. For example, there may a spe-cial time of pr~yer that rotates from parish to parish. After fifty-two weeks each of the parishes has participated in this prayer time. 6. Happy the parish community that will be able to have a special spirihaa! event in each of the households of the parish. A parish might organize a special family prayer service that is passed from household to household until all in the parish has taken part in this prayer service within their home. J~ach suggestion must try to link all ages and groups within the parish. No one should be left out. We must be creative and enter into the vision that this apostolic letter calls us to have. The document is packed with possibilities. This one article cannot hope to do justice to its vision. No one should expect November-December 199Y 831 Gregoire ¯ Opportunity of tbe ffubilee Year 2000 everyone to become involved in every part of the document. Christians will have to do what is possible in their own situation. At this point in time no one individual has a plan of how to accomplish this. When the pope gave final approval to this doc-ument he did not have the concrete details worked out. The chal-lenge rests with the people of the church. They will not be disappointed by this jubilee. The members of my parish council encourage me: "Let's try it!" Rainbow of the Years Red the beginning with sharp pains of birthing, then childhood softly oranged into you th's yellow lesson that life holds its promise, its dreams and spring. Greening years bear hope of buds turned blossoms, only to be blued with challenges and tears. Indigo deepens to violet's quiet ache of aging. An arch of muted glory spanning life-to-death time now fades into the heavens, the rainbow's work complete. Maria Corona Crumback IHM 832 Review for Religious CASSIAN J. YUHAUS The 1994 Synod: Uniqueness and Challenge SninCe October, 1994 I have been happy to share with large umbers of religious, some diocesan clergy, and even a few bishops something of the experience of the synod. This I have done frequently along with Sr. Doris Gottemoeller RSM and Fr. Gerald Brown SS who were personally invited to the synod by the pope. It must be said clearly that these are my own personal reflec-tions. They have no other value than that. I do not speak for the synod; only the pope can do that. I speak of the synod, and that we all can do and should do. The Uniqueness of the Synod on the Consecrated Life There have been fourteen synods. None of them contains the uniqueness expressed in this the ninth ordinary synod of October 1994. There are at least six reasons why this synod can claim such distinction, all having to do with the theme, "The Consecrated Life and Its Role in the Church and the World of Today." The first reason stands alone in importance and impact. Never before in its nearly 2000-year history has the entire church throughout the world been called to concentrate with such depth and persistence on the very nature, the meaning and the func-tioning of religious life: What is it? Why is it? How does it work? Cassian Yuhaus CP served as a peritus at the 1994 synod of bishops, con-vened to study The Consecrated Life in the Church and the World. His address is Ministry for Religious; 631 Griffin Pond Road; P.O. Box 2567; Clarks Summits, Pennsylvania 18411. November-December 199~ 833 Yuhaus * The 1994 Synod Nor was this concentration limited to hierarchy or certain mem-bers of the church. The entire church was asked to reflect, to s~udy, to speak, and to pray on the consecrated life. A further dis-tinguishing note is that this study was to be done simultaneously. In reality the Holy Father called upon th~ entire church to pause and take a good look at what by every measure is one of the most fascinating faces the church turns to the world: the consecrated life--the tens of thousands of her faithful on every continent who vow to live poverty, chastity, and obedience perpetually. Secondly, this pause was not a mere passing glance or token recognition of sisters, priests, brothers, and members of secular institutes. Every bishops' conference and every conference of major superiors in every nation was to study and respond to a carefully prepared and lengthy statement on the theme of the synod. To this worldwide group were added other individuals and agencies such as curia cardinals and heads of departments of the Holy See and experts throughout the world. The statement each was asked to respond to is entitled Lineamenta which strictly means, outlines or guidelines. This doc-ument is prepared by a special group of carefully chosen individ-uals who would present what they see as the "Status Questions," the state of the question. What is it we are to talk about? What is the situation we face? What are the issues? What problems as well as what achievements and values? The response was to be confidential so as to assure maximum freedom. A third claim to uniquene.ss was the rumble, the agitation, the anxiety the synod caused throughout the woi'ld and not only among those most immediately concerned, the religioias, but beyond the confines of the Catholic communion, among other Christian faiths who boast numbers of their faithful who likewise embrace a particular expression of gospel life in community. The interest spread beyond the borders of Christiaiaity among those most ancient orders of monks within the oriental religions who desired to be and were represented at the synod. Never before have so many experts, so many writers, so many leaders of religious/monastic life dedicated themselves to such a thorough examination of the path to which, in their conviction, only God could have called them. And only God could have sus-tained them in what became at times a hard, bitter and demand-ing response even unto blood. We have yet to make a taxonomy of this outpouring of books, articles, lectures, symposia and con- 834 Review for Religious ferences. It is rich in the extreme, numbering in the thousands. An international conference of major consideration took place in Rome in November 1993 at which some 500 leaders, experts, and consultants gathered to reflect on religious life and to prepare a response for the synod. A fourth reason for uniqueness should not be overlooked. I refer to the length of this "pause." It was not a matter of a hur-ried response and be done with it. The dialogue and research, the con-sultancy and response went on for more than four years. The synod on the Consecrated Life was announced by our Holy Father, for only the pope can designate a theme, in 1990. The synod was to take place in 1993 but because of the already important special synod for all Africa, the date was postponed to October 1994. This was to turn to the advantage of the entire church because in this final year of study an enormous amount of more precise and insight-ful work had been accomplished. This extra year highlights the fifth reason for the uniqueness of this synod: the critique of the response to the Lineamenta, the pre-liminary statement on religious life. This document was thoroughly ana- Never before have so many experts, so many writers, so many leaders of religious/monastic life dedicated themselves to such a thorough examination of the path to which, in their conviction, only God could have called them. lyzed, particularly by the conferences of religious throughout the world. For the most part it was rejected as unworthy of the synod. Despite the prohibition, many of these critiques were released in whole or in part to wide groups within the church and even to the public. The Lineamenta, or preliminary document, was seen to be in many areas an inaccurate expression of the reality, more backward- than forward- looking, more negative than positive, and insufficiently expressing the ecclesiology and theology of the Second Vatican Council. We must keep in mind that the document was a preliminary statement. It gave proof to the effectiveness of the synod process. The synod works. And works well. All these responses were wel- November-December 1995 835 Yuhaus * The 1994 Synod corned. Each was carefully studied and an entirely new document was written, in itself a monumental task. This new document, Instrumentum laboris, the working paper for the synod, shall remain one of the finest products of the entire synod process. Even though at present it is no longer accessible, it will become one of the more significant references on the consecrated life in all future study. Perhaps the sixth reason why this synod is rightly claimed to be unique should have been mentioned first. In and by itself it is The participation of the women at the synod was active, dynamic and effective. They were welcomed warmly. sufficient to verify the claim of distinction for the ninth ordinary synod. I speak of the presence of women, the women religious, members of the monastic traditions, East and West, and mem-bers of the secular institutes. How they got there is in itself a fascinating story. At first there was no mention of women. Their fears were well expressed. Would they be subject to yet another manifestation of patriarchy whereby the strongest and most powerful group of men in the world would determine the mean-ing and the way of life of women without their having a word to say about it? The women reli-gious themselves made strong protestations, par-ticularly underscoring the fact that of all the religious in the world, women comprise some 72 %. The women's voices were joined by a large majority of male religious and by many bishops. The entire matter was presented to Pope John Paul II. Many alternatives were suggested. Finally the Holy Father invited the International Union of Superiors General (UISG) to elect twenty members from throughout the world to represent women religious. To this number he personally invited some thirty more women religious. The representation was by no means min-imal or token. Altogether sixty-one women were active in the synod. Seventeen percent of the synod membership were women. Nor did the matter rest with representation. The further issue had to be faced: What role would women have? How active and real would their participation be? It was clear they would not vote. Neither did the male reli-gious vote, except the twenty superiors general of male congre-gations who, as ordinaries and by the canon law of the synod, are permitted to vote. The vote belongs to the bishops. 836 Review for Religious But the women did have voice. Each was free to speak in the general assembly. Each could likewise submit a written interven-tion. The participation of the women at the synod was active, dynamic and effective. They were welcomed warmly. They received equal treatment and were listened to carefully. Their effectiveness was in the small linguistic group discussions where they could debate the issue, represent their convictions and actively share with the cardinals and bishops in formulating the final proposals which, after all, contain the meaning and intent of the synod and are its principal result. It was these proposals, fifty-five of them, that were finally voted upon in the last session. In the general assembly each one passed by near unanimity but they had already passed the scrutiny and the approval of the working groups in which the women vitally participated. Three Challenges Challenge One: New Styles, New Forms, New Expressions of the Consecrated Life The face of consecrated life has changed profoundly since the call to renewal of the Second Vatican Council. Based on the five renewing principles expressed in Perfectae caritatis--the pri-macy of the Gospel, the rediscovery of charism, insertion into the mission of the church, solidarity with the real world, and gen-uine renewal of spirit, religious institutes globally have embarked courageously on a new way, leaving old ways aside. Conventional apostolates, primarily education and health care, have given way to a variety of new ministries. Internal structures of common life and governance have become radically transformed for most insti-tutes. Meantime, in the young churches a~ well as in the long-established churches, entirely new forms and expressions of religious life have arisen. Instrumentum laboris, the working paper and agenda of the synod, while continually acknowledging the pneumatological and prophetic nature of the religious life and its rightful need for a cer-tain autonomy in the safeguarding and development of its proper charism within a life-giving ecclesiology, nonetheless, recognizes the extent and depth of current challenges that have affected, and continue to affect, the expression and experience of the conse-crated life. These challenges are discussed under a threefold prevalence: Noven~ber-Decenzber 1995 837 Yubaus ¯ The 1994 Synod 1. As related to culture and special changes of modern times: "In this final decade of the 20th Century, society is marked by great technological and scientific progress., the oppor-tunities offered to Catholicism today are great, responding to the deepest aspirations of the consecrated life" (IL §16). 2. As related to specific geographic differences: "In the countries of the Northern hemisphere, members of the institutes of consecrated life are aging and decreasing in number. In the countries of the Southern hemisphere, the opposite is happening--they are becoming younger and more numerous. In geographic terms there is a shift from north to south, from west to east" (IL §22). 3. As related to particular forms of religious life: "A com-plete treatment of the consecrated life, however, demands that we take into account some specific problems concern-ing certain forms of the consecrated life., not in order to exclude other realities, but to look at some meritorious aspects in the context of a universalism of the church which does not ignore forms that may be less significant in size but no less deserving of proper attention" (IL §30). In his excellent opening address, Cardinal Hume presents an admirable and provocative summary of the challenges in this tran-sitional period of the religious life: ¯ challenges to the episcopal ministry (nos. 17 and 18) ¯ challenges of spirituality (no. 19) ¯ challenges of fraternal life (no. 20) ¯ the place of the consecrated women (no. 21) ¯ challenges of mission and inculturation (nos. 22 and 23) ¯ relationships to other states of life and to vocation (nos. 25 and 26). A large number of synodal fathers have likewise addressed the issue of new and different expressions of the consecrated life. These interventions for the most part have been positive, recog-nizing the reality of the transformation taking place, and praising the courage and daring with which religious have approached new and often conflictual situations. Other synodal fathers have addressed the issue of entirely new beginnings of religious life, especially in the younger churches. Nonetheless, a significant number of interventions have likewise expressed fear, anxiety, and serious concern that new and divergent lifestyles and expressions leave much to be desired and give rise to serious concerns about relationships between religious and hierarchy, religious and laity and among and within religious institutes themselves. Very many 838 Review for Religious of these interventions are concerned with the problem of the identity of consecrated life today. Briefly put, new and divergent lifestyles, as indicated by var-ious synodal fathers, have a fourfold expression: 1. from an inward to an outward movement; from forms readily recognized and uniform manners and expressions, including the religious habit to a pluralism in lifestyles; 2. from a hierarchic and readily identifiable structure of government to collegial and highly participative forms; 3. from conventional, corporate and very effective min-istries, primarily in education and health care, to a large variety of autonomous ministries, addressing new and demanding ecclesial and societal needs which frequently depend upon the daring and initiative of individual reli-gious; 4. from fixed forms of fraternal life and prayer in common to freely-elected lifestyles and disciplines of prayer and penance, even within and among members of the same com-munity. Besides these major transformations taking place in the well-established institutes, entirely new forms of apostolic and com-munity life are appearing that reflect and/or contain many elements of the consecrated life. The synod recognized the pastoral care bishops must have for all religious. In the rightful exercise of their office to enable religious sisters, brothers and priests to maintain their conse-cration and mission in the church, two questions need to be addressed: 1. In the face of the major transformations in the lifestyle and ministries of established religious institutes, responding to the mandate of the Second Vatican Council, and subse-quent directives of the supreme pontiffs and the Holy See, what words of help and encouragement may be given? What cautions may be expressed? What hope for the future? 2. With careful precision, what norms need to be expressed whereby new forms of the consecrated life may be identified and recognized by the local ordinary so as to, at an oppor-tune time, present these to the Apostolic See to whom alone it belongs to institute a new form? Moreover, will these forms be distinguished from other ecclesial movements and associations of the faithful? In responding to these questions, the working paper is help-ful in its reflection that: November-December 199~ 839 Yubaus ¯ Tbe1994 Synod The renewal of all the People of God is brought about by the Spirit through the re-invigorating of the forms of life that already exist, and through the raising up of new ones in the course of history in response to the needs of the church. If new groups fit into already sanctioned forms, according to the original inspiration of the founders, they are approved as such (IL §37). In responding to the first question above, on the major trans-formation in long-established institutes, two cautions should be expressed: 1. It cannot be a question of returning to the past and insist-ing or imposing forms or styles that seemed so efficient, effective, and unambiguous in a different milieu. 2. It seems one would want to be careful not to exclude these new and, at times, radically different expressions of religious life from the identity of consecrated life, as several synodal fathers indicated. Most contain very apt and appro-priate expressions of the new evangelization. In responding to the second question regarding entirely new forms, the following considerations will be helpful. "It must be taken into consideration that only those who assume all three evangelical counsels can be considered members of an institute of consecl:ated life" (IL §38). Nonetheless, it is possible that newer forms of the consecrated life may be emerging. The working paper further cautioned: A primary discernment is necessary consisting in weighing whether or not the new forms are in continuity with what is essential to the consecrated life through the profession of the evangelical counsels. Another aspect to be clarified is whether or not it involves groups of evangelical life which fit into one of the existing canonical forms . It would then be a question not of new forms, but of new institutes or societies (IL §37). To clarify the issue of new forms, two other points were made: 1. The Apostolic See alone can institute a new form of con-secrated life; 2. Groups must discern whether they want to be recognized and constituted as a new expression of the consecrated life or as associations of the faithful with the character of an ecclesial movement. Whether we are speaking of the major transformations in both lifestyle and ministry of long-established institutes or of entirely new forms and expressions of religious life, the synodal 840 Review for Religious participants offered a large number of incisive reflections. Some of these follow: 1. While the fundamental characteristics remain essential to the consecrated life, there is broad scope for legitimate diversity. The failure to recognize diversity as legitimate, indeed, as a gift of the Spirit, can result in unnecessary ten-sions, fear and accusation. 2. New expressions are to be studied in the light of the essential elements and the charism of specific Congregations so as not to stifle them but to discover the creative move-ment of the Holy Spirit. 3. Religious address the underlying causes of social distress to eliminate injustice where ever it is found. 4. Religious lobby political leaders to improve situations that deprive people of rights to basic human dignity. 5. Religious life will only have meaning and a future if it is clearly experienced as being directly involved in the truly critical issues of our time, not of the past. 6. Some religious congregations may perhaps die out in this process of insertion into the present . . . new forms or expressions of evangelical living are coming into being in the church and will continue to do so because the Spirit will always call people committed to the reign of God to live the Gospel in changing contexts. 7. The hierarchy should not be afraid of being challenged by the questioning and the searching of religious in their quest to be faithful to their fundamental options for the poor . . . religious must also discern how their insertion and witness can be "pastorally fruitful." . . . The central challenge both for religious and hierarchy is the ability to prayerfully discern together in the Spirit. 8. The charismatic structure is not to be placed against-- opposed to--the hierarchic structure as if they were two separate entities. Proceeding from the one source, the Spirit, they belong to the one and same church. They are insepa-rable. 9. As in the case with the initial authentication of a new charism, there is a concomitant need for prudent discern-ment in new expressions of diversity and interpretation of charism. '10. While the fundamental characteristics remain essential to consecrated life, there is broad scope for legitimate diver-sity. The failure to recognize diversity as legitimate, indeed as a gift of the Spirit can result in unnecessary tensions, fear and accusations. Noventber-December 1995 841 Yubaus ¯ Tbe1994 Synod 11. There is need to develop a better process of dialogue so that at every level, from the Holy See to the particular church, bishops may acquire a better understanding of the many dimensions of authentic consecrated life and the diverse ways it is continually impacted by the historical-cultural context in which it is lived. 12. A major transformation of the consecrated life is already under way; newer movements are emerging today. Religious communities are responding in a radically newer way to the cry of the poor; a new expression of religious life is required. Challenge Two: Consecrated Life and the Laity Instrumentum laboris makes frequent reference to the new awareness on the part of the laity regarding the role and devel-opment of the consecrated life in the church and the world today and speaks of the ways in which there can be a mutual enrich-ment of both ways of Gospel life. Experiencing the church as an organic communion through a complementarity of the gifts of the Spirit, in the light of the mystery of the call to holiness of all those reborn in Christ in virtue of baptism, has generally lead to construc-tive collaboration between the lay faithful and the faithful consecrated through the profession of the evangelical coun-sels. Consecrated persons are united more profoundly to Christ in the paschal mystery of his death and resurrection, profess the evangelical counsels and offer their whole being to God. In this way, they remind all the faithful--but espe-cially the laity--that this world can be transformed only through the spirit of the beatitudes (IL §80). In the "Relatio Ante," the opening address, Cardinal Hume further elaborates on this relationship and the advantages that may accrue to both: Spirituality experienced by consecrated persons !s also nec-essary for others who search for ways and teachers of spir-ituality in our pluralistic world. This search is not only strong in cultures of traditional religions as in Asia, but also in the West and for this reason spirituality is a new are-opagus of mission (see RM 38) . Consecrated persons must be witnesses of spirituality, capable of speaking about the things of God based on their own experience and become guides of interior progress; and religious centers ~aust not only be strategic points of missionary irradiation but also practical schools of spirituality. Today, the laity expect from the consecrated above all an 842 Review for Religious example of holiness and accompaniment in a way, generi-cally and specifically, that is according to the spirituality of the charism. "There is a desire to participate in the spirio tuality and the very mission of the institutes in a comple-mentarity of vocations" (IL ~80; see §98). Such condivision of the spirituality and the mission of the Institutes is not only for the good of the associated persons, but for the whole church (Art. 19 and 25). Many synodal fathers expressed their conviction of the value and importance of this conjunction between the consecrated life and the laity. The consecrated life is seen as bringing a new impulse to the faith expressions of the laity, responding to their thirst for God, leading them to a deeper meaning of their proper secularity as a vocation-fulfillment and engaging them in a mutual sharing of charism and spirituality. It seemed altogether proper that the synod should continue the expressions of praise and encouragement contained in the working paper for a closer and more enriching relation between religious and laity. At the same time some cautions may need to be expressed: 1. Is there the danger of obscuring or confusing further one or other or even both vocations? 2. How would this increased relationship affect a distinctive call to the consecrated life? 3. What effect may this relationship have on perpetuity of commitment to the consecrated life? A growing concern, not only in the western world but else-where, a concern already brought to the attention of the Apostolic See is what has been given the broad title of "associate" partici-pation in the life and mission of various Institutes of religious life. This refers to ways in which members of the laity, Catholic and Christian, may become more closely allied to an institute even by way of contractual agreement and paraliturgical initia-tion or acceptance. In many instances these forms of association with religious institutes arise and take form without any knowl-edge of the local ordinary. The question arises as to the timeliness of recognition of such forms of association and, perhaps, a pre-liminary statement of some guidelines or norms. The following statements of various synodal participants illus-trate strongly the importance of a new and deepened relation-ship between members of the institutes of consecrated life and the laity: November-December 199 ~ 843 Yuhaus ¯ The 1994 Synod ¯ Religious must invite, encourage the laity to join hands with them as by baptism and confirmation the laity too are committed to the same cause. It is vitally important to ban-ish any lingering suspicions of each other or rivalries between the different vocations of the People of God. ¯ Religious are a gift, not only to the church but to the world. Their dialogue of communion must go out to all God's people including members of others faiths and those of no faith. ¯ Laity expressed the need for religious to keep people informed of changes and of different forms of ministry and the need to participate in faith-forming communities. Religious should be inspired to invite laity to share and express the spirit and spirituality of their congregation. ¯ The validity of religious life in the church and in society will be experienced in its charismatic power to call indi-viduals to be with others who are similarly committed to a life in the Spirit. We are looking for consecrated persons to move out radically from their own internal concerns into a way of living with the people where they are. They see that their first witness is to these (the people): a witness of being rather than doing. This way of being in touch with the world and of taking that world seriously needs to be further encouraged. ¯ It is not enough to be close to the laity but religious must invite laity to become closely involved with them so that the "Spirit of the Beatitudes"--which is the substantial wit-ness of the consecrated life--will become the spiritual cli-mate in which the laity fulfill their proper secular vocation. ¯ Catholic monasteries and religious houses should do more to help Catholics engage in personal prayer. The Catholic Church needs many more spiritual masters of prayer, of meditation, of contemplation who will make the riches of Catholic prayer and mystical tradition available to more Catholics. ¯ Numbers of people everywhere in the world are longing for a deep, personal experience of God to find meaning in their lives. Challenge Three: The Future: Participation in Decision Making and Pastoral Planning The indispensable union of the consecrated life with the life and mission of the church and its intimate bonding flow through-out the working paper particularly under the ecclesiology of com-munion. Post-conciliar ecclesiological reflection has brought about a renewed awareness that all the components of the eccle- 844 Review for Religious sial fabric are called to work together to build up the one Body of Christ. On the one hand, the ~nembers of insti-tutes of consecrated life, in conformity with their own charism, have been led to give greater value to the partic-ular church, seeking their own manner of active presence in it. On the other hand, the bishops, with due respect for the proper autonomy of life and government of the institutes, have often made an effort for greater joint planning. From the responses it is seen that, generally, there is a sincere desire to build authentic relationships of communion and collaboration among bishops, institutes of consecrated life, secular clergy and laity. Consecrated persons on their part are becoming more aware of their duty to be promoters of communion in the particular church through the meaning of their consecration in the church and their witness to the universality of the Gospel message, which goes beyond differences of any kind based on race, culture, tribe, and so forth, and through their solidarity and availability to all, especially to the very poor. In such a manner, they create bonds between the church and those marginalized groups which frequently are not reached by ordinary pastoral activity (IL §73). In his opening address, Cardinal Hume devoted the entirety of Part I to "The Role of the Apostolic College Regarding the Consecrated Life," stating: We are here to deal with consecrated life as the synod of Bishops and therefore above all as pastors in union with the Pope. The reality of consecrated life is our concern and part of our episcopal duty. We are in fact pastors of every-one in the churches confided to us and of all the members which make it up. This role of the episcopate in consecrated life can be assumed also by its ecclesial dimension. In fact, there is no consecrated life outside of the life and mission of the church. This comes from the Spirit for the good of the Mystical Body of Christ, it is recognized and erected as a consecrated state to God from legitimate pastors, it lives only as the branch attached to the trunk, participates in the mission confided to the church. In the final section of his provocative discourse, his Eminence put the challenges of the consecrated life to the episcopal ministry in the form of two questions: ¯ How can one understand and make all God's People understand the meaning, the place and mission of conse-crated life in the variety of its charisms? November-December 1995 845 Yubaus ¯ The 1994 Synod ¯ How can one find suitable ways and opportune means not only to promote real ecclesial relations between bishops and consecrated persons, but also to fulfill our duty as priest in relation to consecrated life, respecting the right autonomy and different charisms? No other point had been more frequently made by the synodal fathers in the general congregations than the importance of clar-ifying some points within the document Mutuae relationes, par-ticularly at the time of major transformation within religious institutes and the coming to life of new and diverse forms of reli-gious vocation. Several interventions have called attention to one specific and exact form of relationship, namely pastoral planning. The presumption is that the local church is itself engaged in serious pastoral planning with the forecasting of needs and uti-lizations of resources. Where it is not, religious institutes feel bound to move by themselves in this important task. However, where pastoral planning is accepted, it would indeed, as one syn-odal father explained it, "Be absurd for religious to do parallel planning." The question arises that, following upon and enlarging on Mutuae relationes, is it opportune for this synod to insist and per-haps list some norms to assure: ¯ that religious fully integrate themselves within the local church situation and culture; ¯ actively participate in decision making and effective pas toral planning; ¯ assist in the analysis of local needs and ¯ express alternatives to meeting discerned needs of the local church. Surely one of the more certain and successful ways to assure a healthy interdependent and continued relationship is by way of pastoral planning, that is, by preparing norms whereby religious participate actively and continuously in the development of the pastoral plan for the local church. Some indications of suitable norms were contained in the fol-lowing interventions: I. The pastoral planning of and by religious must be inte-grated with the pastoral planning of the local church under the guidance of the bishop, its unifying source. It is absurd to parallel pastoral planning. Full collaboration of religious 846 Review for Religious with the bishop, priest and laity is necessary in the devel-opment and implementation of a pastoral plan. A commu-nications aspect should be part of every pastoral plan of every community. Every congregation should develop a b~sic plan for communications to make the Gospel known and to present a positive image of the consecrated life. 2. The response to Vatican II has led to radical changes in lifestyle and in ministry; these changes need to be reflected upon in the light of Scripture and Tradition as we develop a vision of the future of religious life. 3. Many religious complain that they are not invited to actively participate in the pastoral planning and decision making of the diocese. But, not seldom, religious especially those of pontifical right, set up their own programs and plan withotit even corisulting the bishop. 4. The synod should insist that: ¯ ~:eligious truly integrate themselves within the local situ ation and culture; ¯ be'open to the real and actual needs of the faithful in the local church; * be willing to involve themselves and actively participate in pastoral planning and in the decision making of the diocese. 5. Members of consecrated life often draw attention to the lack of opportunities for them to be involved in the decision making processes for the life of the Church. It is impor-tant that they be listened to and encouraged to participate when discussions take place concerning the pastoral respon-sibilities and activities o'f the church in a particular country. The Synod and the Future of Religious Life The s3inod has already had a significantly strong impact on religious life sifice its convocation in 1990. More has been writ-ten on religious life, its meaning, its role, its manifold expres-sions in the past five years than in the fifty preceding. And much more will come. It would be a service to the church and to religious universally were we to have an interpretive analysis of all that has been said according to the major geographic regions such as Africa, the Americas, especi~ally Latin America, East Europe, North and South Pacific. My conjecture is that while we would expectantly find ~ertain marked differences, there would be much more of a colaverg~nce on central themes, many of which were lucidated earlier. November-December 199~ 847 Yubaus ¯ Tbe1994 Synod The synod will have an important role to play in this inter-pretation of the consecrated life. Whatever will be written or said tomorrow will find necessarily a reference point in this synod. While as yet we do not know the size, the shape, the emphasis of the final document, we can say from the experience of the synod and the enormity of study and research preceding it, that the final document will have considerable weight. It cannot be expected to resolve all the issues raised during these synodal years. More than likely it will be the beginning of a series of more profound studies regarding the consecrated life and its role in the church and in society. Some of these areas of research we already know, such as deeper research into the meaning of consecration as it applies to all persons in the church and more specifically to those called to the profession of the evangelical counsels in an approved way of life sanctioned by the church and revelatory of its mys-tery and mission; the need to restudy and rewrite the important document on mutual relationships; the norms for distinguishing various new expressions of the consecrated life from other eccle-sial movements and groupings; the role of women religious in the proclamation of the Gospel and in decision-making positions. It may well be that the 1994 synod may be the turning point in the evolution of religious life. The synod did not look back-ward. Those who expected it to require a return to past and fixed forms and styles and yes, even dress, were bitterly disappointed. The final remarks of Cardinal Hume, the relator of the synod, are very insightful and encourging: A number of questions concerning some of the negative aspects of religious life were mentioned by some members of the synod in their interventions. There were but few such interventions. Problems, however, ought not be allowed to over-shadow so much that is positive and good in consecrated life . And there is much good. It see~ns to me that the synod fathers, being well aware of problems, nonetheless felt that they should concentrate on the ideal rather than on the difficulties and abuses. The synod has produced a fine ideal of consecrated life. I am grateful for this synod. Cardinal Hume went on to say that there is much hope in the synod but it will depend upon the way it is accepted, stud-ied, and seriously implemented. The enthusiasm, the study, the concern for the consecrated life engendered prior to the synod must continue after. If we were to take the Instrumentum laboris 848 Review for Religious alone as a basis of further discussion and increased understanding we would all be enriched. But we have much more. ~re will have the final report from our Holy Father and we have thousands of excellent articles, reflections, books, and reports that will enrich us and challenge us for decades to come, well into the third ~nillennium. This synod inaugurated a search for the fuller meaning and the clearer identity of the consecrated life. That search will con-tinue. A new awareness is dawning throughout the church of the precious-ness of the gift God has given the world and the church. The greatest good that can come from this synod is that this awareness so evident in those October days will reflect throughout the church. We are appalled when we recollect how very little had been said about religious life in the post-conciliar church. Little effort was taken topromote a positive image, to encourage and sustain the vocation to the consecrated life. Years went by without one intelligent and meaningful word being uttered in parish after parish; confusion and misconcep-tion even misrepresentation was allowed to cast a gloomy shadow across the path The synod will have an important role to play in this interpretation of the consecrated life. Whatever will be written or said tomorrow will find necessarily a reference point in this synod. that leads to the cloister. All that is about to change. We look to a reanimation of this gift to all the people of God when children will talk to one another about the mystery and wonder such a gift evokes, when schools will not eliminate the consecrated, life as a career opportunity, when parishes will call forth the giftedness of all its members and when the family shall again pray to God to be blest with a vocation to the consecrated life. Two signs of this new awareness are already evident. Throughout the church in the younger churches and in the well established churches, in East and IATest, new forms, new expres-sions of the consecrated life are budding forth. They are not a few. They number in the hundreds and they are attracting zeal-ous followers. Alongside this is the phenomenon of a variety of forms of associated membership whereby laity, married and sin-gle, young and old, Christian and nonChristian desire to align November-December 199Y 849 Yuhaus ¯ The 1994Synod themselves with the charism, the contemplative spirit and the apostolic zeal emanating from religious communities that were thought to be on the way out. I hazard to say that the October synod of 1994 will be the turning point in the evolution of that incomprehensible phe-nomenon, that elusive mystery, that Spirit-filled gift which hence-forward we shall refer to as the consecrated life. Stretch Out Your Hand! (Mark 3) In the Gospel Jesus initiated the cure, told the man to "Come here" and performed magical surgery on his shriveled hand so its fingers unfolded into flesh. Perhaps the man wasn't grateful. The Healer had snatched away his excuse for the random pities and coins of others. Now this hand couldn't remain unemployed; would be expected to find work. You're never completely grateful for being 9ured. Knowing your impairments snag you kindness, put you in the spotlight so others cringe at their fully functional selves. It's a kind of power. So you pray with ambivalence for your own healing, half frightened at the compassion God may feel for whatever is withered in you, half frightened at how you'll handle being whole again. Patricia Schnapp RSM 850 Review for Religious JOSEPH A. TETLOV~z From Useful Instruments to Willing Agents: Transforming Leadership for the New Millennium As an historian of American Catholic sph'imality, I have grown convinced that leadership of our religious con-gregations during the last half of the twentieth century has been better than ordinary, perhaps even historically outstanding. Conside,; then, how much a privilege I consider it to be addressing you men and women who are that leadership at the millennium. I am going to talk about your leadership in te,'ms of American social and intellectual histo,~y and American Catholic spirituality. That makes the task difficult enough, and to add to it, I cannot stop to distinguish contemplative and active lives, or to say much about the rich divergences between men and women. So I hope I am on target. My concern reminded me of a sto,:y in my family's lore about the day my mother picked up the phone and a little voice said, "I want to talk to Judy." "Well, honey, there's no Judy here." After a pause, the little voice said again that it wants to talk to Judy. "Well, darling, no Judy lives here; you must have dialed the wrong numbe,: " No pause this time: "Aw, lady, you answered the wrong phone." I hope you haven't dialed the wrong numbe,; and 1 hope I haven't answered the wrong phone. Joseph A. Tetlow SJ gave this presentation at the joint assem-bly of Major Superiors of Men (CMSM) and Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) in August 1995. His address is Jesuit Hall; 3601 LindeH Blvd.; St. Louis, Missouri 63108. Noventber-December 1995; 851 Tetlow * From Useful Instruments to Willing Agents Between Vatican I and Vatican II, between the first automo-bile and Apollo I, the socioeconomic program of the West, in Roberto Mangabeira Unger's words, was "to turn all society into a world of patrons and clients."' Robber barons like Vanderbilt lavished patronage; their clients begged help. Bosses ruled "their" workers; bishops had "their" priests; religious superiors had "their" subjects. All these subjects were "clients," including the religious, who leaned on--the IndoEuropean root of client is klei, to incline to or lean on--their superiors. This patron/client relationship flourished in the Catholic belief that the Church was a perfect society? It offered religious superiors ready apostolic choices, for the most part shaped by realities in an immigrant church; it offered religious subjects ready obedience for their own holiness. The patron/client relationship made us instruments of our congregations--instruments, we believed, in God's hands. With the sociocultural revolutions of the sixties, our con-temporaries turned from the patron/client structure to the form of the personal.3 Even unskilled workers personalize production lines through "management circles." We want no longer to be instruments; we want to be personal agents--of company, church, congregation. The implications of this secular shift in the relationship between religious leadership and companions (which has super-seded the superior/subject relationship) are great. For we can be agents only as members of a community, enacting personal desires that are somehow the community's desires. In religious congre-gations as elsewhere, this demands that we form what Josiah Royce in The Problem of Christianity calls communities of memory. The women writing in Ann Patrick Ware's Midzoives of the Future were keenly aware of this.4 A community of memory grows from a foundational event which the community interprets through and throughout its his-tory. From that event, interpretation, and history, each commu-nity's charism, mission, and identity grow. Here are the roots to which we return in the postconciliar generation--foundational event, interpretation, history. We have discovered in our roots that religious leadership has all along been for the sake of finding out What God hopes not only in us and but also, emphatically, in our lifeworld. Yet we are severely challenged, even daunted, by the thought of finding what 852 Review for Religious God wants, because of several failures. The most operative at pre-sent is the church's failure to proclaim an adequate theology of creation, a failure John Courtney Murray identified in The Problem of God forty years ago. Our only dogma about creation affirms that God directly creates the human soul, insinuating that God does not directly create any other creature. We conceive of cre-ation as happening in the past: "Who made me? God made me." A long time ago; the Big Bang.5 This absent Creator proves a grave failure: For the earth--we tear it up since God has left it merely to us.6 For humankind--we do not know God passionately, momently, creating us and our lifeworld in all con-creteness. Even for many Christians, God is the watchmaker God of the Enlightenment rationalists. For us reli-gious- what is the point of "discernment" beyond trying to find out how I feel, if I know no God busily working in all things, me included? A more adequate theology of creation is rising from the personal experi-ence of God in consecrated life, for in our contemplation we come to know God's pas-sionate hopes in the world, not as abstract ideas, but as our own authentic, concrete desires. In this pursuit of God's hoping, leader-ship at the end of the millennium achieves two things. First we have been doing well: Leadership now listens openly and deeply, bravely and discerningly, to the desiring and dreaming of every member of a congrega-tion. Secondly, we have not been doing so We have discovered in our roots that religious leadership has all along been for the sake of finding out what God hopes not only in us and but also, emphatically, in our lifeworld. well: Leadership identifies among all those desires and dreams the charism, mission, and identity of the congregation. Leadership in the new millennium, then, will draw companions to grow in their charism, solicit them to set aside all self-deception, and even invite them to die to many good hopes and individual dreams. Leadership, therefore, is not just for community, the holy bond-ing of those who seek God. It is also for communion, the mutual strengthening of those who courageously enact God's hopes in the world. November-Decentber 1995 853 Tetlow ¯ From Useful Instruments to Willing Agents My remarks fall into five sections: 1. from power to author-ity; 2. from submission to discernment; 3. from God's plan to God's project; 4. from instruments to agents; 5. from community to communion. 1. From Leadership of Power to Leadership of Authority Father provincial wanted Robert Drinan to believe that wisdom lay in resigning from Congress and that his submission would promote holiness. Father Drinan publicly expressed his hope that God wished him to do something else and better, and said no I do not contest this decision, or any more recent ones like it. I recall it only to point out that this was governance by power, a governance which is needed in occasional crises. The problem has been its seeping into everyday governance. "The eternal dream of power," in Roberto Mangabeira Unger's dictum, "is to rule by a reverential fear that systematically confuses prudence and piety as motives for obedience" (p. 107). In preconciliar days, prudence urged acquiescing to a higher wisdom; piety urged submission in humility. These are not good motives for obeying, and power is not now (if it ever was) a safe mode of command in religious life. With today's communications and mobility, power, like enor-mously high voltage, easily destroys, as it did in the uneven con-test between the Roman Congregation of Religious and the vital IHM Sisters of California in the late 1960s. Power is the ability so to determine a lifeworld that those under the power will have to do what they are told whether they want to or not. As long as twentieth-century modernism endured--inexorable progress, certitude, universal judgments, relentless control--the church governed consecrated life in the mode of power. Modernism survived in the American Catholic church right through Vatican II.7 In our confidence that we knew--the power of the keys and of the philosophia perennis--we divided all things into three: God, humankind, and creatures. Eucharistic Canon Four reads: "You have created humankind and set us over all creatures." Nor "all other creatures." In that modern church, the function of leadership was to declare the will of God. As it happened, this will of God coin-cided neatly in most cases with church order and with the press- 854 Review for Religious ing needs of Catholic immigrants in a Protestant nation. The function of subjects was to submit to command: Teach sixth grade, work the neonatal ward, move to another house, resign from Congress. Our submission itself was virtue, a good and holy thing. At the same time, Donald Gelpi argued a generation ago, "sub-mission of one's will to a superior [was] subtly transformed from a means into an end in itself.''8 Modernism is now fading and its imperatives--progress, cer-titude, universal truth, control--have become hollow cries in a dark alley. Postmodernism now spreads everywhere and its imper-atives- information processing, flexible specialization, informed cooperation, and pluralism--are giving shape to even emerging societies and they are re-forming leadership.9 Those of us in consecrated life, where the shift is a generation old, already.know this post-modernism and its shift in leadership style. Women like Mercy Sister Elizabeth Carroll and BViVl Ann Ida Gannon, and men like Benedictine Rembert Weakland and Franciscan Regis Armstrong decided that authority is given (in Gannon's bold phrase) "for the service of [their] fellow religious."~° They learned to be servant-leaders. Servant leadership is gover-nance by authority. Authority, which humankind always needs, is the ability so to arrange a lifeworld that those served by authority want to follow its decisions. Fully exercised, leadership by authority has rediscovered the authority of every individual. For in its root meanings--the .Latin noun auc-tot and the verb augere--authority names a human person's self-actualization and growth from within. Centuries ago we could say this clearly, as in the Jesuit Constitution: "Thus it is that from the general as the head flows all the authority of the provincials, and from the provincials that of the local superiors, and from that of these local superiors that of the individual members." That authority "of the individual member" had been honored in eremitic wisdom and monastic rules, and it was even honored in nineteenth-century congrega-tions, but throughout in a hierarchic concept of creation, as in the constitution just cited. Power is the ability so to determine a lifeworld that those under the power will have to do what they are told whether they want to or not. November-December 199Y 855 Tetlow ¯ From Useful Instruments to Willing Agents We can no longer imagine hierarchically; our imagination depicts reality as organic, evolutionary, and democratic. We once again hear all other creatures "speak to us in their own right," requiring us to author a green, peaceful, shared earth for God's sake.~1 Our task now is to locate the authority of each individual within community. This is the move from power to authority; with it comes the second shift. 2. From Submission to Discernment t~VM Sister Ann Ida Gannon, suffering in fidl habit in midJune in St. Louis in 1966, read her paper on leadership to the Institute on Religious Life in the Modern World, which the New York Times called a "pioneering attempt." She spoke of "accidentals and essentials" of religious life, but not philosophically, though she couhl have; she spoke fi'om experience, her own and other sis-ters'. On that hot day, she was breaking the ground of discern- ~lent. In the first half of this century, leadership in religion pre-supposed "a model of human coexistence that saw power, Leadership of authority presupposes a model of human coexistence that sees all personal encounters as mutual self-expression reaching toward self- transcendence and community. exchange, and communal allegiance as naturally and properly merged in the same personal encounters" (Unger, p. 177). The superior gave a command, and the subject gave obe-dience; they exchanged protection and loyalty; both swelled with alle-giance to the institute. This was leadership of power with its correl-ative, submission. Leadership of authority presup-poses a model of human coexistence that sees all personal encounters as mutual self-expression reaching toward self-transcendence and com-munity. The model is still taking form in a socioeconomic order of remarkable instability. It has provoked destabilizing changes in consecrated life; I mention two as particularly pertinent to trans-formed leadership. First, religious are now blessed with learning, something which was not always the case. Remember the Sister Formation 856 Review for Religious Program in the fifties, and think of the number among us now who hold graduate degrees. That fact ranks us with the privileged class. The main class division in our nation today is caused by the deep chasm between those who have learning and those who have not, between those who can keep on learning and those who cannot. Our efforts therefore embody the self-donation of the privileged for the not-privileged. Yet--here is the second destabilizing change--in an odd inver-sion, we also belong to the laboring classes. The reason is that we have to keep on learning: for our lifeworld, how gracefully and intelligently to erode the "violence and vacuity that charac-terizes the modern relation to reality"'2; for our communities, how to deconstruct and reconstruct our own charisms. Hence, we belong to the new "laboring class," for as labor historian Shoshana Zuboff has said, the labor of our day is learning. Why are these important to leadership? Power could instruct subjects on God's will (recall: we knew); authority has to search for it. As Donald Gelpi wrote prophetically in 1966: The authority of the superior appears, not as a species of extrinsic divine sanction which automatically transforms [the superior's] will into the objective norm of [the] sub-ject's perfection, but rather as a necessary and providential means whereby superior and subject are enabled to coordi-nate their efforts in pursuit of a concrete apostolic end to which they commonly aspire (p. 84). Authority, then, requires both having and searching for com-mon apostolic aims. In the ruckus of Catholic American life, how do we come to common apostolic aims and purposes? We have learned to call the process discernment. It means a great many things in different congregations, but it has common elements.'3 Discernment begins and continues through mutual listening. It succeeds among those who maintain the necessary conditions of a discerning heart, for as Roberto Mangabeira Unger writes, we know both from human history "and in our own intro-spective experience., that our predispositions and longings may be as misguided as our ideas.''~4 Discernment ends, consequently, for all of us, not in certitude about "God's will," but in hopeful enactment of God's hopes. So we have moved from submission to discernment. It is a risky enterprise, reminding me of a tombstone in Brooklyn: across the top, "Never sick a day in my life" and in the middle, "Now Noventber-Decen*ber 1995 857 Tetlow ¯ From Useful Instruments to Willing Agents this." If leaders cannot give absolute commands in God's name, where in God's name is God's will? 3. From God's Plan to God's Project "I don't think you should be dean," the older Jesuit told Joe Tetlow in 1969 as they drank coffee the morning aJ~er his appoint~nent. "You wear a tie. If you can ignore God's will that way, what will you do to the school?" As this millennium ends, the West is caught in a crisis of authority and a crisis of community. About authority: ¼7e must talk, Hannah Arendt once said, not about what authority is but about what it used to be. Americans (like all peoples) have wit-nessed authority incessantly prostituted in this century: a sev-enty- five-years' war, not over yet perhaps; seventy-odd democratic revolutions decayed into tyranny; noble-seeming ideologies yield-ing bitter fruit in torture and genocide. We are unnerved as sec-ularist humanism, dominant for half a century, unravels, and middle-mind Aanerica renounces its brief trial of the belief that "all goods which are not anchored in human powers or fulfillments are illusions from a bygone age.''~s Americans are back to angels, death, and other fundamentals, and we do not know what author-ity is or can be. We Catholics also have to talk about what authority once was; we lost the propositional certitude of dogmatic theology and immemorial patterns of praxis. [Historian John Padberg SJ loves to say, "I knew all this would happen the day they made us take off the maniple."] We still feel the scorching conflicts that whooshed in through good Pope John's opened windows; and now we suffer dark confusions as the church's European captivity draws to its end. One victim of these many shifts is what our gr~at-grand-fore-bears called "God's will." It meant a great deal to them: a fixed and infinite plan for the cosmos, an almighty God, transcending time and dwarfing human wisdom. Our forebears perceived God's plan in terms of neoscholastic essences and imperatives, which of course remained eternally the same; hence, the Roman collar and the wimple were nonnegotiable parts of the essence of religious life, as my old priest friend felt. And bells, cloisters, prayers, all "God's will." In the American Catholicism at this end of this century

Issue 40.1 of the Review for Religious, January 1981. ; REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS (ISSN 0034-639X), published every Iwo months, is ediled in collaboration with the faculty members of the Department of Theological Studies of St. Louis University. The editorial offices are Iocaled at Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus, St. Louis, MO. © 1981 by REWEW FOR RELiGiOUS. Composed, printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at SI. Louis, MO. Single copies: $2.50. Subscription U.S.A.: $9.00 a year; $17.00 for two years. Other countries: $10.00 a year; $19.00 for two years. For subscription orders or change of address, write: Rt:vt~:w t'oR Rt:Lt(;tOUS: P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55802. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. .~eremiah L. Alberg, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Book Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor January, 1981 Volume 40 Number 1 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to REVIEW t'ott RELIGIOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; Jesuit Community; St. Joseph's Universily; City Avenue at 54th St.; Philadelphia, PA 19131. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from REVIEW t'OR RELIGIOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.: St. Louis, MO 63108. ++Out of print" issues and articles not published as reprints are available from Universily Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Review for Religious Volume 40, 1981 Editorial Offices 3601 Lindell Boulevard, Room 428 Saint Louis, Missouri 63108 Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Jeremiah L. Alberg, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Miss Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Book Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is published in January, March, May, July, Sep-tember, and November on the fifteenth 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 is available from University Microfilms International; Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. Copyright © 1981 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOtJS. Toward a Method for the Study of Spirituality Edward Kinerk, S.J. Father Kinerk is presently on sabbatical leave, doing post-doctoral studies in spirituality at St. Louis University. He resides at Jesuit Hall; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108, A former professor of historical theology once described spirituality as a "gl0b" area. He explained this rather inelegant label by pointing out that spirituality enjoys an unlimited wealth of resources but possesses no tools for getting those resources organized. "I understand what it means to do history orto do theology," he objected, "but what does it mean to do spirituality?" StUdents contemplating work in spirituality will take small comfort in his remarks but they will know exactly what he meant, for, unlike most other academic disciplines, spirituality lacks both formal definition of its content and methodology proper to itself. Studies in the history of spirituality, prayer, religious life, Scripture, psychology, theology, and any number of authors and movements can be most beneficial in themselves, but where does one find the unifying principles to bring all this knowledge together? The occasional reader, who finds this or that work personally rewarding, will not be troubled by such abstract concerns,but this vagueness of content and style can be ~a formidable handicap for those who undertake a more thorough study, either for their own enlightenment or with the thought of being of service to others. In .the latter case one must analyze spiritualities, interpret them in their historical-cultural context, compare and contrast them to other spiritualities, and finally develop criteria for criticism and evaluation. The tools for such reflection are not commonly available in the way that they are for other disciplines, including theology.' Part of the difficulty lies in the very nature of spirituality. Except for the 3 4 / Review for Religious, Volume 40, 1981/1 Christological controversies of the fourth and fifth centuries it has been rare for theological speculation to elicit passionate responses on the part of Chris-tians, Spirituality, on the other hand, always makes at least an implicit appeal to the heart; it is much closer to people's lives and emotions than is theology. This is to be expected, but it places the "academic" study of spirituality in an awkward corner precisely because the material lends itself so immediately to practical application, the pastoral. Consequently, spirituality as a discipline finds itself more often called upon to train spiritual directors and retreat-givers than to engage in reflection. This onesidedness is risky. Spirituality can-not afford to neglect the mistakes or the riches which are a part of its heritage; nor can it forego with impunity the arduous task of using the theoretical pro-cess to correct the subtle mistakes of common sense.~ In a recent article for REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, Father Alan Jones chronicled the split between devotion and theology--head and heart--and called for the redevelopment of mystical theology in order to "combat the tendency to anti-intellectualism today, particularly in areas where religious experience is concerned.-3 Using William Johnston's definition of mysticism as "wisdom or knowledge that is found through love,'" Father Jones sug-gested contemplation--which includes all levels of knowing--as the means of bringing reflection into religious experience and religious experience into theological reflection. Father Jones's concern to bring head and heart together must be a con-stant preoccupation for spirituality; the great classics were developed more in the chapel than in the library, though they depended on both. However, I believe that we have an auxiliary task which is less "creative" and more "organizational" in character. In order to bring the vast and often unwieldy material from the history of spirituality into the arena of our prayerful reflec-tion it must first be arranged into digestible form. The purpose of this article will be to suggest some questions or distinctions by which such arrangement can proceed: in other words, a method for the study of spiritualities. Of course, this is an ambitious undertaking, and 1 will protest in advance that ' Theologians may protest that method is a problem for them, too, but at least work is being done. Recently David Tracy has suggested five basic models which have influenced theologica~ inquiry: orthodox, liberal, neo-orthodox, radical, and his own "revisionist" model. See David Tracy, Blessed Rage for Order (Seabury, 1975), pages 22-34. Tracy has been influenced in part:through. his long association with the thought of Bernard Lonergan. In a very important work, Method in Theology (Seabury, 1979; first published: Herder & Herder, 1972), Lonergan ~ipplied his transcendental method to the task of developing a method in theology. 1 will cite Lonergan only briefly in the course of this article, but 1 need to acknowledge that the influence of Method has been considerable. 2 For an explanation of the relationship of the realm of common sense and the realm of theory, see Lonergan, Method, pp. 257-258. ' Alan Jones, "Spirituality and Theology," Rt~vm'w ~oR R~.l.~G~Ot~s 39 (1980), p. 171. ' William Johnston, The Inner Eye of Love (Harper & Row, 1978), p. 20. Jones cites this on p. 170 of his article. Study of Spirituality / 5 these are remarks "toward a method." But since the need is great, I hope that .any venture in this direction might prove useful. Spirituality needs (1) a definition of itself, (2) some tools for analyzing a particular spirituality, (3) some guidelines for relating a spirituality to other spiritualities, and (4) some criteria for evaluation. In the pages that follow I will make attempts in the first three areas and then conclude with some limited thoughts about the fourth. What Is Spirituality? Everyone has a notion of spirituality, but efforts to pin it down in defini-tion can, be frustrating. It is everywhere yet nowhere; its scope is so vast-- potentially as vast as the sum and depth of all human experience--that workable content virtually disappears. Spirituality has been described as "life-style." If we realize that this means more than length of hair and particular preferences for food and clothing, this definiton is actually quite good. A person's spirituality is the way in which he or she lives in accordance with basic values. The famous Swiss theologian, Hans Urs von Balthasar, has given this a more philosophical formulation: "The way in which [an individual] acts and reacts habitually throughout his life according to his objective and ultimate insights and decisions.''~ The strength of such a definition lies in its completeness; its weakness is that it is too complete. We are left afloat on a sea of private human experience with no markers to make this or that dimension of experience stand out. These defini-tions are good because they include everything, but they are not workable because they distinguish nothing. And without distinctions analysis is impossible. What should we look for in a workable definition? First of all, a definition of spirituality for the purpose of study should limit the material to what is expressed. Nothing canbe studied unless it iscommunicated in some way. It is true that spirituality must deal with the mysterious depths of the human per-son in relationship to God and that. this mystery often defies conceptualiza-tion. However, it is usually open to communication through symbolization; and this, too, is a form of expression. Spirituality studies expressions, and these expressions can be conceptual or symbolic: they can be words, or they can be art, music, architecture, or indeed any form of human activity. Of course, an individual's full experience of his or her relationship with God can never be adequately expressed., not even symbolically. This is simply a dif-ficulty which the study of spirituality must accept; we can only examine what is expressed and yet we know that the expression is never exhaustive of the reality. Secondly, a definition of spirituality should contain the idea of personal ~ Hans Urs yon Balthasar, "The Gospel as Norm and Test of All Spirituality in the Church," from Spirituality in the Church, Christian Duquoc, editor, Concilium, vol 9 (Paulist, 1965), p. 7. 6 / Review for Religious, Volume 40, 1981/1 growth. There is no spirituality for an animal, nor do we ever speak of God's spirituality.~ What distinguishes the human condition is growth beyond self, self-transcendence. There is a restlessness which is a constant striving to move from the less~ authentic to the more authentic. This is why spirituality gravitates so readily to psychology, and it is precisely the point at which the greatest care must be exercised not to confuse the two.7 Finally, as indicated earlier, a workable definition must contain markers: terms in the definition which orient the material by distinguishing what is important from what is unimportant. Without some means of making distinc-tions the material of spirituality presents an undivided sameness inimical to study. Markers differentiate that material; and this, in turn, facilitates ques-tions for analysis. The particular selection of markers will necessarily be somewhat arbi.t.rary. Here I have chosen to view any spirituality primarily from the standpoint of expressions of the authentic and expressions of the inauthentic. A spiri'tuality, then, is the expression ofa dialecticalpersonal growth from the inauthentic to the authentic. There are three ingredients in the definition: expression, dialectical personal growth, and authentic-inauthentic. Expres-sion need not be clarified further. Growth has been called dialectical to underscore the fact that all spiritual growth is a simultaneous "yes" to one thing and a "no" to something else. Each step toward the authentic demands a corresponding rejection of the inauthentic.8 The Gospel of Luke manifests this dia.lectical character in its expression of the beatitudes: every benediction has its corresponding curse (Lk 6:20-26). Inauthentic and authentic are the markers referred to above. The total authenticity of a human person would be his or her complete self, transcendence in love. Conversely, total inauthenticity would be complete self-alienation, self-centeredness in hate. For our purposes, however, expres-sions of the authentic and inauthentic will normally be but partial representa-tions of these absolute states. In a famous line from the Imitation of Christ, for example, compunction is an expression of the authentic while vain knowledge is an expression of the inauthentic;9 they are signposts along the ~ Process theologians may take exception to this. In a di-polar notion of God one might be able to speak of God's spirituality: "God in his consequent aspect receives into himself that which occurs in the world, so that it becomes the occasion for newer and richer, as well as better~ concretions in the ongoing movement of divine activity," W. Norman Pittenger, "Process Thought: A Contem-porary Trend in Theology," Process Theology, Ewert H. Cousins, editor (Newman, 1971), p. 27. Even if one were to accept this position, it would be quite difficult to move from the idea of a spirituality of God to its description. ' It is very easy for spiritual direction to become psychological counseling. Of course, sometimes this is desirable because it is counseling which is needed, but often we slide into a counseling framework simply because it seems to have more substance than spiritual direction. This again reveals the necessity of definition and methodology proper to spirituality. a Lonergan views this as a fundamental characteristic of religious development. See Method, p. II0. Study of Spirituality / 7 way. Furthermore, specific expressions of the authentic and the inauthentic are not always univocal, even within the sam, e spirituality. In the Cloud of Unknowing, meditation on Christ's passion can be either an expression of the authentic or the inauthentic, depending on the stage of one's contemplative development.'° Questions for Analysis In an age as hermeneutically conscious as our own, it need not be stressed that a pre~'equisite for the analysis of any spirituality is some understanding of its historical-cultural context. To be unaware, for instance, that the end of the Roman persecutions coincided with the great movement to the desert in the fourth century would be to miss the opportunity for many insights into the roots of desert spirituality. The historical-cultural context is available for anyone who wishes to take the time to do someresearch. Our project assumes that this research can and will be done, but we are concerned here with something more general. Questions for analysis must serve two purposes. They must provide a means of organizing the material of a spirituality in such a way that the material can be more easily assimilated. In other words, they must teach us how to read and. how to retain what we read more effectively. The other pur-pose is that of comparison and contrast. The questions for analysis must be such that they canbe asked more or less equally of any spirituality. It is only by putting the same questions to many different bodies of material that we can begin, the,process o.f comparing similarities and contrasting differences which will lead us to deeper understanding. The first question flows immediately from the terms of the definition: what.are the expressions of the authentic and the inauthentic? An effective way to begin answering this question is to make a list. Reading through the SpiritualExercises of St. Ignatius, for instance, we would observe that shame and confusion, sorrow, tears, anguish, intimate knowledge, poverty, humility and gratitudeI' are but some of the expressions of the authentic; and we could do the same for expressions of the inauthentic. Making a list is a good way to begin because it directs us to the text with a simple and specific objective: how does the spirituality express what it values and what it rejects? An exhaustive 9 "I would rather feel compunction of heart for my sins than merely know the definition of com-punction," Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, edited with an introduction by Harold C. Gardiner (Image, 1955), Book I, chapter 1. ,o The Cloud of Unknowing, by an anonymous fourteenth-century Englishman, edited and in-troduced by William Johnston (Image, 1973), chapter vii. , '~ Ignatius Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, translation by Louis J. Puhl (Newman, 1954). Shame and confusion, sorrow, tears and anguish are from the First Exercise of the First Week, #48; intimate knowledge of Christ is from the First Comtemplation of the Second Week, #104; poverty and humility are from the Two Standards, #147; and gratitude isffrom the Contemplation to Attain the Love of God, #233. 8'/Review for Religious, Volume 40, 1981/1 list is rarely possible or even desirable, but we do want to be certain that we ini-tiate our analysis by carefully gathering all of the pertinent expressions. A list gives us the concrete expressions from which to work, but it is too one-dimensional to be of more than limited value. By itself a list cannot single out those expressions which are of special importance, nor can it fit them into a pattern of meaning. What we lack is an organiz.ing form'2 which could give the expressions depth and a relationship to one another. In the SpiritualExer-cises an excellent illustration of such a form is the image of the Two Stand-ards: the Kingdom of Christ verstis the Kingdom of SatanI' ~ The Kingdom of Christ gives depth and relationship to t.he expressions of the authentic while the Kingdom of Satan does the ~ame for the inauthentic. Intimate knowledge, poverty, humility, gratitude and the like contribute definite nuances to the understanding of the nature of these two kingdoms; and the expressions, in turn, receive their full meaning only in relationship to the complete image. The Two Standards are the unifying image for expressions in Ignatian spirituality. While Ignatius himself gives the organizing form of the Two Standards, it is often necessary to uncover a form which is not itself one of the particular images used in a given text. Such would be thecase in the Life'ofAntony by Athanasius. ~4 Clearly the text does not lack for images, but the best organizing form is rather the structure which Athanasius employs to develop his story: a series of four withdrawals by Antony, each one into greater solitude. The authgr uses these withdrawals to highlight periods of development in Antony's life, and each period unifies a corresponding set of expressions of the authentic and the inauthentic. In the first withdrawal Antony left his home to li~,e on the outskirts of the village with an older ascetic. The expressions of the authentig and the inauthentic are characteristic of a "novitiate" period: zeal, faith, desire for purity of heart, imitation 6f the older ascetic were set in opposition to anxiety over f~mily, money, fame, difficulties of asceticism and sexuality. In the second withdrawal, closing himself into a tomb,, the chief ex- '~ The identification of basic units (expr~essions of the authentic and the inauthentic) and the discovery of the forms by which these expressions are related have a slight resemblance to struc-turalism. However, a double caution is in order. In i!s extreme sense structuralism can become an ideology in which all we can know about a system are its basic units and their associations; further meaning would be denied. In a less ideological sense structuralism is a method of inquiry which can be more friendly to theology and spirituality, but even here--as the term can be 'very am-biguous- l wish to make clear that my own use is limited to exactly what has been described in the text. '~ Spiritual Exercises, #13~,- 148. ~' St. Athanasius, Patriarch of Alexandria, was probably the author of the Life ofA ntony shortly after the hermit's death in 356. Antony represented a prototype .for the desert fathers, and, whatever the historical accuracy of the Life, it c~ertainly had a profound influence" on desert spiritqality. This important work is once again available in English: Athanasius: The Life of St. AntOny and the Letter to Marcellinius, translation and introduction by Robert C. Gregg, preface~ by William A. CIcbsh (Paulist, 1980~ Study of Spirituality p~'essions of the inauthentic are wild imaginings, terror and the temptation to flight, while defiance of the demons, perseverance and faith are expressio ~ns of the authentic. From the tomb Antony went to live in an abandoned fort in the desert where he was besieged by the demons. A hint of weariness from the clamor of the demons is the only expression of the inauthentic while expres-sions of the authentic reflect Antony's growing strength: confidence, utter equilibrium, purity of soul, and so forth. Antony's final withdrawal was to the "inner mountain" which is described in paradisal terms. The expression of the inauthentic most characteristic of this period is pride in the power God has given him; while the expressions of the authentic are the manifestations of the power of the Spirit working through Antony: overpowering the demons, curing the sick, instructing the monks and confiz lnding the heretics.~ It is not always possibly to find a single form o of material together. One rather difficult text is tt fine analysis of this spiritual classic, Bernard SI truths which they [the four books of the Imitati~ ranged according to a precise play, a rational s~ dialectic."~6 Much of the difficulty is due to the sl of thoughts useful to the spiritual life, possibly There is a variety of equal themes, and so no sine could give unity to all the expressions. The most o is to discover, or invent, several forms which toge into useful patterns. As a corollary to the organizing forms we can i of the authentic and the inauthentic for stages of s life is a type of growth but in many well-devei specified stages,'7 and the key for detecting thesl sions of the authentic and the inauthentic. When ~ authentic becomes an expression of the inauthen growth has been crossed. An example of this ha~ i the Cloud of Unknowing: meditation on Christi! the authentic for the beginner but just the oppt vanced in the spirit of contemplation. Sometimes 'image which will tie a body Imitation of Christ. In his ~aapen has noted that "the n] enfold have not been ar-ructure, or a psychological yle of the work: a collection by more than one author. le form can be found which ne can do in such a situation ther best gather the material dso examine the expressions !iritual growth. All spiritual 9ed spiritualities there are ~ stages lies with the expres-particular expression of the tic, then a stage of spiritual dready been furnished from passion is an expression of ~site for someone more ad-the stages of growth will be '~ The four journeys: leaving his home to live on the outskirts of a village (Life of Antony, c. 4); living in the tomb (Ibid, c. 8); from tl~e tomb to the abandoned fort (Ibid, cc. 11-12); and the withdrawal to the inner mountain (Ibid, cc. 49-51). ,6 Bernard Spaapen, "A New Look at an Old Classic," from Imitating Christ, E. Malatesta, editor, Religious Experience Series, vol. 5 (Abbey Press, 1974). This work is a translation from the French Dictionary of Spirituality. " Frequently a spirituality will describe the break between an unreflective Christian life and the desire to lead a more spiritual life. Another break occurs later when the Christian leaves the period characterized by struggle and "spiritual achievement" and moves more into a climate of sur-render and "spiritual giftedness." The classical distinctions have been the three ways: purgative, illuminative, and unitive. 10 / Review for Religious, Volume 40, 1981/1 the structure giving unity to the material, but this will not always be the case. The second question for analysis comes from the idea of personal growth. A ~pirituality which reaches the state of expression does not appear out of the vacuum, but it is the maturation of much personal experience. One or many have traveled a similar dialectical journey from the inauthentic to the authen-tic and from this experience comes a wealth of valuable insight. This insight, which embodies both the techniques and the lived experience of the journey, can be called wisdom, and it is the ob)ect of the second question: what is the wisdom of a particular spirituality? To discover the wisdom of'a particular spirituality we must look at its teaching. In what special manner does a spirituality propbse.to find God, and what experience flows from its techniques of encounter? In the Life of Antony, for example, wisdom comes especially from the experience of solitude, x~hich for the desert fathers meant struggle with demons representing every imaginable thought or feeling. The wisdom of the Life of Antony is expressed in a long speech by the hermit to a group of other hermits assembled for the occasion.'8 This speech, often called a speech on discernment, is a description of what to expect in solitude and how to deal with whatever (or whomever) occurred. The wisdom of the desert employs some of the most colorful and varied imagery in the history of spirituality, but it is always characterized by the detection and diminishment of interior turmoil in order to find and preserve apatheia.'9 A very different example, though with striking parallels, is fouhd in the wisdom of St. Ignatius. The Spiritual Exercises express wisd6m not in speeches but in appendices: rules for thinking with the Church, rules for eating, rules for discernment, and so on. Ignatian wisdom, however, is not contained equally in all these rules but in one special and famous set: the rules for the discernment of spirits.2° As mentioned above, the primary image of lgnatian spirituality is the Two Standards, and the go~.l is to serve with Christ who wishes to spread his Kingdom and defeat the Kingdom of Satan. Now these kingdoms will enjoy victory or suffer defe~t as a result of our particular choices. However, the kingdoms are distinguished from each other less by the ,8 Life of Antony, cc. 16-43. ,9 Apatheia was the ascetical goal of the desert fathers. It was not apathy but rather a state of in-terior calm and recollection. Athanasius described this state in the Life of Anthony: "The state of his soul was one of purity, for it was not cpnstricted by grief, nor relaxed by pleasure, nor affected by either laughter or dejection. Moreover, when he saw th'e crowd, he was not annoyed any more than he was elated at being embraced by so many people. He maintained utter equilibrium, like one guided by reason and steadfast in that which accords with nature" (c. 14). Perhaps the best summary of desert wisdom is contained in the writings of Evagrius Ponticus (d. 399), especially in his Praktikos. This has been translated together with Chapters on Prayer and published as Praktikos: Chapters on Prayer translated and edited by John Eudes Bamberger, O.C.S.O. (Cistercian Publication, 1970). ~o Spiritual Excercises, #313-336. Study of Spirituality object of a particular choice than by attitudes. Consequently, the disciple of Christ must differentiate between objects of possible choice according to authenticating.feelings (attitudes) or their opposites. The rules for the discern-ment of spirits, are Ignatius' wisdom for making this all important differentia-tion and decision. There is no need to multiply examples. Wisdom gets at the heart of a particular spirituality because it taps the special experience of the person or persons who have lived it. Often referred to "thoughts" in describing the struggle of solitude and to apatheia as the goal of that struggle. For Ignatius, the key word would be discernment. On the other hand, there need not be but one wisdom for every spirituality. Moving beyond the Spiritual Exercises one could speak also of a wisdom of obedience in Ignatius. The 0b)ective~is to identify the central insights of a spirituality; insights, however, that flow from matured experience. Finally, we.should underline the fact that questions for analysis--expres-sions and wisdom--are effective for focusing and organizing the material, but they certainly do not exhaust its riches. In addition to the fact that no set of questions can ever draw everything from the material, a spirituality will always retain a certain opacity regardless of how carefully it is scrutinized; ~and we will always find ourselx~es returning to the source for clarification, new insight, and personal edification. However, at some point in time we must determine that an analysis is finished, both in the number of questions asked and in the depth of the answers. It is the suggestion of this article that the two questions given above will focus and organize the material sufficiently to enable us to turn to the wider arena of comparison and contrast of different spiritualities. Questions for Comparison and Contrast Bernard Lonergan has described method as"a normative pattern of recur-rent and related operations yielding cumulative and progressive results.''2' What we have thus far isnot a complete method but its foundation. Questions for analysis provide a normative pattern of operat!ons which can be applied to. any number of particular spiritualities, but only continued application fol-lowed by comparison and contrast will yield cumulative and progressive results. Now the general matter for any comparison and contrast would normally be the exprbssions of the authentic and the inauthentic, the images and forms which give them unity, and the expressions of wisdom. From this one could proceed in any number of ways depending only on time, interest, and avail-ability of sources. Let us suppose, for example, that someone was interested in the general topic of prayer and that he or she had some familiarity with both 2, Lonergan, Method, p. 4. 12 / Review for Religious, Volume 40, 1981/1 the Cloud of Unknowing and the works of John of the Cross. Even an exami-nation'of the titles would reveal that "cloud" and "night" are expressions of the authentic for both. A study of the similarities and differences between the Cloud's understanding of "cloud" and John of the Cross's understanding of "night" might prove to be a straightforward and interesting investigation into the meaning of apophatic prayer.2' Ordinarily the work of comparison and contrast will draw heavily on our ability to understand the relative hist6rical-cultural contexts. This can be given some direction, however, if we keep in mind two principles for compari-son. The first is that a spirituality cannot help but reflect certain cosmological perspectives. As a result we should always ask: what understandings of space and time shape the relationship between self, world, and God for a particular spirituality? For example, the Life of Antony used a simple cosmological framework which placed a person on top of the world but under two concen-tric hemispheres: the air, which was the abode of the demons, and the sky, which was heaven and the abode of God. Thus, to go to God one had to leave the world and ascend through the air, and this meant battles with the demons. Today we experience ourselves through a cosmology which is couched in evolutionary and psychological terms. Instead of place, time is the important parameter: it is no longer "up" and "down" which correspond to the authen-tic and the inauthentic but "transformation" and "regression." The discovery and investigations of the unconscious have forged a new vocabulary for our descriptions of evil, human growth, and the nature of freedom. The unconscious has also given us a new locus for expressions of the authentic and the inauthentic. The cosmology of the day--be it Antony's, our own, or any other--will not only shape the expressions of spirituality but it will also locate those expressions in accordance with its perception of the relationship in time and space of self, world, and God. ~: The cosmological questions can be made specific. The question, "'Where is Christ?" yields interesting resolts when asked of St. Basil the Great (fourth century) and St. Ignatius (sixteenth century). Each has a passage about Christ the King and his call to men and women to follow him, but note the different images for describing where Christ is and the practical consequences for discipleship. For Basil: "Where is Christ the King? In heaven, to be sure. Thither it behooves you, soldier of Christ, to direct your course. Forget all earthly delights.''23 Ignatius, however, perceived the world as friendlier potential for the self's encounter with God: "Consider Christ our Lord, standing in a lowly place in a great plain about the region of Jerusalem . ,,2, And instead of forgetting the world in order to go to Christ in heaven, Ignatius See note 28 below. Basil, "An Introduction to the Ascetical Life," From St. Basic, Ascetical Works, TheFathers of The Church vol. 9, translated by Sister M. Monica Wagner, C.S.C. (New York, 1950), p. 9. Spiritual Exercises, #144. ¯ Study of Spirituafity / 13 encourages people to follow a Christ who "sends them throughout the whole world to spread his sacred doctrine among all men, no matter what their state or condition.''25 We can do similar comparisons for time. "'When will Christ come?" For St. Paul and the early Christians the answer was, "Soon!" But for most of the Church's history until recently, the question of time hasn't been that impor-tant. Most Christians tended to regard the world as having a certain timeless stability. The important time was not Christ's coming in glory but the individ-ual's meeting with Christ at death. Today, however, an evolutionary con-sciousness has made time very important. When will Christ come for someone imbued with the vision of Teilhard de Chardin? He will come when the human race, now responsible for cooperating in its own evolution, will have (with God's grace) brought about the kingdom. Statements about time and place are not theological statements; they are descriptions of world views. The location of a spirituality within its particular cosmological framework makes possible the comparison and contrast of similar expressions which come from widely different historical-cultural con-texts. It would be far beyond the scope of this article to attempt to outline the world views which have shaped and been shaped by western thought, but it is worth mentioning here two books which are particularly insightful: Romano Guardini's The End of the Modern World and John Dunne's A Search for God in Time andMemory.~6 Guardini has mapped out four cosmologies fun-damental to the history of western thought: classical, medieval, modern, and post-modern. If we take into account that much has occurred which might further clarify his analysis of the present (post-modern) period, this work is very useful. Dunne has given the study of world views an interesting refine-ment by pointing to the different~ ways in which autobiographies have been written: a story of deeds (classical), a gamut of experience (Augustine), a lad-der of experience (medieval), and a story of appropriation (modern and con-temporary). This does not do justice to the nuances given by Dunne, but the distinctions he introduces are invaluable for appreciating the genres under which spiritual growth has been described. A second principle for comparison and contrast is that there exist specifi-cally different, yet equally valid, spiritualities within the Church. In other words, spiritualities differ not only because of various historical-cultural backgrounds, but they also differ according to type. Of course, a rigid and exclusive classification would be impossible and undesirable, but the varied emphases of many spiritualities suggest that we might discover several models which would help us to better understand similarities and differences. ~ lbid, #145. 2~ John Dunne, A Search for God in Time and Memory (Macmillian, 1967). Romano Guardini, The End of the Modern World, edited with an introduction by Frederick D. Wilhelmsen, translated by Joseph Theman and Herbert Burke (Sheed and Ward, 1956). "14 / Review for Religious, Volume 40, 1981/1 To develop models it Js necessary to select criteria for differentiation. This selection, always arbitrary, establishes the parameters by which the models are distinguished. Here the criteria will be "attitudes" toward two potential loci for expressions of the authentic: the world--including human society and institution--and history--especially change and conversion. We can deter-mine the models by asking this question: does a spirituality view the world and/or history as a positive locus for expressions of the authentic?2' If a spirituality is not positive toward either we will call it apophatic; if it is positive toward both we will call it apostolic; if it is positive toward the world but not toward history we will call it city-ofrGod; and if it is positive toward history but not toward the world we will call it prophetic. At one extreme, answering "no" to both the world and to history, are the apophatic'8 spiritualities. These are the mystical spiritualities known to us today primarily through the Cloud of Unknowing, John of the Cross, and Thomas Merton. For an apophatic spirituality, the chief expression of the authentic is negation of the specific image: one goes toGod through unknow-ing or through darkness. It should be stressed, however, that the apophatic spiritualities do not necessarily hold that the world is evil or that history is meaningless; one need only think of the concern and involvement of Thomas Merton. The apophatic spiritualities emphasize a wisdom of contemplation through negation, and the goal of that contemplation is the love and knowledge of God. A curiosity of apophatic prayer is that its central insight-negation- should never be practiced by a beginner. Both the Cloud and John of the Cross counsel that apophatic prayer is not for everyone, that beginners should definitely rely on the media.ting image, and that there are signs by which one can know if he or she is called to this form of prayer.'9 At the other extreme, answering "yes" to both world and history, are the apostolic spiritualities. An apostolic spirituality views the world and history as a locus for self-transformation, Its expressions can vary greatly. Ignatius was concerned with "the defense and propagation of the faith and the progress of souls.''3° For Ignatius holiness was found through an involvement with the 27 The idea for this came to me from reading John Macquarrie, Christian Hope (Seabury, 1978). In a s~ction called, "A Typology of Interpretations" (pp.86-88), Macquarrie works out four types of Christian hope: individual vs. social, this-worldly vs. other-worldly expectations, evolutionary vs. revolutionary, and realized vs. future. 2a Apophatic: in speaking of God one can either affirm certain truths (kataphatic theology) or, realizing that God is beyond any conceptualization, one can speak o'f him by negation (apophatic theology). The apophatic mystics are those whose way the the way of unknowing. This can be found to a high degree in many mystical writers, and the chief source for ~their apophatic vocabulary is the work of a mysterious Syrian monk of the t:ifth or sixth century who has been known through the ages as Dionysius the Areopagite or pseudo-Dionysius. 29 Cloud of Unknowing, c. 75. John of the Cross~ Ascent of Mount Carmel, translated, edited, and introduced by E. Allison Peers (Image, 1958) Book I1, c. xiii, pp. 219-223. ~0 Ignatius Loyola, The Formula of the Institute, as contained in the papal bull, Exposcit debitum Study of Spirituality world in an attempt to spread the kingdom. Ignatius' successor, Father Pedro Arrupe, wants "the conversion of the individual" but he also wants to "transform the world into a fit habitation for justice and humanity.''3' It is important to distinguish apostolic work from apostolic spirituality as that model is being described here. Everyone is called in some way to the apostolate, but not everyone seeks God primarily through involvement with the world and the transformation of its history. When a particular spirituality adopts the vocabulary of involvement and transformation in its expressions of the authentic and the inauthentic and in its statement of wisdom, then it exem-plifies the essential marks of the apostolic model. A city-of-Godspirituality, saying "yes" to the world and "no" to history, is characterized by the location of expressions of the authentic in one special place in the world to the exclusion of others. This place, which then becomes a reflection of the kingdom of God, could be a monastery, the home, or even the individual human heart. St. Benedict summarized his wisdom in the form of a Rule: how to live the kingdom together in the monastery. The Imitation of Christ counsels flight to the safety of our own hearts where "you will see the kingdom of God come into your soul.''32 A city-of-God spirituality has probably been the norm for most Christians throughout history, and it is also a characteristic of every other type of spirituality, even if not the primary one. Whenever we focus on a particular community or on our own heart we are highlighting the city-of-God dimension of our spiritual lives, The prophetic spirituality finds expressions of the authentic in .history but not in the world. The Old Testament prophet offered interpretations of history as well as judgments. The radical poverty of St. Francis of Assisi was a judgment of the abuse of material wealth and it was a sign of hope in a God who would fulfill all promises. Prophetic spirituality is often characterized.by living one or more of the gospel values to an extreme: Francis and poverty, the virgins and ascetics living a life of celibacy while awaiting martyrdom in the early Church, or the gospel-motivated civil disobedience in our own times. While prophetic spirituality often contains the dimension of a "challenge" it certainly need not be a gloomy spirituality--as witnessed by the joy of St. Francis. Once again, we must not adhere to these models too rigorously. The ex-amples given above illustrated the tendencies of their respective models to a marked degree; but most spiritualities, includ!ng those mentioned, are mix-of July 21, 1550. Translation from Th~ Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, translated and edited by George Ganss (Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1970), p. 66. ~ Pedro Arrupe, "The Challenge of the World and the Mission of the Society," opening address to the Thirty-Second General Congregation of the Society of Jesus. Published in .4 Planet to Heal translated with notes by John Harriott (Ignatian Center of Spirituality, Rome, 1975), p. 312. ~ Imitation of Christ, Book 11, c. 1. 16 / Review for Religious, Volume 40, 1981/1 tures of all four, with perhaps one or more predominating. With this caution. in mind we could make use of the models to organize and clarify the dif-ferences and similarities we observe among the various spiritualities. For ex-ample, both Ignatius of Loyola and John of the Cross were sixteenth-century Spanish saints who shared the same geography and culture. The spiritualities of both these men are familiar enough to us that we would not be surprised to find a number of significant differences in spite of similar backgrounds. We know that consolation is an important part of the spirituality of Ignatius: it is an expression of the authentic, something to be sought in prayer. For John of the Cross, on the other hand, consolation in prayer was often a sign of the in-authentic: the contemplative advancing in prayer should neither seek consola-tion nor trust it when it came.~3 This apparent contradiction is resolved when we remember that we are dealing with two very different models of spiritual-ity. John, the apophatic mystic who shuns specific images so as to approach God in the "night," is consistent within his model when he rejects consola-tions. Ignatius, the apostolic man who finds God in the world through specific choices, is consistent in asking to have these choices confirmed through con-solation. Apophatic and apostolic are different paths of spiritual growth. Towards Evaluation Ultimately evaluation is the responsibility of the Church, and over the cen-turies she has generally given a wide latitude to the expressions claiming to be of the Spirit. As long as a spirituality refrained from making its charism nor-mative for all Christians, maintained a balanced view of theology and human nature, and did not habitually defy the directions of the hierarchy, the Church has been at least tolerant if not actively supportive. Ronaid Knox has catalogued a number of exotic spiritual movements beginning with the Corin-thian community, and his very thorough work is an encyclopedia of spiritual aberrations together with the appropriate judgment of the Church.3' Negative criteria are much easier to establish than positive, and the records of the Holy Office detail specific distortions to be avoided rather than positive principles on which to build. But, then, most great spiritual leaders did not consult the Vatican archives in order to construct a charism; they responded to the work of the Spirit and left the editing to others. Nonetheless~ it is possible to point out three indicators of a good spirituality: good theology, good sense, and good results. Good spirituality must flow out of the Christian communi-ty's understanding of the gospel and hence must exhibit good theology. Spirituality is a human movement, and so good spirituality should reflect a keen sensitivity to the human condition--good sense. Finally, a good spirituality will produce good results because it will be the work of the Holy Spirit-- "Whoever remains in me, with me in him, bears fruit in plenty" (Jn 15:5). John of the Cross, Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book II, cc. 4, 7. Ronald Knox, Enthusiasm (Oxford University Press, 1961). Study of Spirituality / 17 Good theology and good sense are not abstract principles which can be ap-plied unerringly to any new situation. In most cases they are the culmination of a long process of give and take between the Church and the proponents of a new spirituality. On the one side there must be an increasingly sympathetic understanding of the expressions of the new spirituality; on the other, there must be a growing clarification of the meanings of those expressions. Let us take St. Francis of Assisi and the Franciscans as an example. The cry for the vita apostolica--a return to the life of the gospels in penance, poverty, and preaching--did not appear suddenly in 1206 when Francis over-came his fear of leprosy. The twelfth century had already witnessed a large nu.mber of spiritual movements toward the vita apostolica, and many of these movements were in tension with the Church. A change in the socio-economic climate, the abuses of wealth especially among the clergy, and the Church's own reforms of the eleventh century had brought about a hunger for new ways of expressing the spiritual aspirations of those who did not feel called to the cloistered life of the monastery. The Cathars,3~ the Humiliati,~6 and the Waldensians~' were some of the better known movements which answered to this hunger. Almost inevitably there was resistance from the official Church. If we leave aside misunderstandings and personal animosities, this resistance was usually on theological and pastoral grounds. Theologically, the new movements presented opinions ranging from the outright dualism of the Cathars tothe denial of the validity of a sacrament administered by a corrupt priest. Such theological opinions, which touched the sacramental nature of the Church, could not be tolerated. Pastorally, the issue was normally over the right to preach. Did a person who took the gospel seriously and lived poorly have the right to preach without the permission of the local clergy or bishops? Both the Waldensians and the Humiliati approached Rome for approval but were rebuffed on the question of preaching. No one denied the need for greater poverty, and the pope himself called ~' The Cathars, also known as Albigensians, were especially active in southern France from the middle of the twelfth century. They were virtually a distinct religion with their own organization of dioceses. Theologically they were influenced by the Bogomils of Bulgaria whose theology can be traced back to a Manichean dualism. ~6 The Waldensians were an evangelical movement founded by Valdes, a merchant from Lyons~ They attempted to remain orthodox but were forbidden to preach at the time of the Third Lateran Council (I 179). ~' The Humiliati appeared in northern Italy during the second part of the twelfth century. They were forbidden to preach in 1179 but were eventually reconciled to the Church by Innocent III in 1201. He gave them a threefold rule which regulated the men as canons regular, the women as religious, and a group of married people as a type of third order. For an interesting treatment of the dealings of Innocent Ill with the Humiliati see Brenda Bolton, "Innocent lll's Treatment of the Humiliati", from Popular Belief and Practice, edited by G.J. Cuming and Derek Baker (Cambridge University Press, 1972). 18 / Review for Religious, Volume 40, 1981/1 the bishops and clergy to task for their failure to preach the gospel;38 it was a c/uestion of finding the right form. What took place in the twelfth century was a twofold development whereby the new expressions of spirituality were being clarified against the theological-pastoral demands of the Church; and the Church was learning to listen with more sympathy to the different spiritual needs of her people. By the end of the century the time was ripe for Francis and Dominic. Of course, the phenomenon of St. Francis was not just the inevitable out-come of an historical development. It was also the special work of God's grace in a man who was both generous enough to respond to the call for a life of radical poverty and humble enough to listen to the voice of the Church. Nonetheless, that long century of development points to the kind of prepara-tion and hard work out of which true spiritual insight is born. Nor did Innocent lII's approval of Francis in 1209 complete the process. As numbers increased problems did also. Good sense and a sound understanding of human nature called for certain modifications. More structure and organiza-tion were needed which could channel the charism without destroying it. Pro-vinces were established, local houses and superiors appointed and a year's novitiate was required.39 If we shift back into our own century we realize that the Church is con-stantly faced with new expressions of spirituality arising from the legitimate aspirations of a people hungering for God. These new movements need ~to be examined in the light of good theology and good sense, and they need to receive the sympathetic understanding of the Church. A serious study of spirituality can make a genuine contribution to this endeavor. First of all, a new spirituality needs to identify, and then clarify its expres-sions. This is the work of analysis described earlier. What are the expressions of the authentic and the inauthentic and the forms which organize them? What is its wisdom? Only after these questions are carefully answered does theological evaluation become possible. When we know the expressions of the spirituality and their relationship to one another, then we know its theological stance and we can judge it. The analysis will also reveal the spirituality's perspective on human nature, its understanding of the human condition. While great care must be exercised here, it would violate good sense to have a ,8 In his treatment of the twelfth century, M.-D. Chenu wrote: "Peter the Chanter had denounced the 'most dreadful silence' (pessima taciturnitas) of the clergy, and both Peter and Innocent Ill had invoked a phrase from Isaiah (56:10) to repudiate "these muted dogs who don't have it in them to bark," M.-D. Chenu, Nature, Man, and Society in the Twelfth Century." Essays on New Theological Perspectives in the Latin West, selected, edited, and translated by Jerome Taylor and Lester L. Little. preface by I~tienne Gilson. (University of Chicago Press, 1968), p. 244. ~9 For a discussion of these developments, see Cajetan Esser, Origins of the Franciscan Order, translated by Aedan Daly, O.F.M: and Dr. lrina Lynch (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1970); see especially Chapter Ill: "First Crises and Attempts to Overcome Them." Study of Spirituality / 19 spirituality which proved to be psychologically destructive. It has unfor-tunately happened in the history of spirituality that "leaving the world" has become an occasion for hatred and destruction of the self or the body rather than a love for God?° Finally, analysis of a new spirituality will reveal its in-ternal coherence or lack thereof. This is important because personal growth demands a certain degree of unity of purpose and technique, and a spirituality which seems to move in many different directions at the same time will only provoke confusion and frustration. While this may appear to be obvious, it is not always so easy to recognize. For example, a spirituality expressed entirely in a nineteenth-century idiom might exhibit good theology and good psychology, but unless it is able to translate itself coherently into the language and forms of the twentieth century there will always be an unnecessary tension from trying to operate in a world view, a cosmology, which is no longer our own. This was one of the reasons for Vatican II's call for adaptation in religious life. In addition, a new spirituality needs to be understood externally, and this is the work of comparison and contrast. From the Church's standpoint, evaluation will be enhanced wfien a spirituality is known in relation to other spiritualities both past and present. This much goes without saying~ But such an external understanding'can also be quite useful for the spirituality itself. One of the habitual dangers for a new movement is to see itself as being unique in respo ~nding to the call of the gospels. Time and time again this has resulted in sectarianism and heresy. When a spirituality understands itself in the con-text of.history it will be better able to appreciate its uniqueness without overestimating its importance. 40 An extreme example of this might be found in the Cathars who practiced (though rarelY,) a form of suicide by starvation called endura. This occurred only after the reception of the consolamen-turn which was a conbination of baptism and Eucharist. Once the believer received the con'- solarnentum he or she was to live without any sin whatsoever. It was in fear of a relapse that some chose to end their lives as soon after consolsmentum as possible. The Treasurer As Professional Paschal Phillips, O.C.S.O. Father Phillips is a member of the monastery of Our Lady of Guadalupe Trappist Abbey; Lafayette, OR 97127. Ulnder the bland title of this article lurks a contentious thesis. I hope to demonstrate that the function of the provincial treasurer is a specialized, pro-fessional calling, importantly distinct from related professions such as accounting or management, but every bit as clearly definable and of crucial importance to religious communities. The practical issue of all this appears in the damage done through failure to recognize or effectively utilize this unique function, and the concomitant misjudgments concerning training, qualification, and role recognition. Problems of Definition At the outset, the multiplicity of terms presents a hurdle with symbolic overtones. Titles such as "procurator" "econome" "cellarer" "fiscus" and "minister" vie with more commonplace old standbys like "treasurer" and "business manager" in vague but roughly interchangeable usage. The fact that such nebulous nomenclature has continued points to a lack of reflection on the common nature of the office underlying the multiple titles. Admittedly the office, which we shall for simplicity's sake henceforth call "treasurer," does admit of multiple definitions, since it changes not only from congregation to congregation, but, even more radically, with the person-alities of the incumbent and of the major superior served by the incumbent. In fact, it is usually easier to note major differences in the function which ensue from each provincial election than it is to discover a consistent pattern of divergence between the "economes" of congregation X and the "proc-urators" of congregation Y. 2O The Treasurer as Professional / 21 Besides, any congregation is free to define the duties of its various officers without having to make special reference to neat patterns convenient to the writers of magazine articles. It might follow that analyzing the functions of a treasurer is spreading nets to catch the wind, and that the function--if indeed there is a function at all--is characterized mostly by its lack of fixed form, for its utility lies largely in adapting to present circumstances and local custom. This is certainly true so far as peripheral duties such as bookkeeping go. But, under all the pluralism, a hard core of significance remains that may reward further reflection. The Core Function We live in a world of professionalism. Our first thought, in any need, is to call in a specialist. But routine can create problems. We are so used to calling in an "ologist,"'or training a member of the community to become one (which amounts to the same thing) that we hardly notice, much less reflect upon, the rather delicate set of questions that ought to proceed the call: Do we need help? Is this area important? Wti6m shall we consult? How Will the answers we get be conveyed to the community and its superiors? How will they be adapted to our needs? And how will we know that the answers have been accurately grasped, and emotionally accepted? The core-function of the provincial treasurer appears to be discovered through asking questions such as those, and providing some approaches to the answers. The function might be defined as liaison between the religious pur-pose of the community, and "the world" as organizational (business, legal, financial aspects). An example may clarify. Take the question of accounting: in many a congregation, any sentence which connects the words "treasurer" and "professional" automatically elicits the image of technical accountant. After all, the thinking goes, do we not carefully train teachers and cooks, pro-vincials and novice masters? So send the treasurer off to the university, and turn him or her into a C.P.A.! But there's the rub! We may have trained a C.P.A. who can perform a useful function-- but we have not trained a treasurer. This is not to deny that technical accounting abilities are one of the building blocks, but it does sug-gest that one building block does not make a whole structure. Reconstruct the scene from, that unfamiliar vantage point which defines the treasurer as the person who provides the liaison between the religious com-munity as religious and "the world" as organization. Obviously, accounting expertise is essential to understand and analyze much of what the organiza-tional world has to say to the religious, as it is also essential to translate some of the organizational and support problems of the community into a concise form that can be understood by speakers of "business-ese." But to stop at that point sets the stage for a familiar scenario: a treasurer who conceives his entire function to be that of expert in accounting (and he exists in a milieu where the tacit assumptions all reenforce this point of view), produces ever 22 / Review for Religious, Volume 40, 1981/1 more sophisticated and technically accurate quarterly reports, and submits them in all their complexity to a superior and council whose ability to under-stand them is no more sophisticated than it ever was. In practice the community ends with some poorly conceived mixture of ad hoc remedies. For example, the superior himself burns the midnight oil, hoping to assimilate the skills which enable business executives to glean their impressive insights from such corporate accounts. What has happened is that the already overburdened superior has taken on what is actually the core role of the treasurer. He is attempting to interpret to himself what the business world is saying, and the results are not always happy. The major superior has no time, really, to handle this added, and usually unwelcome chore. Neither does the training nor the personality traits which qualify a good religious superior easily blend well with the demands of business administration. Fur-ther, the superior is there~by subtly insulated from one key source of counsel, and this in an ominous way, since the change is scarcely noticed. Another common reaction of sophisticated reporting to .an unsophisti-cated audience is one of bland beffiddlement. An increasing percentage of council and community simply announce that they have no time for that sort of thing. They are sure that"such i~pressive figures must mean something, and "it is so comforting to realize that we can depend on such a skilled and dedicated treasurer." This remedy: so called, operates in the reverse of the one before. Now it is the treasurer who is isolated from needed feedback and in-telligent questioning, and the treasurer slowly begins to make decisions (or, more commonly, subconsciously to set things up so that only one decision can be made) which should have involved the superior's informed judgment from the start. The misunderstandings and confusions which result, and which so often are blamed on instincts for power or on exaggerated professionalism, are at root only the natural concomitants of poor role-definition. The above examples are painted in bold strokes. In practice any trained treasurer makes a more or less intelligent effort to translate the economic trends revealed by the analysis of the community books and by a general familiarity with the business cycle (changes of interest rates, increasing cost of government, red tape, inflation), and in those cases where this function is handled with skill and sensitivity, there is no doubt that the treasurer's office is being well served by its present incumbent. However, the main point is precisely that a function so delicate and so important should not be performed in a fit of absentmindedness. Few realize that there is the exact point where unreflective instincts, presenting a hastily conceived adaptation of the secular counterpart found in stockholders reports, as unverified assumption that "they" got the message, in short, amateurism, can effectively negate the benefits arising from professional accounting, skilled business analysis, and all the rest. The Treasurer as Professional / 23 Title and Function It should be apparent that one of our problems stems from the very title "treasurer," with its built-in connotation of "bookkeeper." Things are slightly better in more ancient Orders where the person filling this liaison role is called by some more generic title such as "procurator," but the basic prob-lem of role-definition usually remains unexamined. It is entirely possible that the "core function" we have been elaborating could be performed by someone other than the titular treasurer. Indeed, one of the problems is precisely that such is often the case, that, for lack of reflec-tion on the situation, this crucial liaison function is poorly performed by per-sons who scarcely realize they are even involved in such a role. Take, for example, these instances where some dedicated lay person now holds the office of provincial treasurer. There can be no question of these indi-viduals' technical skills, but, on the other hand, there can be little chance that they could ever deal with the community on the deep level of two-way com-munication that is needed to perform this liaison function. Yet someone must be performing that function--however imperfectly--or else the community would be left on the legendary "Cloud 9," a not unknown circumstance, sad to relate. Whoever that "someone" is, he or she is the de facto treasurer, while the holder of the titular office doubtless remains, skilled in his other profes-sion which is valid in itself but different in scope. Still, the very essence of the liaison function does d~mand an alert, in-formed, and up-to-date acquaintance with modern business and government trends. It is doubtful that any community officer except the treasurer would have the time, or even the inclination, to remain permanently qualified for the role. So if the titular treasurer is not the one functioning in the liaison role, our foregone conclusion is that sooner or later the function will be indifferently served. The essential connection between membership in the religious community and the liaison function is illumined more by practice than theory. At the risk of running one example to death we return to the quarterly accounting report. If the treasurer saw liaison as his or her primary function, the first question would still be "where can I hire a skilled .accounting technician to generate thoroughly reliable and professional figures?" Even the second question might be equally unsurprising: "Have I assured myself that I have the technical expertise to evaluate, accurately and professionally, the implications of the figures so presented?" (Already the field has broadened: the evaluation would, of necessity, include factors not strictly within the purview of an ac-countant.) It is the next step which becomes more demanding. "Exactly who are the real power-people and opinion-molders in the congregation, ~:egardless of title? And which items in this mass of data are the ones they need in order to make the decisions pertinent to th'eir role?" And, "Considering the individual personality, background training, and press of duties experienced by each such individual, what is the most effective way to present this data to him or 94 / Review for Religious, I/olume 40, 1981/1 her?" (These questions can lead to the elaboration of some very unorthodox but extremely effective financial reports!) /. It is a rare treasurer who sees the answer to the last two questions as so cen-tral as to demand more skill, more time, more thought and, if available, more training than the elaboration of the figures themselves. It is a rare community which would not be enriched and facilitated if the treasurer did just that. But it also seems next to impossible that any outsider, no matter how sagacious or trusted, could really have the indispensable in-depth understanding of the per-sonality limitations, the real power distribution (as distinguished from a table of organization), and the sundry lapses in hearing skills which form the living matrix of intramural communications. Perhaps fortunately, the liaison function is not usually looked upon as at-tached to the highest echelons of power. Yet, it is all too easy for casual observers, who already have the treasurer pigeonholed in a relatively trivial technician's role, to see any such outreach into the one indispensable function as an intrusion on the role of the superior. Such a reaction, though, is more concerned with shadow than substance: the very essence of the liaison function is to assist, not supplant, the superior in making informed decisions, and to assist, not supplant, the community in understanding the options open to them. Areas of Practical Concern The many excellent circulars on taxes, social security and related subjects coming from the offices of CMSM and LCWR provide opportunity for a quick, but necessarily very rough, check-up. These documents certainly sug-gest impending changes in life-style, deteriorating legal immunities, new norms of economic security and other important long-term adjustments of our community lives. Are these coming changes being considered in advance in every community? Do the CMSM circulars filter down at all? If not, perhaps the liaison function could improve to fill the void. Before noting more current problems, a somewhat dated example might provide historical insight. Between Leo XIII and circa 1970 there was a grow-ing rift between the papal social encyclicals and the employment policies of certain Catholic institutions. Areas of tension have run all the way from the areas of unionization through wages, pensions, and fringe benefits, to on-the-job working conditions. The business world of the United States had somehow tended to come more into line with the encyclicals than religious! Fortunately, this is largely water under the bridge; the majority of Catholic religious orders have recently shown an informed awareness of the problems of Christian employment, even in cases where lack of funds has made it very difficult to know how to respond. But it did take a long time, in some cases a scandalously long time. And the evident surprise which has overtaken more than one provincial administration when the "dear, dedicated lay-teachers" or the "sweet smiling nurses" hit the picket lines, would argue some degree of The Treasurer as Professional / 25 failure in their early-warning system. It is hard to imagine that the fumbling, uncertain--sometimes obscurant-ist- labor relations poli~ie~ ~l:iich charaCteriZed churchly institutions before 1970 would not have been improved if there had been in each congregation one person who was consciously aware of his or her duty to become fully in-formed concerning these trends, and to communicate them to a congregation which was itself aware of having appointed him to such a post-- and respected his function. In short, if each community had possessed a treasurer who was expected to perform the core-function of that office, and trained t.o do it, and if each such treasurer had been left enough time from routine mechanical ac-counting chores to function thus, the whole tale would have been quite dif-ferent. In the absence of that function filled, too often surprise and misinfor-mation proved a poor substitute for expertise at the bargaining table, and in the delicate reestablishment of truly Christian relationships afterward. Even though the labor relations example can be classified as historical in most communities (not all!), it still cannot be written off. For example, the presence of Douglas Frazier of the United Auto Workers on the Chrysler Cor-poration Board of Directors is no doubt just the tip of a large iceberg. Already in Europe workers' representatives on the top levels of management are a commonplace. Is anyone looking up from the accounting books long enough to start formulating a response, or thinking out alternatives, or evaluating present practices, or otherwise preparing for the day when the staff at Hospital A and High School B will be demanding board representation-- per-haps on the management level of the parent religious community itself? Insurance programs reveal another type of need. Too often "profes-sionalism" in the treasurer has been equivalated to the qualification requisite in some other profession simply because no one has noted that the liaison function is a separate profession in itself. We have already noted how this tends, in the accounting function, simply to distance the treasurer from the needs of the community superiors who are not businessmen and therefore can-not be reasonably expected to get maximum benefit from financial anal~,sis designed for business executives. In the related questions of insurance coverage, the problem takes a slightly different twist, although profes-sionalism (again the wrong profession!) here also ends up searching for the solutions that are most effective in the business world. In practice, we end by asking "How can we most expeditiously fit our community into insurance programs written for secular concerns?" The results are often ingenious and admirable examples of the professionalism of the insurance industry. But if someone in the communitY were professionally alert to the peculiar nature of a religious organization as such, he might well end up asking, "What are tl~e unique needs of this community, regardless of what fits the secular organization?" The answer may be quite surprising, and almost always results in unexpected savings and administrative simplification. Fortunately, the question is being asked more and more, and, as a result, some 26 / Review for Religious, Volume 40, 1981/1 specialized insurance policies are being written from the ground up to fit the unique needs of Catholic religious orders. But it should have happened sooner, and the questions should have been asked in many more quarters. Even today too many religious are paying insurance premiums for maternity benefits! The center-stage projects of the hour are probably energy conservation and socio-political activism via proxy voting and the like. Both problem areas carry implications of long-term and profound changes in community life-style. Both, too, are typical in their relations to the treasurer as professional. The current pattern of response is often enough characterized by aimless drift, unplanned, sporadic action, or responses evidently dominated by oen-thusiasts in the community who may or may not have a grasp of the long-run legal and economic implications. Since these areas do have overtones which are none of the treasurer's pro-fessional concern (although hopefully he or she will be deeply concerned as a committed Christian and religious), it follows that the treasurer should not be trying to direct the basic policy decisions in these affairs. But the complexity and multiple legal interlockings involved also suggest that someone--some one-- in each community has to be in a position to study the question from an overall point of view, and to do so with a trained expertise. Some individual must eventually take responsibility for gathering all available information and casting it ina form that alerts both officers and community to the implications for life-style, future economic security, hazards to legal immunities, and all the rest. Further, whereas ad hoc studies can be commendable, some one has gotto stick to the job and follow through, lest the community of 1985 be still acting on the circumstances of 1975. Both by a process of elimination and by logic, this important and irreplaceable function sooner or later (probably sooner) comes home to roost in the treasurer's office, If the incumbent is viewed as a mere technician who handles the computer printout, the community response will, in all probabil-ity," follow the too familiar pattern of muddling through very deep muddles. The rapid erosion of those tax exemptions which form.the practical economic basis of most religious communities provides another field of con-cern for the treasurer as professional liaison officer. Few communities have ever even done any daydreaming, much less planning, about the impact of various all,too-probable changes in the. tax laws. The tendency is to cling mutely and hopefully to the leaky ship. Thisis a wise procedure so faras day-to- day operations are concerned. But some one somewhere in the community should be monitoring, injecting caution into long-range plans, alerting superiors and community to the dangerous side effects of this or that policy, and noting, at least in passing, such unexamined drifts as the slow tendency of both tax courts and local officials to forget the tacit but once universal assumption that religious communities are families (for example: the recent The Treasurer as Professional / 27 tendency to raise zoning problems about sisters living together in a convent situated in a zone for single families; the erosion of the rights of superiors to make decisions for dying, unconscious, or elderly confused members of the community; difficulties with state officials who insist on nursing-home regulations instead of family rules for convents caring for a few elderly sisters, and so on. It is all of a pattern: we are being redefined as "strangers" -- and no one seems to notice). Unfortunately, the personality who gets maximum satisfaction out of the tidy details of bookkeeping is only rarely the same as the one who can perceive social or economic change from afar off. The rare exceptions are indeed pearls of great price. But the core-function is impossible, even for the pearls, if the only training they receive and the only role expectation they encounter are directed exclusively toward the routine of day-to-day administration. Conclusion In the twelfth chapter of Romans, St. Paul surprisingly lists "administra-tion" among the gifts of the Spirit. Indeed, he lists it just after prophecy and before teaching, preaching and almsgiving. It would be ridiculous to apply his thought literally to any specific church functionary, treasurers included--no doubt he had wider nets to spread. But Paul does thereby warn us not to trivialize the administrative functions in the Church into routine mechanics and technological computer-feeding. Faith, judgment, and spiritual insight are necessary, and the community which restricts its gifts of time, training, and trust to major superiors, novice masters, and theology faculties may be quenching the Spirit in a vital area of action. Reflection on the real core-function of the treasurer may lead in most cases not only to a deeper appreciation, of that office, but t9 some understanding of the damnable frustrations connected thereto. Hopefully such reflection could also lead to a major review of the qualifications for the office, along with adjustments in the organizational and psychological matrix which is required for its effective fulfillment. Admittedly there is no place where anyone can go for training in this most delicate function (the author is hatching a plot in this regard!), but probably such training is little needed at least at first. The first Step is to identify who, if anyone, performs the liaison function in the community and then to recognize that function as needed, legitimate, and welcome. Much else will follow naturally. The Eucharist, Priesthood, and Renewal Neil J. Draves-A rpaia Father Draves-Arpaia is a priest attached to Our Lady of Perpetual Help parish. The mailing address is: P.O. Box 160; Scottsdale, AZ 85252. Priesthood is not intrinsically linked to celebration. It is first, and ultimate-ly, united with self-giving, and therefore, sacrifice. And since the sacrifice of-fered by Christians at Eucharist is the victory of Christ which has brought us salvation, it is impossible, once we have grasped the depth of meaning and the redemptive grace of the eucharistic sacrifice, to be any other way than "celebrative." Those who would reduce the Mass to sober ritual, executed with rubrical precision and stone-faced devotion, or those who would see it as a moment for "religious merriment" have moved awfiy, in either direction, from the core mystery that the eucharistic celebration is. For me, the amuse-ment of one group and the solemn piety of the other are both suspect, and neither adequately speak or witness to priesthood to being a priestlypeople. What then might we look for? 1 believe it is necessary to move away from speaking on the Mass for a moment and concentrate on the daily life of God's people. Self-giving, self-forgetting love, sacrifice (whichever term we use) once placed within Christianity must be evaluated in light of the Cross. The eucharistic sacrifice then has "cruciform" implications, and we must look to a cross section of responses and attitudes that come forth from God's people in Christ. Priesthood is a visible sign in our midst of the reality of sacrifice, specifically in the life of a person who is priest, and in the believing communi-ty that would be priestly. Both must express in clear terms and behavior that something two-fold is happening in their lives: that, first, their personal rela-tionship with God is solid and radically oriented towards incarnating the first 28 The Eucharist, Priesthood, and Renewal and greatest commandment, and, then, that their human relationships are more than superficial and nice, but solid, radically oriented towards incar-nating the second and greatest commandment. How might we begin to make evaluation of these? I'm convinced that the priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial priesthood must look to the life of prayer, be it expressed in formal, informal, public or private prayer-styles. There we must begin to ask if, when we go before the Lord, we are truly inter-ceding on behalf of one another. This will give us an indication of how much and to what degree we are in touch with human life and the genuine human needs of those around us. If we cannot bring ourselves to intercede, then we cannot fulfill our principle role as priests or as a priestly people. This is especially significant to the role of the priest-president at the eucharistic sacrifice, for without a continuous sense of intercession in the daily life of the priest, the eucharistic prayer will be formula-oriented and not at all like the priestly prayer of Jesus, who went to the Father on behalf of the people. Next, we must look, priests particularly, to our horizontal prayer: our beseeching and inviting the people to come forward as instruments and missionaries of love. It might not always mean using words, nor may it require lengthy "shar-ing sessions." Priestly people and ordained priests need to know more about the fact that in any "priestly" experience, the action must speak louder than the words. The religious leaders of Jesus' day, from the picture we get from the Scriptures, had words that spoke more loudly than their actions. Jesus called his disciples to the converse: action over words, both in G~d-oriented matters (faith) and people-oriented matters (charity). It's also important to keep in mind that Jesus had the least to say when he was crucified. It was at that moment alone that his Gospel call to love hung totally on pure act. What can we conclude with regard to priesthood and its place within pres-ent renewal and the Eucharist? Liturgical renewal cannot have the impact it is meant to have if it is not preempted by a priesthood that speaks clearly on the issue of "self-giving." For the decade and a half since the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy was issued by the Council, the Church has heard stressed that "the liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed," and that the faithful should approach the sacred mysteries with the proper dispositions so as to cooperate with grace, for the liturgy to produce its full effect. If the Eucharist is the summit, what is the base of Christian activi-ty, if it is not self-giving? And what is the proper disposition with which we ap-proach the eucharistic celebration, if it is not a readiness and willingness to be of praise and thanksgiving, openness and intercession, primarily in attitude, secondarily in words? Priesthood, both ministerial and the priesthood of the faithful (but prin-cipally the ordained priesthood)in itself must begin to look more like the eucharistic sacrifice to the Father with the people of God assembled. It must show itself "in the flesh" to be a continuum between brokenness and wholeness, of movement from the confines of secular humanism and/or 30 / Review for Religious, Volume 40, 1981/1 religious elitism (clericalism, fundamentally among priests themselves and the structures in which they function) to a sharedness, not solely in matters of, priestly service to the Church, but in the basic issues of their lives, issues which are common to all lives. Priesthood, as an instrument of renewal and in its ef-fect upon the Eucharist, becomes an incarnational experience, for it takes the Word and makes it a Verbum Dei: fleshes it, clothes it, directs it towards the kingdom. The moment becomes a means for priesthood to have within it a holiness that is greater than that of the scribes and pharisees since it acts on rather than talks about the concrete issues which face the world today. So, at the base of Christian existence the priesthood is motivation for the Lord's people to join in sacrifice both at the table of the Lord and at the table which is the world. The nature of this life of self-giving requires unconditionally simple signs which speak to the people, like the signs of bread and wine. But signs of love in the daily life of the priest become obscured when humanness is over-taken by a rank-ism in the Church which, in turn, degenerates priesthood into a separate class aloof from the laity and ineffective in speaking about their life experience except in the most "lofty" sort of ways. As the liturgical renewal called for a stripping of secoridary elements which found their way into the eucharistic celebration over the centuries, the priesthood, too, if it is to be an aid in the deep renewal of the Church, must have itself stripped of non-essentials. Like the eucharistic sacrifice of the Roman Rite; priesthood must begin to face the people and become more accountable to them. It must have its distracti'ng bells quieted. Priests, one would hope, can more effectively speak the language of the people and must appreciate how much priesthood's unique gifts come from the people and must return to them. It must witness a praise of life by the priest's readiness to help the human condition in each per-son's struggle to become reconciled to God. Priesthood, to me, expresses its thanksgiving best when priests themselves show a humbleness (which active thanks implies) before God and people, plus an openness which allows for the person of the priest to be nurtured by the community he is calling into fullness. This call to intercession is a vehicle, not for doing some thing for others, but as a preparation, a prayer, to be with them. To pray on behalf of others re-quires that the priest be half of the person who is neighbor. This would mean that we move beyond any limited and debilitating spirituality which might suggest that God hears the prayers of priest over those of the laity. The truly intercessory prayer that is Christian is the one which seeks from God a "oneness" with the p,eople to whom the priest is sent, as did the prayer of Jesus, "that all may be one as you, Father, are in me, and I in you; I pray that they may be one in us." Intercessory prayer speaks of sacrifice, for it moves away from the tendency to badger God for things for ourselves and others, and, when made by a priest, requests that he, here and now, will become the response the Lord would make to those in need. It is occasion for furthering solidarity in the Body of Christ (person to person) and for furthering solidar-ity in the Body of Christ (person to person) and for allowing the Holy Spirit to The Eucharist, Priesthood, and Renewal use priesthood as sacrament (God to his people). When intercession is made by a priestly, people, they pray to be the response the Lord would make to the world's needs, and the Church then can be a "kind of sacrament of union and unity." In this way, personal needs, while neither denied nor overlooked, become secondary for the moment, and the needs of others become primary for the moment. Intercessory prayer does not give us the chance to be self-seeking, or to approach God with the long multiplication of words that would make prayer manipulative and evasive. It helps us to understand more precise-ly why Jesus r~jects this as authentic prayer and replaces it with a simple prayer of unity that begins, "Our Father in heaven." The prayer of the priest (or of a priestly people) allows for lives to blend, and there will be less cause for disparity in the p.riest's daily life and his ministry at Mass, for this sacrificial celebration at the "summit of the Church's activity" will be an authentic summation of what has been. Priesthood has everything to do with self-giving, and as it forces its way out of entrapments it becomes an event, an encounter with what is real. The same applies to the entire people of God in Christ. Events, or moments of self-giving, are times of celebration and joy for they are an exodus from slavery, from the death of isolation and self~centeredness. It is on this issue where renewal is most needed: moving people away from thinking in terms of what they "do" to how they position themselves towards God and neighbor, the way they choose to be. The vocation of priest and of the priestly people leaps away, so to speak, from cultic functions and attendance at such, to a covenant in the eucharistic sacrifice, because there have already been preliminary celebrations ofthis mutual, self-forgetting love among Christians wherever they meet between the times they gather at table in the grace and peace of God, our Father a'nd the Lord Jesus. Catherine of Siena and Raymond of Capua: A Friendship in Perspective Paul Conner, O.P. Father Conner teaches moral and spiritual theology at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. His address is: St. Albert's Priory; 5890 Birch Court; Oakland, CA 94618. Catherine Benincasa's public life is more widely known than her personal life: during the six hundred years since her death, attention has been so drawn to her astonishing political impact on the Europe of her day that she is fre-quently called one of the most influential women of history. Within our own decade Catherine's enduring intellectual and spiritual authority has been heightened through her being declared one of the two women doctors of the Church. Little wonder, then, that the private life of this Sienese woman has escaped widespread notice, and yet in regard to human friendships, for instance, few life histories are as intriguing, both in scope and depth of development. I would like to focus attention in this article on the dominant human rela-tionship of her short life of 33 years, her friendship with Blessed Raymond of Capua. This relationship could be understood adequately on its own merits, but I find that it takes shape so much better within the immediate religious setting of Dominican life in which it was born and flourished. Looking to the Lord Jesus is indeed first; but after this, every religious family that seeks the essential features of its life must turn to its founder. Tempting as it might be, I do not claim that friendship is an essential feature of Dominican life, at least as friendship is ordinarily understood--though there are superb examples of it in the Dominican heritage, past and present. What is interesting though, is that Dominic did give the spirit of friendship to 32 Catherine of Siena and Raymond of Capua / 33 his followers, since his own life was so rich, even overflowing, in friendship, human and divine. A glance, then, at his life, together with what might be termed a theological consideration of Dominican friendship, will form a helpful con-text within which to view Catherine's and Raymond's unique friendship. St. Dominic In spite of popular misrepresentation of St. Dominic in later centuries as a stern, inquisitorial figure, conclusive, historical evidence shows him to be an exceptionally loving person. More than three hundred depositions for his canonization; his first biography written by his friend and successor, Jordan of Saxony; the Lives of the Brethren, collecting eyewitness accounts of the early years from all over the order, all tell of the many men and women in various walks of life who cherished friendships with him. Jordan speaks of Dominic's lifelong, radiant mixture of charm and reserve that attracted and held men's hearts. His best modern biographer in English, Bede Jarrett, puts it this way: "God's greatest gift to man in the order of nature, and almost the greatest even on the supernatural plane, is the gift of making and securing friends; and judged by this, Dominic was indeed blessed by God.'" The first brethren assure us that perhaps no one among them had a greater taste for fraternity than Dominic. He enjoyed friendships of varying degrees with his followers, and, like his Lord, chose from among them a "beloved disciple," John of Navarre. With the many communities of sisters that he founded, Dominic always maintained a personal bond, helping them in temporal but particularly spiritual needs, instructing them so that they absorbed his own spirit and dedication to truth. Besides 16aving us a descriptive portrait of Dominic, Blessed Cecilia kept a valuable record of his Roman ministry. She relates that during his visits to the sisters he either "exhorted them to greater spiritual ef-fort or merely sat among them, refreshing them with the charm of his conver-sation and sharing with them the experiences of the day.''2 The range of Dominic's friends outside the order was extensive. Legendary is his beautiful relationship with St. Francis. TheLives of the Brethren records that the two "became but one heart and one soul in God and enjoined their sons to foster this brotherly spirit until the end of time." Dominic befriended men and women converts; family members of people with whom he worked, such as the two daughters of Count Simon de Montfort; women recluses in Rome; bishops and cardinals--even popes. Gregory IX, in the bull of Dominic's canonization dated 1234, wrote that Domin'ic was ' Bede Jarrett, O.P., Life of St. Dominic (New York: Image Books, 1964), p. 122. 2 See M. H. Vicaire, O.P., Histoire de saint Dominique (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1957), V. 11, pp. 278-279. 34 / Review for Religious, Volume 40, 1981/1 bound to us by ties of deep friendship, before we were raised to the pontificate; his life carried with it in our eyes certain proofs of heroic holiness . We are convinced, as also are our people, that through his prayers God may do us mercy, and that one who was our friend on earth will still in heaven hold us in no less ~ffection. Wherefore. we have determined to add his name to the number of the saints.~ The prominence of friendship in Dominic's life noticeably influenced his early followers. Numerous touching friendships among them are a matter of historical record: Jordan of Saxony and Henry of Cologne, Jordan and Diana d'Andalo, Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas, and the two Dominicans of particular interest to this article, Catherine of Siena and Raymond of Capua. Theological Atmosphere A certain theological atmosphere has surrounded and, I would say, condi-tioned the development of Dominican friendships throughout the history of the order. This is as it should be, since Dominican life, like Christian life, tends toward fullness of love--primarily with the I ndwelling Divine Persons, but secondarily with all men and women whom God loves. This Christian love, or charity, is the main indicator of vitality and growth in the life of grace. Thomas Aquinas was the first theologian to penetrate into the mystery of charity by way of human experience of authentic friendship, applying his understanding to God's love for us and our love for him.4 A distinctodynamic seems to have resulted, creating the theological atmos-phere to which I refer. Dominicans have looked first to faith for conviction about divine love and friendship with God and God's friends. They have then looked to their personal experience of human friendship with God. They have found, particularly in prayer, that their experience 6f divine friendship served as corrective, if need be, and certainly as goal for their human friendships. These two experiences, the human and divine, mutually illumined and en-riched the other, each according to its competency. I would hazard a guess that a practical result of this theological atmos-phere has been that individual Dominicans were richer or poorer in friend-ships with other Dominicans depending on the age in which they lived. Let me explain. In all ages genuine Dominicans are very discriminating about their friends, owing largely, I think, to this conditioning theological atmosphere. They tend not to let natural instincts for friendship predominate, unless each particular relationship can be harmonized with divine friendship. Authentic charity as their chosen goal must determine everything in their lives. Besides rarely find-ing people enough to their natural liking in the baffling assemblage the Lord calls together in religious communities, their faith and theological orientation ~ See M. H. Vicaire, O.P., Saint Dominique, La vie apostolique Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1965), p~ 90. ¯ See St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, lI-ll, q. 23, a. I. Catherine of Siena and Raymond of Capua / 35 yield such a high ideal that natural potential alone is not enough to satisfy them. But in ages when many members of a Dominican community or province or the worldwide order are deeply one in mind and heart about essential goals and ways of Dominican life, friendships abound, even without much founda-tion in natural similarities. Close bonds are formed on the basis of similarity of thought, love for and dedication to the highest, most valuable, and most permanent of realities. On the other hand, history indicates that Dominican friendships are rare in times of wide diversity in mind, heart, and life concerning essentials of a com-mon calling. In these circumstances, with little in common by nature or by grace, profound friendships are the exception. Masculine-Feminine Complementarity in the Order of Preachers Before focusing on the profound relationship between Catherine and Raymond of Capua, let us look at an additional feature which Dominic built into the very structure of his order, namely masculine-feminine complemen-tarity. In Dominic's mind, the men and women of the order were each to con-tribute something essential to the order's goal of contemplating and spreading sacred Truth. His plan was that the nuns should pray and do penance, and the friars should preach. With this complementary power, no obstacle could pre-vent the accomplishment of goals. To assure from the beginning this complementary feature of the order, Dominic established at Prouille (southern France), in 1207, an arrangement he had known from his years as a canon regular in Spain: the "double-monastery" where friars and nuns lived side by side, each in separate convents yet joined in one common life. Later, wherever he had men, Dominic himself established the feminine counterpart: in Madrid in 1217; in Segovia, Saragossa, and Palencia in 1218; in Rome in 1221. He intended the same in Bologna with Diana d'Andalo and a group of her friends, but died before doing so. This planned masculine-feminine complementarity was emphasized throughout the order by the custom of calling the friars "Preachers" and the nuns "Sisters, Preachers, or Preacheresses.' '~ Saint Catherine, Doctor of Friendship Our context is now sufficient for turning to Catherine and Raymond, two Dominicans who personified in their friendship the masculine-feminine com-plementarity of their order. In her writings, Catherine was such a preacheress that, as noted above, she has been declared a Doctor of the Universal Church. Happily enough, she has See Paul M. Conner, O.P., Celibate Love (Huntington, Indiana: Our Sunday Visitor Press, 1979), pp. 54-56. ~16 / Review for Religious, Volume 40, 1981/1 left explicit teaching on human friendship, particularly :in Chapters 41-44 of her famous Dialogue. Briefly, she sees positive temporal and eternal benefits as well as distinct dangers. An enduring benefit is that we do not lose human friendships at death. Rooted in happiness in God, the saints in heaven also share one another's hap-piness and so color their own beatific joy with "more abundant., delight and contentment." Catherine looks at friendship on earth as "consolation, sweetness, com-fort, and joy." Friends here help one another "grow in grace and virtue," and they provoke each other to honor and glorify the heavenly Father. A serious danger arises from human friendship which begins primarily as spiritual love but slowly becomes predominately sensual. To bring con-secrated persons to this end, Satan will insidiously engender a distaste for religious life, inducing them to search for pleasurable compensations in friendships. Prayer is judged in terms of self-satisfaction and is eventually dropped. "Worldly conversations" become more and more appealing and help stifle former desires for prayer, purity of spirit, suffering for God, and fraternal charity. Why does God permit this outcome? It is because he desires to purify the person from his unrecognized imperfection of loving creatures with a love mainly "passionate" or "sensible." After a friendship becomes established, the person might observe, for example, that his friend pays more attention to others than to him. He experiences disappointment and suffering. There are, then, two possible outcomes. His suffering can bring the deepened awareness that he has been seeking self in a love he thought wholly generous--the Father's hoped-for outcome. This insight will give birth to healthy "distrust of self" and to a more perfect love, charity, for all persons, including his par-ticular friend. This happy result, Catherine asserts, can occur only i.n someone "enlightened by faith," who desires "to walk in the virtues.especially prudence and discernment." A person, however, who is "ignorant in the faith" and not striving to walk in virtue, a person who "has no life," as Catherine puts it, will find the experi-ence of diminishing sensible satisfaction in prayer a great danger. He may well follow Satan's lead and give himself up to "confusion, tedium of mind and sadness of heart, abandoning any virtuous exercises." To such a person, friendship will eventually mean ruin and inner "death." Despite her medieval view and expression of things, Catherine's general teaching on spiritual friendship stands clear: it is good if the result is authentic charity, not self-love. Catherine lived her teaching, filling her short life with an amazing range of men and women friends. One among them was unique. Catherine and Raymond Born of the noble Delle Vigne family of Capua in 1330, Raymond entered Catherine of Siena and Raymond of Capua / ~17 the Dominican Order at age seventeen. During studies at .Bologna he excelled in scripture and patrology before obtaining the lectorate degree in sacred theology. He taught in Dominican priory schools between 1358 and 1362, and for the next four years served as spiritual director to the nuns of his order at the monastery of Montepulciano. In 1367, he was elected prior of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, a principal Dominican community of men in Rome. Raymond was sent to Siena some six years later to be Regent of Studies for the young men of the order in training there. And so it was that this man of extensive education and experience came to meet Catherine in 1374, the consequence of both her praying for a confessor capable of guiding her in her evolving mystical experience, and of the order's appointment of Raymond tO investi-gate and direct her life. Catherine promised Raymond obedience, and after some time of testing her authenticity, he came quickly to understand her and her spirituality. From the beginning they admired each other, Raymond recognizing in Catherine a woman of fine intellect, intense striving for sanctity, and tireless apostolate; Catherine in Raymond, a man of intelligence, tact, breadth of understanding, and development in virtue. Upon this basis their friendship grew firm and profound. Frank admission~ in their writings and biographical events reveal that they came to know each other intimately. Catherine opened her whole soul to Raymond, who by his counsel and authority over her, helped her come to full self-knowledge. In four short years their relationship had become very important to both of them. When the pope called Raymond to Rome in 1377 to be prior again of the convent of the Minerva, Catherine's letters speak of her "torment" and the "particularly hard and painful" experience this first separation from her "intimate friend" occasioned. She asked the Lord, who had "imposed upon me a royal and very poignant trial., to strengthen me in this privation which language is so incapable of expressing.''6 Understandably, news from Raymond alwaysbrought her joy. Later correspondence gives further indications of the quality of their love. Once, when Raymond had turned back from a papal mission to Avignon because of impending ambush, Catherine affectionately reproached him. He misread her intention, and so she wrote: "You have thought that my affection for you had diminished; but you are mistaken . l love you as I love myself; and I have hoped that the goodness of God would also make your affection perfect.-7 In her numerous letters, Catherine customarily addressed Raymond as her ~ See Letter 119 quoted in Johannes Joergensen, Sainte Catherine de Sienne (Paris: Editions Gabriel Beauchesne, 1929), p. 187. 7 Josephine Butler, Catherine of Siena (London: Horace Marshall & Son: 1894), pp. 289-290. 38 / Review for Religious, Volume 40, 1981/1 "beloved Father," or "friend of predilection," or by the pseudonym that so pleased her, il mio Giovanni singolare--presumably in comparison to the Lord's preferential friendship for St. John. During the last months of her life, in extreme weakness and suffering, Catherine wrote a long report of her mystical experience to Raymond,. ad-dressing him lovingly over and over again: "My most sweet Father." In Letter 232 she tells him of a vision wherein she saw .herself entering by love and desire into Christ through the wound in his side, "accompanied by my Father St. Dominic; Giovanni, my friend of predilection; and all my spiritual children." It had been revealed to Catherine that the pope would send Raymond to King Charles of France and that she would die before his return. Raymond relates that she took him into privacy and "talked continuously, her large eyes shining., saying such strong and beautiful words." Often she "grasped his hand and smiled beautifully." Then, accompanying Raymond to the port of Ostia, she "knelt,., and crying, made the sign of the cross.''8 In their few years together, Raymond and Catherine collaborated in many undertakings, helping each other both naturally and supernaturally. Raymond, for example, was cured through Catherine's prayer from the plague which decimated Siena in 1374. He then joined her in relief work among the city's victims. Afterwards they went together in retreat to the tomb of St. Agnes of Montepulciano. Later in Pisa, Raymond was with Catherine in the Church of St. Christina when she received the stigmata. She prayed that the wounds be made invisible, and so it was that Raymond was the only person to bear public witness to the miracle. In 1376, the two met in Avignon in a successful attempt to persuade Pope Gregory XI to return to Rome. They traveled back to the Eternal City together, spending some time there with each other before Raymond's final departure. During their political actiQity, Catherine and Raymond turned to each other for support. She admired his political wisdom, most often following his advice which opened up new dimensions and possibilities to her. Together they promoted the crusades and prayed and worked for the reform of the Church. To counter a fear and reluctance in his character, Catherine would urge Raymond, when events demanded, to act bravely and with courage. In-deed, they cooperated in every way, so much so that one biographer con-cludes: "Catherine and Fra Raimondo were both working for the same ends, and aided each other with a mutual exchange of ideas, energies and counsels.''9 In the realm of grace, Raymond received instruction from Catherine for his spiritual progress. She was ever mindful of him in prayer, and even after See Hyacinth M. Cormier, O.P., Blessed Raymond of Capua (Boston: Marlier, Callahan & Co., 1900), p. 58. Arigo Levasti, My Servant Catherine (London: Blackfriars Publications, 1954), p. 140. Catherine of Siena and Raymond of Capua / 39 her death, Raymond testified that his spiritual stamina came from his con-tinued communications with Catherine in spirit. Before their final parting, Catherine wrote to Raymond: "1 beseech you to collect into your own hands any writings of mine which you may find and the book (the Dialogue); do with all of them whatever you deem is most for God's honor and glory.'''° Even in his overbusy life as Master General, Raymond worked successfully to promote Catherine's canonization, gathered and preserved all her writings, and found time to compose her first biography, a task that took him fifteen years. Dealing principally with her personal rather than public life and bringing to light the most touching incidents and her most characteristic traits, Raymond's is a surprisingly objective account. From it all later biographers have drawn their material. Conclusion Without doubt, in their close knowledge and love of one another and in the cooperative ministry they exercised, Blessed Raymond of Capua and St. Catherine of Siena exemplify the masculine-feminine complementarity of the Dominican Order. Their friendship helped each of them, as well, toward sanctity. We began by saying that Catherine's personal life could be better understood within its Dominican context. It has also become clear that through her own personification of the spirit of St. Dominic and of the charism he gave to the order, the latter itself stands better revealed. Friendship between Dominicans may not be an essential feature of Dominican life, but throughout the last seven hundred and fifty years, few friendships recorded by history surpass those between Dominicans. The order is fertile soil for close ties between persons fired by its goals and fully given to its ways. Could one not even say that the more Dominicans are Dominican, the greater the likelihood, today as in past centuries, of Dominican friend-ships? Letter 102 cited in Cormier, op. cit., p. 134. Service of the Heart: The Quest for Authentic Prayer in Judaism Michael Maher, M.S.C. Father Maher teaches Scripture at the Mater Dei Institute of Religious Education in Dublin. His last article appearin.g in these pages was "Old Testament Poetry and Religious Experience Today" (March, 1979). Father Maher's address is Woodview; Mount Merrion Ave.; Blackrock, Co. Dublin; Ireland. Everyone who has made an effort to develop a meaning,ful prayer-life knows how easy it is to allow regular prayer to become a mechanical ritual rather than a vital and elevating experience. But the danger of allowing prayer and worship to become a perfunctory recitation of hallowed formulae or a conventional performance of traditional rituals is not special to our age. The problem seems to be permanently contemporary, and Jewish religious tradi-tion seems to have been continually on guard against it. Ever since Isaiah sternly chided his co-religionists who honored the Lord with their lips while their hearts were far away (see Is 29:13), the leaders of Israel continued the prophet's task of safeguarding the truly spiritual and per-sonal character of the people's devotional life, and of ensuring that the indi-vidual's prayer should always be animated by a living faith, should always be the expression of sincere love, and should always involve deep feelings and devotion. The rabbis, and their successors right down to our times, used the word kavvanah to express the attitude of interior devotion and personal involvement that should accompany every prayer and every religious observ-ance of the devout Jew. Directing the Mind The word kavvanah which became part and parcel of Jewish devotional 40 Service of Heart / 41 literature is derived from a verb meaning to direct, and implies directing the mind to God, concentrating the attention on the prayers being recited, saying them in a spirit of devotion, and excluding thoughts and feelings that distract one from the experience of encountering God. When one prays with kavvanah one's heart and lips agree, and one's whole person is involved in the awesome act of appearing before one's Creator and Lord. This is what the Talmud' means when it says that "when a man prays he should direct his heart to heaven" (Berakoth 31 a). Another Talmud text declares that if a man does not put his mind to the performance of a religious duty his act is not a religious act at all (Rosh ha-Shanah 28b). These same ideas find another formulation in Pirke Aboth or the Sayings of the Fathers, a compendium of maxims that have been popular among all Jews since the early Christian centuries. Here the sage's warning runs as follows: "When you pray do not make your prayer mere routine, but a plea before God for mercy and grace" (PirkeAboth 2:13). To avoid the routine against which this saying warns the reader, and to minimize the danger of prayer becoming a merely mechanical recitation, the rabbis of the Talmud urged that something new should be introduced into one's prayer every day (Berakoth 29b). These and similar declarations created among the Jews an awareness of the importance of personal involvement in prayer, and by the Middle Ages the statement that prayer without kavannah or concentration is like a body without a soul or a husk without a kernel, had become proverbial. The Shulchan Aruch, a sixteenth-century law book which was regarded by all Jews up to our day as the authoritative guide to religious living, stated that "a little prayer with kavvanah is better than a lot without it." Although this declara-tion did nothing to diminish the prolixity of Jewish prayers or to shorten synagogue services--the Sabbath morning service, for example, lasting more than three hours--the spirit behind it continued to motivate pious Jews in their quest for sincerity and moral earnestness in their prayer. Just as the prophets of old rejected prayer that did not come "from the heart" (Ho 7:14; see Ps 108:1), the.rabbis o f the Talmud regarded prayer and worship as"a ser-vice of the heart" (Taanith 2a; see Sifre on Dt 10:12), and the Jews in general knew that prayer which was not a heartfelt, experience was not prayer at all. ' The word Talmud means "teaching," and is the name given to a body of writings that incor-porates what were at one time the oral traditions of Judaism. The Talmud records the laws that regulated the daily life of the Jews, as well as the general lore, legendary and otherwise, that formed popular Jewish culture. One version of the Talmud developed in Palestine from about the year 200-350 A.D., while another version was formulated in Babylon in the period between 200 and 500 A.D. The'Talmud is a commentary on the Mishnah (see next note), and like the latter is divided into six orders, which in turn are divided into tractates. Both Mishnah and Talmud are quoted according to tractate. Each tractate deals mainly with one special topic. Thus, for exam-ple, the tractate Berakoth--the word means "blessings"--deals largely with prayer matters. 42 / Review for Religious, Volume 40, 1981/1 Calm and Composure However, if the teachers in Israel regarded kavvanah as an indispensable quality of true prayer they realized that it was not something that can be easily acquired or retained. A text which has come down to us from about 200 A.D., and which is recorded in the Mishnah,' declares that "none may stand to say the Tefillah3 save in sober mind" (Mishnah, Berakoth 5:1). The text then goes on to say that "the pious men of old used to wait an hour before they said the Tefillah, that they~might direct their heart to God." The Talmud commen-tators on this passage remarked that one should not say the Tefillah while im-mersed in "idleness or laughter, or chatter, or frivolity or idle talk" since these are obvious impediments to the concentration and composure that should characterize one's communion with the Holy One. So important was this concentration and composure in the eyes of the rabbis that they recom-mended that one should not attempt to pray at all when one is agitated or preoccupied by distracting thoughts. They state, for example, that one should not pray on return from a journey in case one might not be able to give proper attention to prayer (Talmud, Erubin 65b). Another text which dates from the early Christian centuries declares that "One whose dead relative lies unburied before him is exempt from reciting the Shema" and the Tefillah . Because when a man sees his loss before him he is distraught" (Dt Rabbah 9:1). These recommendations convey the idea that one must control one's mind, one's imagination, and one's feelings before engaging in prayer. This teaching of the rabbis was to be expressed by Maimonides (died 1204), the great Jewish philosopher of the Middle Ages, who wrote as follows: Before engaging in pra'yer one must free one's heart from all preoccupation~s, and regard oneself as standing in God's presence. It is therefore proper to sit a while before praying in order to direct the heart and then pray calmly and devoutly. However, the Jewish teachers realized that the proper dispositions for prayer cannot be acquired during a few moments of concentration before ac-tually beginning to pray. The quality of one's prayer is greatly influenced by 2 The Mishnah, literally "repetition," is the name given to a collection of teachings that are attrib-uted to rabbis who lived in the period between 150 B.C. and 250 A.D. These teachings were codified by Judah the Prince in the middle of the third century A.D. However, in the compilation of~his Mishnah, Judah used earlier collections of rabbinic teachings. ~ Tefillah, meaning "prayer," is the name given to the Jewish prayer par-excellence which con-sisted of eighteen benedictions or petitions. The Tefillah was recited three times daily, in the morning, in the afternoon, and in the evening. Those who attefided the synagogue recited it there, while others recited it in private. The petitions of the Tefillah substantially go back to New Testa-ment times. ¯ The word Shema simply means "hear." It is the name given to a prayer traditionally recited in the morning and in the evening by every male Jew. The prayer, or rather confession of faith, begins with the passage, "Hear, O Israel." (Dr 6:4-9)--hence the name--and continues with Dt. 11:13-21 and Nb 15:37-41. Service of Heart / 43 the whole tone of one's daily life. Nahmanides, a thirteenth century Jewish mystic and scholar of Spain, was aware of this when he wrote: When you pray, remove all worldly considerations from your heart. Set your heart right before God, cleanse your inmost thoughts, and meditate before uttering your devotions. Act thus all your days and in all things, and you will not sin. By this course your deeds wil! be upright, and your prayers pure and clean, innocent and devout, and acceptable before God. Know Before Whom You Stand When Amos wished to warn his fellow-Israelites about the punishment that awaited them because of their infidelity he said simply: "Prepare to meet your God!" (Am 4:12). These blunt words were given a broad interpretation and the rabbis applied them to the preparation needed for prayer. Such an interpretation of the text is by no means unreasonable, because prayer is a meeting with God, and as such it cannot be lightly undertaken. Prayer for the rabbis in particular was a matter of what they called chutzpah, that is, an act of, boldness, even of impertinence. For who can have a right to appear before his creator and Lord, to address him, and to expect an answer? Yet the Jewish sages knew that prayer was part and parcel of Israelite life, and that the great heroes of old, like Moses, David, Jeremiah, had all prayed. Therefore, although the rabbis spoke of God as ".the Holy One, blessed be he," and addressed him in prayer as "Lord, King of the Universe," they never hesitated to present their every plea before him. The Talmud teaches explicitly that "'chut:&ah, even against God is of avail," meaning that God cannot resist one who prays, and that the Lord of Glory does not rejec~ his servants who approach him. Yet, lest the chutzpah involved in prayer go beyond boldness and con-fidence, and become insolence and offense, rabbinic tradition was careful to insist on the reverence and respect that should characterize one's attitude in God's. presence. The rabbis recalled tha,t when the Israelites saw the glory of God on Sinai "their souls fled" and the~, trembled in holy fear. If Moses and the generation of the Exodus who had experienced so many manifestations of God's power and goodness were unable to stand with confidence in his presence, how much more should the less privileged generations of the people feel overcome by his might and majesty? Rabbi Eliezer (c. 100 A.D.) gave this advice to his disciples: "When you pray, know before whom you stand, and in this way you will win the future world" (Berakoth 28b). A slightly modified version of this text became known to generation after generation of Jews who read the words "Know before whom you stand" inscribed in many synagogues over the ark which contained the scrolls of the law. Such an inscription reminded the worshippers of the awesome meaning of prayer, and forcefully suggested that all levity and casualness were inappropriate in the praying congregation. Other synagogue inscriptions that conveyed the same message were Jacob's words as recorded 44 / Review for Religious, Volume 40, 1981/1 in Gn 28:17: "How awesome is t his place! This is none ot her than t he house of God, and this is the gate of heaven," or the psalmist's declaration "1 keep the Lord always before me" (Ps 16:8), or the well known verse from Isaiah, "Ho-ly, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts," which was also to have an important place in Christian churches and in Christian prayers. These, or similar words, were continual reminders of synagogue worshippers that an attitude of flip-pant self-assurance or a casual or indifferent mood are unbecoming in one who genuinely strives to enter into communion with his God. However, lest the dignity of God and the serious nature of prayer frighten off the would-be worshipper, other texts which instill an attitude of trust in God's presence were at the disposal of those who went to the synagogue to pray. The Jerusalem Talmud laid down the general principle that the Jew need never hesitate to approach God in prayer: "When a man is in trouble let him not cry out to the angel Michael or to the angel Gabriel, but to me, and I will answer immediately" (Berakoth 9, 1.13a). The traditional Jewish Prayer Book began with a series of biblical texts which were designed to create an atmosphere of adoration and devotion in the worshipping community. Texts such as "O Lord, I love the habitation of thy house" (Ps 26:8), or "But as for me, my prayer is to thee, O Lord" (Ps 69:13) were calculated to set the scene for serene reflection, and to express an awareness of God's love and goodness without which prayer is impossible. So while the Jew's attitude to God contained an ingredient of reverent fear, and while his approach to his Lord was characterized by a sober recogni-tion of the divine majesty that 'cannot be flouted, his relationship to God was also marked by trust in a personal Being who, far from being an arbitrary despot, is a God in whom power and love are one, and who cares for those who approach him with faith. The Talmud taught that "one cannot deal familiarly with heaven" (Berakoth 33b-34a), but it did not set God outside the reach of the average Jewish believer. Gestures of Reverence In Old Testament times the temple in Jerusalem was for the Israelite "the house of the Lord" (Ps 27:4). The perpetual lamp which burned in the temple (see Lv 24:2f) was for the rabbis of later times a witness to mankind that God dwelt among his people (Talmud, Sabbath 22b), and the religious leaders of Israel strove to instill into the people a deep respect for the place where God had set up his abode. The Mishnah records the following prescription that was framed in order to ensure that the biblical command to "reverence the Sanc-tuary" (Lv 19:30) would be fulfilled: A man should not behave himself unseemly [in the temple area]. He may not enter the Temple Mount with his staff or his sandal or his wallet, or with dust upon his feet, nor may he make it a short by-pass; still less may he spit there (Mishnah, Berakoth, 9:5). Of course the ultimate aim of this prescription Was to honor the God who Service of Heart / 45 was worshipped in the temple~. The rabbis are explicit about this when they state that just as one does not revere the Sabbath but him who commanded the observance of the Sabbath, so one is not to revere the sanctuary but him who gave the commandment concerning the sanctuary (Talmud, Yebamoth 6a-6b). The authors of these rabbinic statements understood the importance of an aura of sacredness that can help to make one conscious of being in the divine presence, and that can help to generate the I~avvanah that makes prayer meaningful. Biblical tradition prescribes no particular postures or movements for prayer. But we do find mention of several physical postures that are meant to give expression to one's spiritual and menta