Suchergebnisse

Issue 51.4 of the Review for Religious, July/August 1992. ; for religi.ous Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living JULY-AUGUST 1992 ¯-VOLUME 51 ¯ NUMBER 4 Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-535-3048 ¯ FAX: 314-535-0601 Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ° St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP ¯ 5001 Eastern Avenue ¯ P.O. Box 29260 Washington~ D.C. 20017. POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ° P.O. Box 6070 ° Duluth, MN 55806. Second-class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional offices. SUBSCRIPTION RATES Single copy $5 includes surface mailing costs. One-year subscription $15 plus mailing costs. Two-year subscription $28 plus mailing costs. See inside back cover for more subscription information and mailing costs. ©1992 Review for Religious for religious Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Assistant Editors Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Michael G. Harter SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Jean Read Mary Ann Foppe Mary Margaret Johanning SSND Iris Ann Ledden SSND Edmundo Rodriguez SJ Se~in Sammon FMS Wendy Wright PhD Suzanne Zuercher OSB Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living JULY-AUGUST 1992 ¯ VOLUME 51 ¯ NUMBER 4 contents evangelizing and witnessing ° 486 Church of the Poor Juan Ram6n Moreno sJ reflects on the implications of seeing the poor as central for the identity of the church and religious life. 496 Women Missioners amidst Violence Annmarie Sanders IHM reflects the questions, fears, and chal-lenges facing foreign women missionaries in Peru. 504 School of Terror Roy Bourgeois MM speaks on behalf of the poor as he voices his concern about a particular military training camp called the School of the Americas. inculturating 508 Women Religious and the African Synod M. Gerard Nwagwu offers her thoughts on the evangelization of Africa in an article originally presented as the keynote address at the National Day of Celebration of the Nigerian Conference of Women Religious in January 1992. 519 Rerooting Religious Life in South Africa Jennifer Mary Alt OP reflects on how native African spiritual values might become better integrated into the religious-life vocation. 527 54O 545 living religiously Religious Life and Religion Albert DiIanni SM calls attention to the religious core of a belief in God and of our relationship with God which cannot be reduced to a personal~ social, or ecological morality. Detachment in Our Psychological Age Eileen P. O'Hea CSJ explains detachment as a way of freeing ourselves from our compulsive behaviors and opening ourselves to God's healing. An Ache in My Heart Bernard Seif SMC witnesses to the continuing call and direction of God in bringing forth new forms of dedicated life in the " church. 482 Review Jbr Religious focusing religious life 550 Religious Life in Church Documents Patricia F. Walter OP presents some aspects identifying religious life in conciliar and postconciliar documents of the magisterium. 562 The Ignatian Charism of the Sisters of St. Joseph Joan L. Roccasalvo CSJ shows how the Spiritual Exercises per-meate Jean-Pierre M~daille's Maxims of Perfection and so fire an Ignatian spirit for the Sisters of St. Joseph. 575 Envisioning Associate Identity Rose Marie Jasinski CBS reflects on the status of the associate movement in the light of the second national conference held 5-7 May 1991. 581 Musings about Vocations James E. Claffey CM finds vocation ministry a stimulant to a broader understanding of how God breaks into our history. 585 595 600 614 484 625 632 ministering Pastoral Leadership beyond the Managerial (XL*~ Matthias Neuman OSB stresses the role of spiritual leadership in the midst of ministry challenges. Scarcity and Abundance in Parishes Thomas P. Sweetser SJ compares the parish to a desert of scarci-ties, but at the same time a desert beautiful with hidden wells of life. Marian Community and Ministry Patrick Primeaux SM combines data from both the theological and businessomanage.ment disciplines to distinguish a Petrine and a Marian way of ministering and of living community. Three Images of Priesthood Henry J. Charles proposes the images of priest as collaborator, mystagogue, and holy man for a renewed understanding of priesthood. departments Prisms /~ Canonical Counsel: Involuntary Ex~laustration Book Reviews .l~uly-Augu.ct 1992 483 prisms History happens. We human beings can write our history books and, by emphasis and omission and sometimes by romanticizing, make as if we are mas-ters of our history. It may take only some seventy years for the rewriting of the Communist history of Russia or it may take five hundred years for the European discovery of the Americas to be reevaluated. But it happens. We say that Pope John XXIII made history when he called the Second Vatican Council. We are well aware that the church experienced, through the actions of the bishops present at the council, something that has been likened to a second Pentecost. For our own availability to the God of history, we need to return again and again to the happening of that first Pentecost and the subsequent events as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. God's Spirit makes things happen, even when the very persons involved seem so little capable of being the crafters of history. Most recently Pope John Paul II has expressed his own desire to make history by his call for a new evangelization, partic-ularly occasioned by our entering into the third millen-nium. This call to a new evangelization holds the promise of another moment of this second Pentecost that came with Vatican II. It is history happening, in which none of us is the master or control-artist, but every one of us plays an important role--with the Spirit's direction. Evangelization--new evangelization--demands much of us all. A paradigm of evangelization and inculturation captures our attention anew as we reflect upon the events in the Acts of the Apostles. It means that no one can hold himself or herself exempt from the call of this second moment of the second Pentecostqthe call to a new hear- 484 Review for Religious ing of good news. This is not the time for new rules or the impo-sition of old ones--the Judaizers tried that two thousand years ago. It is the time for Cornelius, his wife, and household to invite Peter once again to proclaim the gospel so that new conversion on everyone's part can take place. It is the time for Peter to dream new dreams and hear God telling him that old restrictions do not apply in a new creation moment. One of the deepest meanings of Pentecost lies in the fact that all peoples heard the good news in a way that they could under-stand and respond to. It goes beyond the language barrier to breakthroughs involving customs, heritages, and rituals. In the Pentecost beginnings, Jesus Christ and the gospel message needed no inculturation. In the new evangelization as in the original one recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, it is not Jesus Christ who needs to be inculturated; he is already a confidant of people's hearts. It is his church that must be inculturated by being evan-gelized anew as well as by evangelizing others. The Acts of the Apostles--the story of the first evangelizing time--portrays the exhilarating and somber picture that inculturating a church does not come without cost--a cost which everyone must bear in lis-tening to ~hocking good news, in experiencing a certain amount of turmoil, in suffering the pain of differences expressed vigorously by people who serve or are served. John Paul II has said that "we need an evangelization that is new in its ardor, new in its method, new in its expressions." That ' is what we--always the disciples--must allow to happen to our-selves first: to be evangelized anew in order to be the new evan-gelizers. We need to rethink how to inculturate a church, not a gospel. If the original Jewish and pagan converts to the new Christian faith seemed to share little common religious heritage and ritual and yet, with struggle, came to form the Body of Christ, can we today not recognize the imperative of a new evangelization demanding the same kind of breakthrough for traditionalists, lib-erals, feminists, or whatever modern-day version an appeal to the party of Apollos or Paul takes? A new evangelization brings the excitement of discovery into our own lives and so into our church. Let the Spirit lead. It has happened; it will happen again. David L. Fleming SJ ~uly-Augu~t 1992 485 JUAN RAMON MORENO Church of the Poor evangelizing and witnessing Juan Ram6n Moreno SJ was one of six Jesuits mur-dered along with an employee and her daughter by Salvadoran military forces at the Jesuit residence of the Central American University, San Salvador, on 16 November 1989. He was widely known as a spiritual director, teacher, preacher, and giver of retreats and conferences and was the founder and editor of the spirituality journal Diakonfa. Besides holding other responsibilities, at various times he was novice director for the Jesuits of Central America, local superior, university professor, and president of the Panamanian and Nicaraguan con-ferences of religious. This article was first published in Diakonfa 7 (1978): 17-28 and republished in a collection of Father Moreno's writings, Evangelio y misidn (San Salvador: UCA Editores, 1990). The translation is by James R. Brockman SJ with the permission of UCA Editores. The footnotes are the translator's. The term "church of the poor" is meant to express a new awareness of what it is to be church, an awareness that is growing in force among Christians in Latin America. The following thoughts are proposed as a help toward under-standing the foundation and principal traits of this way of viewing the church. Church of the Poor and Vatican II The schema on the church elaborated by the precon-ciliar doctrinal commission brought together the ecclesi-ology traditionally taught in recent centuries, and the 486 Review for Religious that allow one to recognize in Jesus the hoped-for Messiah are that "the blind see and the lame walk., and the good news is proclaimed to the poor" (Mt 11:5), what should be the traits that make recognizable Jesus' church? Church Born from Below Vatican II has allowed us to pass from a church that becomes conscious of itself and is organized and structured fr0m within, from itself, to a church that seeks to understand and structure itselffr0m without, from the world that it has been sent to in order to make God's kingdom grow in that world. Nevertheless, the reality that the world is a divided world had not yet made its full impact on the council. Consequently, the challenges to which it more directly proposes to respond are those of a world seen too much from above, from the angle of the learned and the skilled, from the culture and the perspective of the dominant classes. But at Medellfn2 the Latin American bishops began to express in an inspired and probing manner the conflictive reality of our world. The cry of the impoverished majority of the continent found an echo. The church began to become aware of itself and to organize and structure its life and pastoral action not from an abstract world or from just any part of the real, concrete world, but from below, from the world of the poor, and from there to fashion itself as the true church of Christ. Church of the Poor One must not confuse church of the poor with church3'br the poor. A church for the poo~r would be a church that is constituted in a first step that is logically prior to its encounter with the poor and then, in a second step, seeks out the poor to serve and help them. But the church of the poor is a church that in its very con-stitution has the poor as its center. There is no doubt that the church, as the historical body of Christ, must place itself in the world to transform it and to make present in it the reign of God. It must be incarnated, that is, take a body, become a visible and acting institution. But the problem is, what are the criteria that are to determine its institutional shape? What body will it take? Faithful to the incarnational logic of Jesus, the church must take the body of the poor, incorporat-j~ uly-.4ugust 1992 489 Moreno ¯ Church of the Poor ing the poor, making the poor to be those who make up what is characteristic and determinant of its body, which is structured and takes visible form from the cause and the interests of the poor. Let us take a Gospel passage that graphically illustrates this, which is the particular way of acting of Jesus. I choose the short scene with which Mark begins his third chapter. He describes a Jesus situated within a determined sociocultural-religious con-text. But Jesus is situated in it concretely, and he is situated in a way which is perceived by one of the parties as threatening to its interests--"they wer~ watching him closely" (3:2)--and which provokes a conflict so sharp that "they plotted together to see how to eliminate him" (3:6). What is indicative is the place where Jesus is situated and from which he faces the situation: solidarity with the actual man, the man in his poverty, the man oppressed by his paralyzed hand and forsaken by the institution. He has him step into the middle of the synagogue. And he obliges the others, the representatives of the grand institution, to face up to their own presuppositions: Is it licit or not? What is more important, the institution or the person, maintaining the institution or free-ing a man from what concretely oppresses him? What is the cri-terion to act on? "But they were silent" (3:4). Jesus' reaction is, "Then looking at them with anger . . ." (3:5). Countless times the Gospels speak of Jesus' look--always a loving and compas-sionate look. Now he looks "with anger." At whom? At that group of wise, prudent men who are respectful of the institution. Why? Because they refuse to commit themselves to the man, they refuse to make a decision in regard to a poor person, they refuse to take a stand in a situation that questions their rigid institutional schemes. Jesus says, "Hold out your hand" (3:5). Jesus chooses the poor person, the man in a situation of concrete need. The institution is either at the service of human beings orit does not reflect the true God. The Gospels contain many even more radical expressions about the poor as the fundamental criterion for discerning whether we are following the path to God's kingdom. Perhaps the most awesome and disquieting is the words contained in Matthew 25:31-46: "Come, blessed ones of my Father, inherit the kingdom . . . for I was hungry and you gave me to eat. depart from me, accursed ones., for I was naked and you did no~' clothe me . " There is not much room here for sociological or 490 Review for Religious theological lucubrations about who are the poor that are spoken of and what is the determinant criterion for measuring God's nearness. Crucified Church As we can see in the example of Jesus, taking the side of the poor supposes having the courage to get involved in conflict. The history of the Latin American church since Medellfn confirms what has been true all through its existence: insofar as it empties itself of power and prestige so as to enter the world of the poor and be identified with them and their cause, it has also had to suffer their lot--crucifixion and death--and it has come to under-stand why it cannot follow Jesus without denying itself and car-rying the cross. It is because the immense majority of the poor are not poor simply because of nature, but because of other persons. In reality, the poor are the impoverished. Hence, their mere pres-ence is an accusation, a questioning; it creates conflict. The poor are a cause of division, a division whose theological meaning is apocalyptically described in the eschatological discourse I have mentioned: "He will separate one from the other, as the shep-herd separates the sheep from the goats" (Mt 25:32). Jesus him-self, poor and in solidarity with the poor, appears as "a sign of contradiction" (Lk 2:34); and when he takes his place actually at the side of the poor, he provokes conflict and repression, and he suffers death. For this reason the church of the poor is the crucified church, the church of the martyrs. It is so insofar as it is a church of the poor. As long as it preaches universal but abstract love, as long as it is a church from above, the world's powerful praise and respect it; they consider it their church. But when it begins to translate love into historical terms, when it begins to take the side of the poor and it plans and organizes its pastoral work with them in mind, then it begins also to be the church that is slandered and persecuted. If we look at this fact in the light of the Beatitudes (see Lk 6:22-23, 26) there is no doubt which one is the church of Jesus. Church in which the Poor are Evangelized The poor are the privileged consignees of the good news of .~ly-Aug'ust 1992 491 Moreno ¯ Church of the Poor salvation. That does not mean they are the exclusive consignees. Partiality is not the same as exclusiveness. Jesus comes to bring sal-vation for all. But he comes to bring it from the poor, and fi'om them he confronts the changes that must come about in the world; he makes specific what it means to be converted, what it means to become brothers and sisters. This is not a matter of mystifying the poor, as if they were the good and the rich were the bad. It is that objectively God's identi-fication with the poor, the defense of their cause, is precisely where it is revealed what God is, a God who is love that saves, love that creates a brotherhood and sisterhood of sons and daughters, love that makes all things new. And so it is from there that salva-tion is offered to all. The Beatitudes proclaim, not the goodness of human beings, but the goodness of the God who identifies with the little ones of the earth. The Acts of the Apostles describes for us a church that under, stood this very well and where for that reason the poor find their place in such a way that they cease to be poor: Among them no one was needy, because all those who pos-sessed land or houses sold them and brought the price of the sale., and distribution was made to all according to their needs (Ac 4:34-35). It is the very gesture of him who "being rich became poor for you in order to enrich you with his poverty (2 Co 8:9). Church in which the Poor Evangelize Us This is another of the traits that characterize the church of the poor. St. John declares: Everyone who loves . . . knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love (1 Jn 4:7-8). But those who from their objective condition teach the church what true love of God, Christian love, consists in are the poor: If someone has material possessions and sees a brother in need and yet closes his heart to him, how can love of God dwell in him? My children, let us love not just with words, with our lips, but with actions and in truth (1 Jn 3:17-18). The poor reveal to us what the demands are of that love which, because it is Christian, seeks efficacy and a real change in the conditions of suffering and injustice of the poor. They makd us discover who God is: the one who takes the part of the orphan, 492 Review for Religious the widow, the stranger, the one who becomes their goeL They make us understand the Jesus who has compassion, who casts out demons, who looks with anger. They reveal to us the demons that must be cast out today, what the sin is that today stirs up the Lord's anger, what it is that today negates brotherhood, that kills our brother or sister. It is from the poor we must learn what grace means, grace that is manifested in powerlessness, that makes possible the impossible, that bursts in as pure gift. In short, they keep on making us discover the Gospel in a new dimension. On the other hand, if the poor are the privileged consignees of the good news of the kingdom, that means they must also be privileged in understanding and interpreting what that good news signi-fies. The Gospel is understood through the lens of the poor and from their per-spective. Therefore, it is in them before all else that the Spirit becomes present, From the poor we must learn what grace means, grace that is manifested in powerlessness, that makes possible the impossible, that bursts in as pure gift. and from there the Spirit speaks today to the church. There is a hierarchical magisterium in the church, but it only makes sense if it is rooted in the reality of those poor who make up the church's rank and file. The good shepherd's sheep follow him because "they know his voice" and "he knows his own sheep" (Jn 10:4, 14). The hierarchy of the church of the poor is a hierarchy of service, not of domination. It is a hierarchy that knows its sheep in dia-logue and solidarity, that is ai~tuned to their concrete needs, their sufferings, their longings. Precisely for this reason, because it can hear and understand the people's silent cry, it is able to speak with a language that is recognizable, and in the hierarchy's voice the poor find their life, their cause, their hope, their own voice. The theological reflection of the church of the poor is done from below also, tuning in to 'the awareness and the feelings of the poor. Those poor have had their voice taken away--within the church as well--for so long that they have forgotten how to speak and must learn, to express themselves; but they must increasingly acquire a voice within the church. And that voice must be heard, because in it is revealed the Spirit of Jesus that guides the church. Thus will arise a church where things are considered, struc-at~ dy-./lugust 1992 493 Moreno ¯ Church of tbe Poor tured, and carried out from the perspective of the poor. It is they who say how the institution should function, what new ministries are required for a better service, what ministries and functions they need so that they themselves may be active participants within the church's life. Church on Its Way We must not forget that this church of the poor is also a pil-grim church, a church that must keep forming itself through hard-ship and conflict. I am not referring now to conflict with the powers of the world; I am talking about the world and the sin that are still found within the church itself, about conflict that arises from the church's limitations and from different models of church. The church's unity--that unity for which Jesus died--is eschatological unity, a unity that will come about beyond the church itself as fundamental gift of the kingdom that will burst forth into fullness. The church has a mission to go on building that unity--which is universal brotherhood and sisterhood--by attacking at the root what keeps that unity from being realized. That is not achieved by denying the reality of the conflict, but by facing up to the lack of love and Folidarity that produces it. The mere existence of the poor exposes that lack of love and sol-idarity- which is why there will be protest, conflict, and division as long as there are poor--and it reminds us that salvation, the fullness of God's reign, has not yet arrived. The Religious Life in the Church of the Poor What place do we religious have within this church of the poor that I have just described? The religious life arises as protest against the values and struc-tures of the world. It arises as a search for what is radical in the Gospel, for the "one thing necessary" (Lk 10:42), which tends to be obscured in a church tempted to become worldly, to stop being the distinct event that it ought to be within the world. With its special form of Christian existence, religious life ought to be prophecy that points continually towards the church's true mean-ing and calls on it, not to settle down, but to seek ever to go for-ward. That is the eschatological meaning of the vows, as they show us a beyond that urgesus to transform the present. 494 Review for Religious But what is the natural place for religious life to flourish? Where is the root that makes our life radically evangelical? If what I have said about the church of the poor is true, then there is no doubt that the poor are the place par excellence where the reli-gious life should be located in order to carry out its charism of prophecy. In point of fact, the Spirit is stirring up a notable move-ment among religious towards a real and concrete insertion among the poor. From there the Spirit provides light for a reinterpreta-tion of religious life itself. The religious vows are seen before all else as ,consecration to the Christ who is poor and identified with the poor, as vows that consecrate by freeing us from fixity and exclusiveness so as to form Christians who are available for all and approachable by all, but with an availability and approacha-bility whose universalness is shown precisely in being dedicated by preference to the poor and effectively committed to their cause. It means being detached in order to go where the institution can scarcely reach because of the difficulty and poverty of the condi-tions. Jon Sobrino expresses it very well as a going to the desert, the periphery, the frontier: to the desert, where no one is, where no one wants to go; to the periphery, where everything is seen through the lens of the powerless (not to the center, where the powerful are, where things are seen from above); to the frontier, where risks are greater and the task is harder, where there are no trodden paths because no one has trod them and the walkways are made by walking. What better way to fulfill religious life's prophetic function within the church than to help it read the signs of the times from that insertion into the world and struggle of the poor? What bet-ter way than to point out the new paths that the Spirit of Jesus is having us discover through the poor, in whom that Spirit becomes so specially present? The challenge offered us is, how to bring this about? To what conversion does the Lord call us as religious within the church so that we may help it become increasingly a church of the poor? Notes 1 The Documents of Vatican H (New York: The America Press, 1966), pp. 23-24. 2 The 1968 Latin American bishops' assembly at Medell~n, Colombia. July-August 1992 495 ANNMARIE SANDERS Women Missioners amidst Violence efforts of two insurgency groups, drug lords, and a military that violates more human rights than the groups it seeks to suppress. Through the country more than sixty percent of the people are living in emergency zones, and a great deal of these areas have been placed under military control. Many of the towns have lost their leaders, doctors, teachers, and development workers and even their police. Often only Catholic church workers remain, the great majority of whom are women religious. The situation has called us who serve here to a new way of liv-ing and ministering among the people and to a new spirituality. Following Christ and living Christian values can no longer be done as in the past. The reality in which our spirituality is lived out is now radically different. In speaking with various foreign women missionaries through-out Peru, I see that we struggle with many of the same new chal-lenges, are asking ourselves the same questions, and are recognizing similar patterns in our lives of prayer and relation with God. Our situation is unique because of the state of the country in which we work. The complexity of problems plaguing Annmarie Sanders IHM, a member of her congregation's vocation and formation team, has been in Peru since March 1989, She also works as associate editor of Latinamerica Press/Noticias Aliadas. Her address is Apartado 18-0101 ; Lima, Peru. 496 Review for Religious Peru does not follow any pattern in the history of other nations, and thus we have no precedent to follow. To understand our questions, fears, and challenges, one must better understand the context of the violence we face. Peru's two terrorist groups, the Maoist Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) and the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Move-ment, hold as their primary goals the takeover of the country. So far their efforts since 1980 ¯ have resulted in 23,000 deaths, 5,000 disap-pearances and US$18 billion in economic damage. Sendero has declared its willingness to wade through a "river of blood" to expunge foreign influence in Peru and establish a peas-ant society. It rejects competition from the church, the state, and the private sector. The methods of the two groups include bombings, intimidations, blackmail, torture, and ruth-less murder. The terrorist groups are known to be linked with narco-traffic rings, and in return for the security which the terrorists provide coca traffickers, they receive an esti-mated $40 million a year. Although the current government of Although the terrorist problem has been present in the country for over a decade, only recently has the church been directly affected. President Albert Fujimori attempts to control the drug trafficking and terrorist situations, it also battles cholera, endemic corruption, frequent drought, eighty-percent underemployment, and a deep economic depression leaving 13 million of Peru's 22 million inhabitants in extreme poverty, a figure which has doubled in three years. The government must also contend with the Peruvian military and police forces, which, according to the Washington Office on Latin America, are among the worst violators of human rights in the hemisphere. The U.S. State Department's 1990 human-rights report notes "widespread credible reports of summary executions, arbitrary arrests, and torture and rape by the military, as well as less frequent reports of such abuses by the police." The United Nations Commission on Human Rights noted that in 1991, for the fourth consecutive year, Peru had the highest number of disap-pearances of all the countries in the world. Although the terrorist problem has been present in the coun-try for over a decade, only recently has the church been directly affected. Between the church and the terrorists there had existed .~dy-August 1992 497 Sanders ¯ Women Missioners amidst Violence an "understanding." Generally, when terrorists entered to take over a village, if church workers complied with terrorist expecta-tions they were left unharmed. The church work often had to be significantly curtailed,.'but the religious could remain as a presence to the people. The recent direct destruction of church projects and prop-erty; the deaths of Irene McCormack, an Australian Sister of St. Joseph, in Junin in May 1991 and of Zbigniew Strzalkowski and Michael Tomaszek, Polish Franciscan priests, and Alessandro Dordi Negroni, an Italian priest, in Chimbote in August 1991; and the attempted assassination in July 1991 in Chimbote of Miguel Company, a priest from Spain, changed the scene signif-icantly. More religious encountered terrorist demands that their works--especially food aid and development projects--be stopped, and many received direct threats on their lives. Rather suddenly priests and religious became direct terrorist targets. Sendero Luminoso proclaimed that the church was the enemy of the peo-ple and an obstacle to revolutionary triumph. As the Rev. Robert Gloisten, a U.S. missioner and a staff member of the Peruvian Episcopal Conference for Social Action, stated, "We have become a church under fire with no idea of what will happen day to day." For several years, denial of the serious-ness of the situation was possible. Life was carried on with a vague knowledge that terrorists were active in a few isolated areas; as long as their activity did not directly touch us, we could continue peacefully. Those days are past. ~ The level of awareness and acceptance of the reality of this sit-uation naturally differs for each person. Much depends on one's personal experiences. For example, Pittsburgh Sister of Mercy Rita Harasiuk, who works in the diocese of Chimbote, was jolted by the death of her three colleagues into a new view of the situation: Although I began seeing things differently with the attempted assassination of Miguel Company, it was really the deaths of the two Franciscans that affected me the most. The two, along with two mayors from nearby towns who were also killed, were laid out together in coffins--all open-- and one worse than the other. For some of us, it was the first time we had seen what a human body looked like after having been shot in the head with weapons designed to destroy and mutilate . When Sandro [Alessandro Dordi] was killed two weeks later, we could see that more killing might go on. That's when we really began to strug-gle with what our response to this situation should be. 498 Review for Religious For California native Teresa Avalos of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, an incident directly involving her community played a significant role in making the situation more real for her and her sisters. In July 1991 a group of Sendero Luminoso ter-rorists entered Moho, where five of her community members lived and worked. They dynamited several buildings, executed six people, and ordered the townspeople to break into and ransack the convent. "This brought the fear of violence that is directed toward us much more into the open," Avalos said. Others of us have grown in our acceptance of the seriousness of the situation from our hearing such accounts by our colleagues. We stand in solidarity with them, aware that the problem is no longer isolated. An important task most of us have faced has been the admission of our feelings in the midst of such turmoil. Fear, nat-urally, is among the most common emotions, and, unfortunately, sometimes very difficult to accept and share with others. "We are all at different stages of being able to accept the real-ity, and some are still in a stage of denial," said California native Liane Delsuc of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. "This leaves me often feeling alone and sometimes I don't want to share my fears because others don't feel them. I start to think--is it only me that feels this way? Does that mean I should leave? That I am not able to handle it? But I do not feel that is the case. So I look for people with whom I can more freely share because in sharing it I feel stronger and as if I can continue living this." The sharing has helped us understand the wide range of emo-tions we feel. "Reflecting with others enables me to sift through real fears and imaginary ones," said Pauline Maheux, an Edmonton, Canada, native of the Ursuline Sisters of the Chatham Union; "in sharing we help one another admit to our fears and face them." The emotions one feels get mixed up when one watches the sense-less killing and destruction of years of work. Feelings include shock and anger. Often what is hardest for us to accept is the distrust we now feel towards others since we know that we must be aware of terrorist infiltration into our parishes and workplaces. An important task most of us have faced has been the admission of our feelings in the midst of such turmoil. July-August 1992 499 Sanders ¯ Women Missioners amidst Violence Harasiuk received a shocking revelation of this after the funeral for the slain Franciscans. At the offertory two gifts were quietly brought in procession to the altar: the rope used to tie the hands of those killed and the blood-covered cardboard left on their bodies with messages from the assassins. "We later dis-covered that among the young people bringing the gifts to the altar were persons who belonged to Sendero." Our situation naturally causes us to reflect on death--that which we see around us as well as our own. "I think much more about the possibility of my own death," said French native Anna Ingett of the Sisters of Christian Education; "not that I think death will come in the next few days,,but I am more conscious of its nearness." Given this stark reality, we are constantly asking ourselves on personal, communal, local, diocesan, and national levels: How do we deal with this personally and how are we to respond as church workers? One of the greatest challenges we face is receiving accu-rate information about what is happening in the country. The media in Peru are severely restricted and often rely on third-party sources; great doubts remain. Although organizations such as the Religious Conference of Peru work hard to gather facts, the dis-semination of information is very difficult, given the lack many religious have of telephones and reliable mail service. Many reli-gious, however, felt aided by the Religious Conference's meet-ings and workshops on violence and also by programs dealing with situations and problems in the various dioceses. What seems most useful to us are open, honest dialogues with our community members and other religious working in our areas. Many of us have listened to the facts, tried to process our feelings, and then asked ourselves some hard questions: How much more of this can I take? Will I leave if one more religious or priest is killed? Can I live with this tension? Can I remain a sign of hope in what looks like an apparently hopeless situation? Once some sense of peace was reached about our presence here, we began reexamining why we are staying. Many of us, espe-cially those working the emergency zones, began looking at our work with very different eyes. "After the deaths here, most of us slowed down and started thinking, evaluating, praying, and talk-ing together about why we are here and what we should be doing," said Harasiuk, who has been working for ten years as a pastoral team member in Chimbote. She recalls a meeting of priests and 500 Revlew for Religious sisters where someone asked, "Do you think you should continue working as you have been?" Not one person said yes. Many pastoral workers have reduced their work to simple presence in their parishes. They no longer lead groups, distribute food and aid, or attempt to organize the people. They maintain a low profile and lead quiet lives of simple accompaniment. For Delsuc, who is principal in a Lima barrio of a Fe and Alegrfa School, one of forty-three institutes set up by the Jesuits to educate young people in Lima's shantytowns and in the provinces, the questions about work are many: "I wonder if we are presenting relevant, peaceful alterna-tives that will allow the people to respond with Christian values to the violence around them? I wonder if it would'be better not to be involved in a certain work and just live alongside the people? I wonder if our commit-ment to the people is valuable even if it brings death?" Many of our ques-tions must be left unanswered. But we recognize that simply by asking them we have allowed our lives to be changed. For many of us, before we could accept the change the situ-ation calls us to, we had to let go of the past. Harasiuk says that this was a common experience for the religious in Chimbote after the deaths. "Our grieving process was not just for persons, but for a whole way of life that is passing. This situation has taken away from us a freedo~n to move day and night without fear, to speak openly without worrying about what we say or to who~n we are talking." For Harasiuk this experience also helped her to evaluate her life and her activity and to decide what really matters. "So many of the things I had been involved in suddenly did not seem so important." Maheux, who has served as a pastoral worker for eight years in Chiclayo, had a similar experience. "The situation has enabled me to sift through what is of essence and what is truly insignifi-cant. Relationships have taken on profound meaning . . . to be nourished and cherished." The change in relationships extends for most of us also to I wonder if we are presenting relevant, peaceful alternatives that will allow the people to respond with Christian values to the violence around them ? j~t~-Aug'u~ 1992 501 Sanders ¯ Women Missioners amidst Violence our relation with God. Many have noted that prayer is more dif-ficult, little ecstasy is experienced, much more anger is expressed, fewer words are used, and often God becomes the scapegoat for all of Peru's problems. Christ, for many of us, reveals himself in new ways in Scripture. "I experience Christ more in his passion, where he ends up in the midst of violence, mistreatment, and ridicule but stands strong to his values and commitments," said Delsuc. Many seek a sense of consolation in their relation with God--an assurance that they are loved and that God is still in control. Many, feeling lost in the confusion of these times, turn to God as a source of wisdom. For Lia Finnerty, a Canadian Holy Cross sister working in Juli, prayer is now more integrally connected with what is hap-pening in the news and in her village. "My prayer is the time when I can try to integrate our reality with God's word and see how our community is touched by all that." That need to connect our prayer with the wider community and to pray with others is co,ninon among us. Many note that the desire for communal peti-tionary prayer is much stronger and that it is a helpful experi-ence to bring to God each day all that we see and experience each day. Ingett, who serves on a pastoral team in Sicuani, notes that her community's time of petitionary prayer is also a time for asking pardon for all that these women experience in their daily inter-action with the people. Living in the midst of so much violence and structural injustice has clearly revealed to many of us the anger and violence present within ourselves. "Sometimes it's so hard to hear that the police have attacked innocent victims or tortured young people," admitted Finnerty. "My first reaction is often a violent one, even though I want to be nonviolent." We all seem to struggle with the anger we feel and our desire to be compassionate, and we ask ourselves many questions about how we can be more nonviolent people. We are trying different approaches. Massachusetts native Carmen Foley, a Halifax Sister of Charity serving as a spiritual director in Lima, is looking at her interactions with others and her judgments and is trying to be more merciful in her attitudes. Avalos, a pastoral worker in a Lima barrio and formhr.vice-provincial of her congregation, is look-ing at violence in her speech and her reactions. Finnerty, a pastoral worker among the Aymara people, is returning to the Aymaran value of solidarity and community as a block to violence. Delsuc 502 Review for Religious is practicing communication techniques to become more skilled in conflict resolution. Probably most important for all of us, however, is an openness to learn from the Peruvian people, who seem to know better than any of us just what hope in the midst of crisis is all about. As Maheux concluded, "My greatest source of hope for the future is the women, men, and children with whom I live. Their faith-fulness to the daily struggle to just live--to being able to eat, to the one-day-at-a-time facing of tremendous obstacles--teaches me that justice, peace, and life will endure and win out." Coming Out one shall know as dawn disentangles morning from night if one's desert spell was purgation or vacation was awakening or escape when one emerges anointed in power or scorched and spent Andrea Wild OSF July-August 1992 503 ROY BOURGEOIS School of Terror write from the Federal prison in Tallahassee, Florida, where am serving a sixteen-month sentence for an act of civil dis-obedience to protest the training of Salvadoran soldiers on United States soil. As I look back, I feel my being here is no accident, but rather the result of God's grace at work in my life. Growing up in rural Louisiana, I was a Sunday Christian and gave little thought to issues of peace and justice. I studied geology in college with the hope of getting rich in the oil fields of South America. After college I became a naval officer and volunteered for duty in Vietnam, feeling it was. my patriotic duty to fight communism. There I met a missionary who, amid the war, gave me a vision of Jesus as a healer and peacemaker. I left Vietnam wanting to be a missionary and entered Maryknoll, whose work is in twenty-eight countries overseas and in the United States. I was ordained in 1972 and went to serve the poor of Bolivia. A slum on the outskirts of La Paz became my home for six years. In Bolivia, as in Vietnam, the poor became my teachers and challenged me to grow in my faith. I then returned to do educational work in the United States. My involvement with E1 Salvador began in 1980, after Archbishop Oscar Romero was gunned down at the altar and after four church women from the United States were raped and killed by Salvadoran soldiers. Two of the women, Maryknoll sisters Maura Clarke and Ita Ford, were friends of mine. Their death forced me to confront what was happening in this small Central American country. Roy Bourgeois MM writes that prison can be a good place to read Scripture, pray, and do ministry. His address is Register No. 01579-017; PMB 1000; Tallahassee, Florida 32301. 504 Review for Religious After several trips to E1 Salvador, it became clear that the problem was not "communism" or "subversion" but hunger. As is the case almost everywhere in Latin America, the wealth, power, and land of E1 Salvador are in the hands of an elite few. While these live in huge mansions where they are waited on by servants and enjoy frequent vacations and shopping sprees in the United States and Europe, most Salvadorans live in dehumanizing pover.ty and die before their time. The poor, once told that their suffering was the will of God, now know better as they gather in small groups to read and reflect on the word of God. They now real-ize that their poverty and suffering are the result of exploitation, greed, and irresponsible stew-ardship of God's creation. In May 1983, five hundred Salvadoran sol-diers arrived at Fort Benning, Georgia, to undergo U.S. Army training. At the time, I was speaking at churches and colleges in New Orleans about the injustice of U.S. military aid to E1 Salvador. I felt it was no time for business as usual, so I went to Columbus, Georgia, the home of Fort Benning, and began meeting with local residents. After two months of meet-ings, talks, and prayer vigils, three of us decided to enter Fort Benning at night, dressed as U.S. Army officers. Armed with a.high-powered cassette player, we climbed a tall pine tree near the barracks that housed the Salvadoran soldiers. At lights out, we tuned the cassette player to its highest volume and played Archbishop Romero's last homily, given in the cathedral the day before he was assassinated; in it he called on the military to stop the killing and lay down their arms. We were arrested, tried for criminal trespass ~and impersonating military officers, and sen-tenced to eighteen months' imprisonment. After serving my term I sought a few months of silence and solitude at. a Trappist monastery, then returned to the pulpit and classroom. On 16 November 1989 six Jesuit priests, their coworker, and her fifteen-year-old daughter were brutally murdered in E1 Salvador. According to a U.S. Congressional task force sent to El Salvador to investigate the massacre, five of the nine soldiers arrested for the slayings had been trained at Fort Benning. Today, hundreds of Salvadoran and other Latin American soldiers are being trained at Fort Benning's School of the Americas. The The problem was not "communism" or "subversion" bu t hunger. .y~dy-August 1992 505 Bourgeois ¯ Scbool of Terror School of the Americas (SOA) was located in Panama before mov-ing to Benning in 1984. Since 1946 this training ground for Latin American soldiers has quietly readied some 45,000 officers and enlisted men for right-wing Latin American governments. Manuel Noriega is a distinguished alumnus, as is General Hugo Banzer of Bolivia. In 1984, when the SOA was forced out of Panama, then Panamanian president Jorge Illueja described the school as "the biggest base of destabilization in Latin America." The foundation of the course work at the School of the Americas is low-intensity conflict (LIC), which, by military ana-lyst Michael Klare's definition, is "that amount of murder, muti-lation, torture, rape, and savagery that is sustainable without triggering widespread public disapproval at home." Students of LIC learn that the enemy is not just an opposing armed force; rather, the enemy can include anyone, armed or unarmed, who threatens the stability of the existing order. Hence, priests, teach-ers, health-care workers, union leaders, cooperative members, and human-rights advocates are among the victims of the School of the Americas. On 3 September 1990, ten of us--Vietnam veterans, Salva-dorans, a teacher, and members of the clergy--began a water-only fast at the entrance of Fort Benning to protest the training of' Salvadoran soldiers. When our fast ended after thirty-five days, our bodies were weak but our spirits remained strong. Miguel Cruz, a Salvadoran in our group who had been forced to leave his country because of a death threat, said, "We have the option to end our fast. However, the poor in my country do not. For them hunger is an everyday occurrence." On November 16, when we had recovered from the fast, three of us--Charles Liteky, a former army chaplain who had received the Medal of Honor for heroism in Vietnam; his brother Patrick, who had trained at Fort Benning's Infantry School, and I-- returned to Fort Benning to observe the first anniversary of the killing of the six Jesuits and the two women. After a prayer service, we entered the post, placed a white cross with photos of the eight martyrs at the entrance to the School of the Americas, and poured blood in one of the school's main halls. We wanted to impress on our country that we cannot wash our hands of the blood of inno-cent people killed in E1 Salvador by soldiers trained in the United States. We were arrested and tried. A jury found us guilty of dam- '506 Review for Religious aging government property. The Liteky brothers received six-month sentences, and I received sixteen months because of my previous conviction at Fort Benning in 1983. "Was it worth it?" I am often asked by friends and critics alike. Prison is hard and very lonely at times, even with the support of family and friends, who also suffer. My dad cried when I called home to tell him of my sentenc-ing. Yet I feel I did what my faith and the poor called me to do in the face of such violence, death, and suffering. As a Christian I feel I must try to relieve the suffering of the poor and integrate my faith in a loving God with action. It is indeed tragic what our silence did to the people of E1 Salvador over the past twelve years as our po!iticians fun-neled billions of dollars (hard-earned tax money) to a military regime that killed thousands of innocent people. ~ The recent peace accords in E1 Salvador now bring new hope, and it is a time for rebuilding after all the death and destruction. It is also a time for the hundreds of Salvadoran soldiers who continue their training at Fort Benning to go home--along with the troops from Guatemala, Honduras, Venezuela, Peru, Chile, Colombia, Bolivia, and other Latin American countries. I am convinced that we can relieve some of the suffering of the poor in Latin America by closing down the School of the Americas. It is a school of terror and should be shut down. While I am in prison, friends in Georgi~ are carrying on the peace-and-justice work. To learn more about our efforts, write to School of the Americas Watch; P.O. Box 3330; Columbus, Georgia 31903. Archbishop Romero said, "We who have a voice must speak for the voiceless." I pray and hope that we will speak clearly and boldly. As a Christian I feel I must try to relieve the suffering of the poor and integrate my faith in a loving God with action. j~dy-August 1992 507 M. GERARD NWAGWU Women Religious and the African Synod inculturating Following the initial enthusiasm with which our people welcomed Pope John Paul II's announcement of a special assembly for Africa of the Synod of Bishops,l an accom-modating attitude of tolerance for whatever might result from the event seems to have settled in. In such a frame of mind, any document coming from the synod will proba-bly be treated like any other Vatican document---it will be gratefully accepted and respectfully mentioned, but lit-tle else will follow. If, however, the document were to grow out of our experiences and be developed from our contributions, then its contents would have a better chance of being well received and more fully observed. The introductory chapter to the Lineamenta2 speaks of the period of preparation and celebration of the synod as the "tempus acceptabile," the favorable hour, the hour of Africa. This is the hour we have all waited for. It offers us a unique opportunity to bring about some of the changes and modifications religious life in Africa needs. It is a time for religious women in Africa to state our vision of commitment and involvement. This favorable hour con-tinues until the synod is actually celebrated and concluded, As part of this process it is important for us to raise issues and speak out about the problems that women religious encounter as they try to contribute to the work of evan-gelization in Africa. Indeed, for Africans this synod truly M. Gerard Nwagwu does much of her teaching at the Catholic Institute of West Africa; P.O. Box 499; Port Harcourt, Nigeria. 508 Review for Religious promises to be a "third Vatican Council" in what it could accom-plish for us. Consequently the initial period of intense preparation needs to be followed by a continued interest in the synod that fosters a receptive disposition of willingness to adopt its directives. The next generation of religious is likely to question how we made use of this opportunity, criticizing chances wasted and applauding those utilized. The older generation in their turn will be less critical insofar as they have never experienced such an event during their active days and therefore cannot be blamed for not effecting changes. Our contemporaries themselves could point accusing fingers at us if, for all our ideals and foresight, we achie~ced nothing when the circumstances were most opportune. Accepting facts as they are can be a mark of virtue on occa-sion. However, if we were to do that in the present situation, it would indicate complacency and inertia exactly when the action of working toward objectives that will benefit our people is demanded of us. Accepting the status quo just when the church calls us to make a move could indicate a cowardice and portray a fear of "launching out into the deep waters and laying out the nets for a catch," as Christ challenged the Apostles to do at a point when all hope seemed lost.3 We need an openness among ourselves to help us discover our weaknesses, our duties, and our obligations of evangelization--duties that the Code of Canon Law itself demands of religious in canons 211 and 758. Aware of these challenges, we can begin searching for an effective strategy. The Lineamenta presents a good number and variety of themes for our consideration. In any of these themes, the African reli-gious woman-has a role to play, not simply because she is an African or works in Africa, but because her religious life is directly intertwined with the life of the church. Vatican II witnessed to the fact that at no time in history has the church lacked some form of religious life.4 Religious life, in other words, is a con-stant and inseparable feature of the church. This universally his-toric fact is no different on African soil. However, it would take us too far afield to dwell on all of'the proposed themes as they relate to women religious in general. Rather let us consider those that focus strictly on the life of women religious in Africa, their apostolates, and their relationship with the world around them. Presently, most of the countries in Africa have celebrated the centenary of the arrival of the early Catholic missionaries. The few July-August 1992 509 Nwag-wu ¯ Women Religious and the African Synod who have not will do so in the near future. Mmost everywhere the native indigenous clergy have assumed the direction of the particular churches, on both the diocesan and parish levels. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for all congregations of religious women in Africa.5 These factors and others highlight the growth of the church in Africa. Specifically, religious institutes are not left behind in the development. The momentous rise in the number of vocations to the religious life, especially in women's congregations, attests to this growth. Indeed the problem for many religious commu-nities is not so much trying to attract candidates but finding ways of adequately training and forming them in the spiritual and apos-tolic life. It is no wonder that foreign religious institutes endeavor to recruit girls from Africa to fill up their depleted ranks. Such recruiting, however, has been limited and conditioned by the authorities since it has often left a trail of disillusioned women who believed they were sent abroad for further studies, only to find that they were meant to supply domestic services. Though the road remains open for taking candidates abroad, yet some condi-tions must be fulfilled.6 The obvious growth of the church in Africa is one of the "signs of the times" that determine the form evangelization should assume in our midst. The evangelization that starts first with inte-rior conversion of hearts, matures to a personal witness of life, and finally develops into external commitments and service is the type that best suits the vocation of religious women. Before evan-gelizing others we must evangelize ourselves, for only after we have been converted can we support those around us.7 We shall be witnesses, yes, but only after an interior transformation of heart. Through such an authentic witness of the life of the evan-gelical counsels, we can make our own contribution to the new stage of evangelization required in Africa. With regard to reli-gious life, this first stage of evangelization involVes modeling to our people the values of total dedication and consecration to God with a hope of evoking a corresponding response from young women and men to embrace religious life. The second stage of renewed evangelization which suits our time is that of deepen-ing the faith of those who already believe and are baptized, We are already experiencing an influx of vocations, but how deep is their faith, how reliable is their commitment? Religious women, particularly, must ask probing questions, 510 Review for Religious admit the facts, and make worthwhile proposals. The point at issue is whether we realize that the effective contribution of women religious in the evangelization of Africa depends first on the genuine and generous commitments of our communities and second on the spiritual and apostolic formation we give our younger members. The vitality of religious life in Africa depends on these elements and on its being a true witness of the presence and love of God among our people. Such an objective compels us to examine some of the negative currents that undermine our abil-ity to evangelize our people in the manner referred to above. Primary among the negative currents is the wind of secularism that has blown through the world from the 1980s to the present day and has begun to register its presence in Africa. Some see it as materialism, others as atheistic humanism. Secularism, as Pope Paul VI has pointed out, views the world as entirely self-explanatory without any reference to God, who thus becomes unnecessary and is, as it were, an embarrassment. Secularism of this kind seeks to assert the power of humankind and leads to a situation in which God is ignored and denied.8 An allied expression is secularization. Where secularism is a theory and an ideology leading to denial of God, secularization is, instead, the fact and reality of experiencing life with a secular-ized mentality and attitude--that is, evaluating life from a worldly point of view. This, then, is the new form of atheism by which God is perceived to be less present, less necessary, less capable of providing a valid explanation of personal or social life experi-ences. In its undiluted form, secularization should not find a stronghold in Africa, given the characteristic spiritual vision of life within an African society wherein the divine permeates all aspects of life. However, what has invaded this sense of the sacred is the aftermath of secularization, revealed in such characteristics as superficiality, the desire for power and domination over others, autonomy and individualism, and a pleasure-loving orientation. Within our religious circles, when we lack an original experience of God and consequently fail to lead others to a similar experience, the evangelical counsels are confused or glossed over in various attempts to describe, them. We shall be witnesses only after an interior transformation of heart. j-~uly-August 1992 511 Nwag~u ¯ Women Religious and the African Synod Poverty is explained away in the tendency to acquire and accu-mulate in the name of the congregation; chastity in the necessity of having the comfort, convenience, and satisfaction of personal fulfillment; obedience in the assertion of autonomy and individ-uality as marks of our uniqueness and originality. In the maze of such ambiguity, the question for religious women to answer is whether at the present stage of their religious experience they can lay claim to preserving in full the religious sense and charac-ter of their consecration. Where secularization has made its mark, it is difficult to be a witness of the Gospel message. Secularism holds out to us the values of the world and urges us to conform; the Gospel offers us the mind and values of Christ. If we examine our situation and find out that our choices are secular in character, it is important for us to admit it, and so be able to discover what strategy to adopt con-cerning it. The type of choices we make and the attitudes we have clearly show whether we are evangelized at heart or not. On a secondary level the way we treat each other and the interpersonal regard we nurture in our communities would truly show if the Gospel values were operating among us. For when we continue to make discriminatory preferences between persons or congregations, then our witnessing cannot be anything but counterproductive to the task of evangelization. When we are carrying out a common objective, what should matter is the appre-ciation of a sister as a religious and the virtues she possesses for her to be entrusted with an undertaking which she will accomplish in the name of all, not whether she is a member of one congre-gation rather than another, or whether she has occupied a position of importance in her institute, or whether she has important con-nections, and so forth. Evangelizing witness on the community level is likely to be rendered nugatory as ~vell if, instead of the communion and unity which religious life signifies, we have the division and disunity of uncoordinated activity. The difficulties occasioned by lack of cooperation and coordination are most often seen between dif-ferent congregations rather than between members of the same institute. How often have we witnessed the complaints and dis-enchantment of institutes whose services are unceremoniously terminated in a place in favor of another institute--especially when the institute that takes up the apostolate in question may be completely ignorant of how the first institute left the scene! Such 512 Review for Religious a practice is exploitive and appears to be based on the availability of women religious. Apart from the circumstance related above in which two con-gregations of religious women are made to be victims at the same time, division of opinion among institutes is certainly a question that needs to be considered if the challenges of our times are to be adequately addressed. The church regards women religious as experts in communion both because of the communitarian quality of our consecration and because of our natural tendency to bond ourselves closely to oth-ers. Our best field of operation, therefore, is to work for unity and communion within our African church in all its various components. Women have a great capacity for personal adaptation in the face of the varied and often unexpected needs of the real life of societies and churches. We are thus often in a better position to ensure not merely the survival but even the development of evangelization.9 A determination to form deeper and stronger bonds of solidarity and sharing between our various institutes is the best way to confront the changing political, economic, and social conditions of our times. Such operative and meaningful solidarity will happen if various congregations are able to evolve while each institute retains its unique identity and character. As Pope Paul VI told us,'° we are missionaries to ourselves at this stage of the evangelization of Africa. We Africans are cat-echizing and witnessing t6 our own people in our home missions. We are also undertaking the evangelization of other African coun-tries outside our homeland--not overlooking, of course, the invaluable assistance offered by our foreign missionaries. Taking into account the greater number of women .religious, these foreign missions are mostly operated by religious sisters. We must ask ourselves, therefore, whether there exists a corresponding mis-sionary cooperation between the various religious congregations whose members labor on these foreign missions, or whether mis-sionaries carry along with them to the missions the lack of coop-eration and perhaps rivalry which possibly exists at home. We need to remember the call of John Paul II as he spoke about the problems facing evangelization in Africa: secularization has made its mark, it is difficult to be a witness of the Gospel message. July-August 1992 513 Nwagcvu ¯ Women Religious and the African Synod Let all form one unity. Let everything be done to smooth and multiply the ways of mutual esteem, of fraternity, of collaboration. May anything that might be the cause of suf-ferings or casting aside, for one group or another, be ban-ished! May all be penetrated with sentiments of humility and of mutual service! For Christ! For the witness of the church! For the progress of evangelization!'~ With a unified front, we religious could more easily discover new approaches to problems that arise in the apostolate. These problems include the challenge of Islam and the determination of Muslims to spread the Koran from coast to coast by whatever means available. Carrying arms and matching violence with vio-lence is definitely not what the church expects religious women to accomplish in this regard. Neither is it possible to close our eyes and imagine that the friction and conflict with Muslims will even-tually ease off while we do nothing. We must, however, evaluate our strength and discover unobtrusive ways to reduce the threat of Islam for our people. In the face of such an offensive, the church has in the past usually adopted the practice of intensified prayer and a rigorous asceticism lived with generous hearts. Some apostolic religious institutes were founded to labor in countries of Islamic faith. But there are relatively few, if any, contemplative orders founded exclusively for the propagation of faith among Muslims. Such contemplative orders, which by their i~rayers, works of penance, and sacrifices labor to effect the conversion of souls, are crucial for the growth of Christian faith amidst the increased onslaught of Islamic hostility. It would be a welcome endeavor if the tendency our religious folk have to found new religious institutes is allowed to mature into communities that will pitch their tents among the Muslims of our country despite foreseeable opposition and even death. If such an inspiration of the Spirit were to happen, it would cer-tainly respond to the needs of the times. The challenge of Islam requires a radical religious decision. It calls for active institutes to reawaken their consciousness of the value and practice of the con-templative dimension of religious life. The Sacred Congregation for Religious and Secular Institutes exhorts: The contemplative dimension is the real secret of renewal for every religious life. Being a reality of grace, it preserves in the religious the commitment to bear witness before the world to the primacy of a personal relationship with God. They can thus avoid the constant danger for apostolic work- 514 Review for Religious ers who often become so much involved in their work for the Lord as to forget the Lord ofalI work,~z Another area of concern is the proliferation of sects and evan-gelical movements. The increase in their adherents means that some other churches--the traditional Christian churches includ-ing the Catholic Church--are losing members. The sects usually direct their proselytizing toward those who are already Christians and offer them what they apparently cannot get from their mother churches. Again Paul VI sounded the alarm when he noted: It is well known that in some places the church in Africa runs the risk of the fidelity of its sons and daughters being subjected to dangers and struggles, and to being tempted by false teaching. Indeed, Christian faith must become some-thing interior like a personal possession of each individ-ual.' 3 In the face of such phenomena, congregations of women reli-gious can be of immense help to the church if they include this ground among their fields of apostolate for the second stage of evangelizing Africa. By identifying the reasons Christians are attracted to these sects and the group of Catholics that are easily influenced by them, they can develop a strategy for deepening the faith of those most affected. Often a shallow faith, which offers no reply to the vital questions of suffering and pain, poverty and misery, doubts and fears, insecurity and emptiness, sickness and death and so forth, is quickly abandoned for what seems a better way out of problems. Such defections occur where people seek a church that'proffers some human warmth and mutual con-cern, an experience the larger churches cannot easily provide.'4 Even if religious themselves do not minister directly to the sects and their adherents, they can train the Christian laity to assume their role of searching out and reevangelizing their brethren. Similarly, it is important to examine the variety of means of social communications available in order to determine the ones best suited for evangelization in Africa today. Every institute is able to evaluate the effect of each of the means on individual members and on the community. For while it is necessary to know what the world around us is saying through the media, we must not allow it to monopolize our attention and dictate our conver-sational exchanges. Growth in religious commitment does not follow from an indiscriminate and sometimes imprudent use of the mass media, or with the exaggerated and extroverted activism the 3~uly-August 1992 515 Nwag-wu ¯ Women Religious and the African Synod media can generate, or with an atmosphere of dissipation which contradicts the deepest expectations of religious life. The search for intimacy with God needs silence, never involving noise and confusion.~s Presently, however, our discussion on the media is not how much we adopt them in our communities, but how well we use them for evangelization. Since the various means are each an effi-cacious tool for communication, the message of faith can be divulged to millions of our people at the same time with their aid. What prevents us, for example, from publishing a magazine that focuses on African religious life? Other Christian groups take the lead in the use of media while Catholics lag behind. Sacred songs and music on the thousands of audiocassettes that flood the market are ahnost always produced by Protestant evangelical groups. In the past there used to be a festival of the arts for Catholic schools. Now the competitions organized for parish choirs do not seem to generate the same interest. When an institute chooses to engage some of its members in apostolates using more contemporary methodologies, the initial difficulty will be lack of trained personnel. Requisite educational competence is important; however, some religious superiors are reluctant to send sisters for further studies that take time to com-plete and cause financial constraint, especially in the face of past disappointments. All the same, such reservation should give way before the conditions of our times and the needs of the church, which demand specialized training in some fields of study. No field of study can be superfluous if it furthers the mission of the institute. And since evangelization is a common mission for all, then adequate preparation is necessary for its realization. We cannot meet our contemporaries handicapped. For priests and religious to grow in requisite skills and maturity, it is essen-tial for them to receive the type of formation usually done in cen-ters of study at the university level or in institutes of higher studies. Specialized studies undertaken by religious should be prompted not by a misdirected desire for self-fulfillment with a view to achieving personal ends, but with the sole intention of meeting the apostolic commitments of the religious family itself in the context of the needs of the church.16 In view of the renewed call to evangelize, some significant changes may have to be made in the initial stages of formation. This sensitive area touches the autonomy and identity of insti- 516 Review for Religious tutes. Nevertheless, some general criteria may be adopted on the intercongregational level while the exact details can be left to the creativity of each institute. A rereading of the conciliar guide-lines for renewal shows that there is no question of simple adap-tations of certain external forms such as the habit. There is question, rather, of a deep edu-cation in attitude and in lifestyle that makes it possible to remain true to oneself even in the new forms of being present--a presence as con-secrated persons who seek the full conversion of people and of society to the ways of the Gospel through personal witness and service.~7 The challenges presented to religious women by the forthcoming synod will demand prayer, discipline, and sacrifice. It will not be easy to effect changes because part of the pattern of life and action we have grown used to will have to be renounced. Though renun-ciation may be spiritually rewarding, it is never gratifying to the ego. All the same, the changes need be made. The "signs of the times" are ripe and they offer us incentives to renew and revise our pattern of life and to give a preferential treatment to the duty of evangelization. The traditional ministries carried out in hospi-tals, schools, and social centers remain important, but their rel-evance in meeting the people of our times and engaging them in faith encounters has diminished. Women religious who are solidly founded in faith and suffi-ciently prepared and who can use their feminine qualities of devo-tion, refinement, faithfulness, and patience and their great capacity to adapt to the unexpected demands of real life can transform sit-uations which would intimidate others who lacked the weapons of faith and culture. In conclusion, let us remember the call of John Paul II and our obligation to respond to his invitation: We cannot meet our contemporaries handicapped. You have lived a first great stage, an irreversible stage. A new stage is open to you. It is no less an exalted one, even if it necessarily involves new trials, and perhaps the temp-tation of discouragement. It is the stage of perseverance, in which it is necessary to pursue the strengthening of the faith, the conversion in depth of souls and ways of life, so that they will correspond better and better to your sublime Christian vocation.18 July-August 1992 517 Nwag-wu ¯ Women Religious and the African Synod Notes i The exact date for the synod has not been set, but observers do not expect it to take place before 1994 or 1993 at the earliest. ~" Lineamenta, General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops, Vatican City, 1990. 3 Luke 5:4. 4 Lumen Gentium §44. s Some congregations of women religious still have nonindigenous administrative personnel. 6 This includes the establishment of a local community in the area, which in turn requires.that a diocesan bishop invite the institute in ques-tion to his diocese. 7 Luke 22:32. 8 Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi, §55. 9 Sacred Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, Dans le Cadre, The Role of Women in Evangelization, in Vatican Council H Postconciliar Documents, vol. 2, p. 322. l0 Paul VI, Inaugural Session of SECAM, Kampala, 1969. llJohn Paul II, Address to Zairean Bishops 3 May 1980, in Origins 10, no. 1, p. 6. 12 SCRIS, La Plenaria, The Contemplative Dimension of Religious Life, January 1980, §§ 2, 4, and 30. 13 Paul VI, Address at the 4th Plenary Assembly of SECAM, September 1975. 14 Paul V-I, Evangelii Nuntiandi, §58. is SCRIS, La Plenaria, §14. 16 SCRIS, Mutuae Relationes, §31 and §26. ~7 SCRIS, La Scelte Evangeliche, On Religious and Human Development, January 1981, §32. is John Paul II, Address to Priests and Religious, Zaire, 1980. 518 Review for Religious JENNIFER MARY ALT Rerooting Religi ous Life in South Africa the dialogue has been to develop a religious-life spirituality that would be less foreign and more of a special flowering and inter-pretation of African human and spiritual values. These values encompass all of human life. The spiritual is never seen as apart from the material, and people are seen as depending on other people, and therefore on the Divine, for life and meaning. Outside of their social relationships, individuals are less than nothing. If religious life became better integrated with native African spiri-tual values, it would witness more clearly and bring greater hope to South Africa's strife-torn people. Religious life is not foreign to Africa. In fact, its cradle is to be found in North Africa in the early centuries of Christianity. Organized religious life took its conception from the life and work of the Desert Fathers and was rooted in the form of Christianity found among the rural tribal people of North Africa. This rural tribal Christian expression was eventually declared heretical and has since been known as the Donatist heresy.- St. Augustine, the well-known urban African, a man cut off from his Jennifer Mary Alt OP, a member of the Cabra Dominican Sisters, is director of the Catholic Centre for Spiritual Growth sponsored by the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference. With her doctoral research in cross-cultural personality studies, she has worked with religious in developing an African religious spirituality. She may be addressed at the Catholic Centre for Human and Spiritual Growth; P.O. Box 53 505; Troyeville (JHB); 2139 South Africa. ~uly-August 1992 519 Alt . .Re~roo~ng Religious Life cultural roots, was chiefly responsible for the suppression of the Donatists. Early North African Christianity was predominantly rural. These rural Christians had been formed by their own primal reli-gion. This religion revolved around being in harmony with the spiritual in life. The Ancestors--important good people who had died and who then lived on in spirit in the living--were seen as important mediators of the spiritual. Life among humans was seen as essentially social, and people got their meaning and pur-pose from living and working in harmony with other people. To be in a group was part of life. Over fifteen hundred years separate us from these earlier times, and Africa south of the Sahara is in a different position today. Yet it too moves from a very strong primal religious back-ground. In parts of Africa, for instance South Africa, much of the primal past has disappeared, but the beauty of its spirit remains. Unless one pays attention to it, one will find it difficult to under-stand the modern movements in religious life in Africa. A primal outlook on life in terms of human values is'a profound way of looking at it. The work of the Divine is easily seen in it. The connectedness between this outlook and the teachings of Jesus is easy to recognize. Unfortunately, modern religious life has been presented in Africa south of the Sahara as something foreign and Western, as something that has nothing to do with African values. In fact, African values had to be somehow discarded as one entered a reli-gious order. Westerners find the intricacies of life in Africa very difficult to understand and, without ill will, have misjudged much of what they saw, dismissing it as primitive and pagan. It is exceedingly important for people entering religious life to realize the continuity between the values they were given in their families and the values outlined in their religious rule. African religious largely see religious life as divorced from their past, as something quite other. They see the rules and regula-tions of religious living as something totally new which has to be learned. Because of this the rules of religious life remain largely outside of them. The rules have little effect on their feelings and attitudes. The result is that religious life tends to lose its mean-ing and become more a drudgery than a life-giving program. There is a saying which is practically ubiquitous in Africa. It runs in South Africa: "People are made people through other 520 Review for Religious people." In Swahili a similar saying is: "I am, you are, and because you are, I am." This circular statement sums up the insight which Africans have about people depending on one another and the insight that without people the individual is nothing. This aware-ness of dependence and interdependence is a far cry from the individualism of the modern. Western outlook. Dependence on God is the source of all spir-ituality and is clearly discernible in the African outlook. Africa has a strong belief in the spiri-tual life. Death is seen not so much as an ending, but as a passing into a spiritual way of being. In Africa everything material has its spiritual equiv-alent. In fact, nothing exists without its spirit. It follows that religious life is seen as essentially for the purpose of bringing people into contact with the Divine in a special way. If this does not happen, then religious life for the individual tends to remain on a material and self-centered level. The religious vocation is a call to a special relationship with the spiritual realm. Religious with their vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience are marked as essentially different from others, for they are in a sense outside the primal group of family, clan, and nation. They live in an area of liminality in life and in this area make contact with the Divine. Everywhere in Africa the call to the spiritual is treated with great respect and reverence. The call is seen as mysterious and very important. It is not questioned. Take, for example, persons who discern that they are called to be a sangorna, to be one who understands the relationship between the material and the Divine and who is specially equipped to interpret rifts that occur between the human and the Divine, rifts that are seen as the cause of all mental and physical illness. Such calls will not be dismissed lightly, and people will undergo rigorous training to equip themselves for their special task as a sangoma. The religious call is seen in this context. It also comes from the Ancestors of the family, and therefore no one should interfere with it. The Ancestors will protect the person so called. Africans believe that when outstanding members of the family or the nation die, they join the living dead. They live on in spirit in another member of the family. As a human being casts a shadow, so each human in the flesh represents the spirit of an Ancestor. A parent 'People are made people through other people.' 3n-uly-Augus~ 1992 521 who first refused to allow a daughter to enter a convent remarked on her behavior: "I was fighting with the Ancestors." In Africa the spiritual revolves around the Ancestors, who mediate the Divine in life. The blessing of the Ancestors needs to be invoked in all circumstances. This ancient method of prayer might seem fundamentalist to a Western person, but it suits many people in the indigenous churches. They invoke God in all cir-cumstances: when getting up in the morning, at the beginning of all jobs--nothing, in fact, is done without prayer to the Ancestors. MI church services center on asking the Ancestors for blessing and healing of any rifts between the living dead and the humans in the flesh. Prayer then centers on the spirit of reverence and respect: through prayer, healing and forgiveness are brought to ordinary human relationships, and rifts with the Ancestors are healed. In this way the negative effects in our lives are resolved, and we become healthy again. Religious in this context are people who are especially moved by the spirit, in a charismatic sense. Prayer then is warm, spon-taneous, and real. But if religious life is seen by Africans as a bureaucratic organization in which material advantages follow the keeping of the rules, even though many of the rules may cen-ter on saying prayers; then it remains outside the person and will not lead to a true conversion of heart. Young people who enter often see a religious house as a house protected by God. They see religious as being protected by God, and the convent as a place of shelter from the storms of life; God will protect the people whom he has called. Many young people enter to be protected from the violence in the streets. Young girls come to escape being raped. Parents send children to convents in order to prevent .them from joining gangs. As people turn to sangomas (the spiritual healers) to protect themselves from the chaos around them, so they send their young girls to convents for the same protection. They feel that no evil can enter a reli-gious house. They also feel that God protects his religious from economic disaster. Young people and their parents see religious houses as places where people will be educated, fed, and housed; as places where the chaos of grinding poverty and ignorance will be kept at bay. Religious will be protected from thes~ material disasters. It is essential in these circumstances to help young people, through self-reflection, to an acceptance of their African values in 522 Review for Religious the light of the Gospel values. This helps to bring about a con-version of heart in which the person is moved to choose Jesus and break out into the wider world of other people and their needs. Young persons, in answering their call, answer it on behalf of their entire family and the Ancestors whom they embody in their life. Therefore, when young people join a religious order, they do not come as mere individuals with little significance. They come as deserving of great respect. They are not alienated people of no back-ground. They are not nobodies. God calls people through an entire network of relationships. Young religious who respond are responsible, therefore, for answering the call of the entire network. This gives the religious a great sense of sup-port and responsibility. To know that one bears the spirit of a beloved grandmother or grandfa-ther in one's life makes the path less precarious, less lonely, and more meaningful. Second, it gives the religious a great sense of dignity and worth. Religious need to respect their own call, and others must respect it too. Without this sense of reverence and respect, the young reli-gious fails to have any sense of liminality. Religious life then becomes more a question of obeying external laws which do not touch the heart and of obtaining an education. Instead of reli-gious life being a development or an exploration of the spiritual, it can become monotonous and meaningless. When the crises come, as come they must, the religious will not choose Jesus, but will make an easier, more selfish choice. A common saying in Africa expresses this lack of conviction and choice: "That person is a Christian by day and an African by night!" A difficulty inherent in the above outlook arises when a reli-gious wishes to leave the convent. Leaving is looked upon as a disaster: the religious loses her ties with God. Her relationship with him is broken. It is in the light of this broken relationship that all future troubles will be judged. The following example is typical: A young'sister left a religious congregation and then failed to pass her nursing examination. She moved to teaching and was equally unsuccessful. This was seen to be the result of leaving the convent, not the result of lack of sufficient talent. It is important to stress, therefore, that the divine call arises out of our baptismal God calls people through an entire network of relationships. j~ly-August 1992 523 Alt . Rerootin Reli "ous Life call. It is this call that must be answered, whether it is lived out in the context of religious life or not. In Africa, to be in a group is part of life. The richness of the human exchange in a community enriches the individual. The individual who is not included in this exchange is drained of life, so to speak. Group living is full of all that is human. Contentment, excitement, joy, happiness, and security are part of that living as are tensions, fears, suspicions, and disharmony. But the underly-ing attitudes of loyalty and respect can keep a group together through major emotional upheavals. In Africa, people truly live community. In the West, people tend to theorize and talk about community, but find it difficult to live it. Both lifestyles have their problems. In Africa, people are meant to live in harmony with one another and with the Ancestors. The individual is meant to enrich the lives of others and to be enriched in return. A religious group thatis not living a life filled With the Spirit will tend to exhibit the spirits of discord and chaos. In such close-knit and complex living together, the individual can feel very vul-nerable. Fear of one another, fear of authority figures, is a natural component of such living. Unless the group is living in the Spirit, fear instead of acceptance and warmth can dominate the group. Community life is held back by fear. Individuals will keep quiet at community meetings, for example. Many opinions which could build up a community are not stated. This can lead to seri-ous mistakes being made. Superiors can go unchallenged and do irresponsible things. Individuals who choose to live a life which is not in accordance with their vows are also left unchallenged because others are afraid to say anything. Those who have this fear feel humiliated and inferior; they grow depressed; in the end, tension shows itself as an illness. Such fear of disharmony, of expressing conflicting opinions, can cause great problems to social and group life in Africa. If disharmony and conflicts arise, the group tends to split and quickly polarize. This process is very evident in the histories of many of the African Independent Churches. African political leaders have generally chosen a one-party style of government in order to avoid disharmony. In so doing they have introduced a totalitarian system which in practice is marked by tribalism and greed. Modern urban societies demand that we learn to live with some disharmony and difference of opinion. In fact, differences of opin- 524 Review.for Religious ion can lead to positive growth, for without differences adaptation to changing times and circumstances cannot take place. In Africa the method of handling differences is for the entire group to°come together and to discuss fully the pros and cons of the different opinions. In these long conversations each person is listened to, and the conversation does not end until consensus is reached. This is like methods of conflict management in the West. The Gospel message of Jesus enhances and brings to fruition the message which Africa can give our world in terms of the interdependence of humans and their dependence on the Divine. The message of Jesus is close to the heart of the African experience of human living together. The message of the great religious founders like St. Benedict finds spontaneous resonance in Africa. The message of religious life, which strives to express the values of the Gospel of Jesus, is not much different from African value systems. The message of Jesus helps people choose less selfish values. In Africa, choices are made according to how a person feels. They tend to be made in terms of present time. A person might, there-fore, at one time choose some abstract Christian value and at another time choose against the same value. But people who are moved by the Spirit choose more responsibly. For instance, peo-ple might not feel like helping when help is needed, but if they are filled with the Spirit, they will go against that feeling and help nevertheless. Or, again, people may feel like getting revenge by not sharing, but if they are filled with the Spirit, they will share. The transcendent message of Jesus helps people to consider beyond this present moment. Christians need to think about the consequences of present actions: Would the future be better, more Christian, as a result of choices we might make now? Often enough, thoughtless pragmatic choices can bring immediate sat-isfaction in terms of money, goods, or pleasant feelings, but the long-term effects of these choices can be extremly destructive. Africa is full of examples of people who pragmatically and selfishly participated in their own destruction. Africans took part in the slave trade. African leaders have greedily plotted the economic ruin of the countries they govern. Tribal rural people have taken The message of Jesus is close to the heart of the African experience of human living together. AI~ o R~'ng Reli ~ou~ monetary handouts from the West, which have led to the destruc-tion of their way of life and to a dependency on further hand-outs. Other cultures can be less utilitarian and selfish by taking their heritage very seriously and protecting it. The Chinese, .Japanese, and Indians have not allowed Western materialism and individualism free access into their cultures, and they have been less enthusiastic in terms of cooperating with the West. Africa can be rather like Esau, who sold his birthright for a mess of pot-tage, because Africa does not appreciate the richness of its social and spiritual heritage for itself and for the world. The message of.jesus builds deeper trust. Christ has through his death and resurrection conquered death and despair. He is above all spirits. He is above all ancestors. There is no need for Christians to fear curses or sangomas or their neighbor. Life for Christians is secure because .jesus has already overcome the spirit of death and chaos. .Jesus speaks a message of love of one's neighbor and of one's enemy. Christians have to consider people who do not belong to their group or clan as nevertheless belonging to the family of .Jesus. Such "outsiders" are not objects, and they must be treated with love and respect. In this way the Christian message brings peace to the troubled area of ethnic and tribal violence--some-thing which has brought misery and death to many millions in Africa and has impoverished whole nations of people. If Christ's message is allowed to bring to fruition the values which the African people received from-God through the Ancestors, much that is unauthentic can be removed from African life even as its contact with the West increases. 526 Review for Religious ALBERT DI IANNI Religious Life and Religion Some recent discussions on "refounding" religious life in which I participated were passionate and at times ended in discord. Admittedly the groups involved were tired and overworked, but this was not the whole explanation. The heat manifested in exchanges about potential cures for the ills of contemporary religious life springs from a deeper source, from a basic disagreement about the nature of Christianity and of religion. When I first encountered the notion of"refounding" currently in vogue, I welcomed it as an improvement over "renewal" because it seemed to demand a deeper conver-sion and a more radical rebuilding. It brought to mind the Carmelite reform at the hands of Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross through an inventive retrieval of the spirit and discipline of the founders. Refounding seemed to invite us to set out once again upon a religious adven-ture demanding both great sacrifice and an engagement with the world that remained in some way separate from the world. Resistance to the notion mounted, however, with the repeated calls to identify "change agents" in the group who might encourage creativity in ministry and develop alternative community lifestyles. The more speakers lim-ited their discussions to talk about "delivery systems" for Albert DiIanni SM serves as vicar general of the Society of Mary (Marist). His address is Via Messandro Poerio 63; 00152 Rome; Italy. living religiously ~-uly-dug~_st 1992 527 Dilanni ¯ Religious Life and Religion change, namely, leadership models derived from anthropology and from corporate-reflection techniques borrowed from busi-ness psychology--the more they discussed only means--the more I felt I was being bundled down some primrose path. Before I discuss means, I want to discuss goals; before I accept help to move forward, I want to determine where I, where we, should want to go. This is possibly because I suspect that I do not want to go where some speakers want to lead me or that their advice about means carries some hidden freight about goals with which I do not concur. In a recent conversation about refounding, I found myself suddenly compelled to ask some strange, basic questions, not about religious life but about religion: What, for you, constitutes the heart of the Christian religion? What is its basic meaning or purpose? What engenders religion in the first place? Such ques-tions came to mind because I suddenly realized that our dis-agreement lay at a deep level, that we could not simply assume we would all answer such fundamental questions in the same way. This was not because anyone had expressly denied any belief which I held, but becaus{ they seemed to deflect or sidestep cer-tain ideas as old-fashioned or not in line with the particular action steps being recommended. The urge to ask fundamental questions comes upon me espe-cially when I sense that religion is being reduced to sociology, psychology, or even to morality, be it personal, social, or ecolog-ical morality. In fact, any tendency to reduce religion to morality fires me up more than sociological or psychological reductions because it is more subtle and plausible and thus more seductive. But let me put my own cards on the table. What do I believe is at the heart of the Christian religion? (I will ignore the eso-teric distinction drawn by some between faith and religion and the theory that Christianity is not a religion but.a faith.) Though Christianity like other religions is an amalgam of many compo-nents, I believe that its strictly religious aspect lies in its being an answer to the experience of human contingency and the con-tingency of the world. Most people at some time in their lives have felt wonder that the world exists at all and have faced into the void of their own death. They moved beyond the taken-for-grant-edness of the world and became frightened by the thought that nothing at all might have existed and no possibility of anything. They wondered if there were an ultimate meaning to life or if 528 Review for Religious humans were but a sport of nature. Christianity's central doctrine is that the world need not have existed and that it was the object of creation by a good God. A Christian believer is convinced that at the center of the universe is not a surd but a personal Love. The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein was not a believer. Norman Malcolm, his former student and biographer, says that he could not be called a religious person, but that he was passionately interested in religion and always seemed close to the possibility of religion. Wittgenstein once produced two examples of what he consid-ered bona fide religious experiences as opposed to moral or aesthetic ones. He respected them even if he thought that in entertaining them he was running up against the limits of language. One was the experi-ence of uncanniness that the world exists at all. The second was the conviction he some-times had that, whatever might happen, he would be safe. Neither of these experiences points of necessity to the existence of some transcen- The urge to ask fundamental questions comes upon me when I sense that religion is being reduced to sociology, psychology, or even to morality. dent reality, but they provide, the experiential ground from which many people move to affirm the existence of God. In such feelings and experiences, the affirmation that God exists is existentially grounded, becomes more than an intellectual proposition, takes root, finds a home. The first experience is the sense that a fleet-ing world must be rooted in a stable fundamental Reality. The second bespeaks a trust that cannot be explained without the pres-ence of a loving center of the universe. My own thoughts about religion center on experiences of this type. Admittedly my idea of religion has strong mystical over-tones; it is our response to radical contingency and, in its most primitive and deepest meaning, has little to do with morality. Religion refers primarily to a "holy" space out of which we and the world spring and gives rise to the imperative that each of us become holy, living our life in and for God. Beyond this I know that religion and morality are intimately intertwined and that a religious or holy person must also be morally good. One can hardly be holy and evil. Holiness means in part being extraordinarily kind, socially just, honest, temperate, a ~dy-Augvmt 1992 529 Dilanni ¯ Religious Life and Religion peacemaker. Yet it cannot be reduced to the practice of these moral virtues. For it is conceivable that someone could be morally good, could follow punctiliously the rules of a moral system, fos-ter social justice, be chaste and kind, and yet not be a religious per-son. He or she could be moral out of personal taste, by temperament, for aesthetic reasons, or out of natural sympathy toward others, and not because of his or her relationship to God. Philippa.Foot, an Oxford moral philosopher and avowed atheist, once told a seminar group that she was such a moral person and that she refused to be patronized by being called an "anonymous Christian." A Christian religious person not only acts morally, but also sees the world in a new way--that it is dependent for its very existence on a transcendent reality and that this makes all the dif-ference. Because it is focused upon the transcendent, the Christian vision has specific ethical implications different from Enlighteflment theories which place the human person or freedom at the center of the moral endeavor. For the Christian the pri-mary response to the world is not that of owner and Promethean creator, but of humble and obedient creature; not an entrepreneurial relishing of power and freedom, but a Marian gratitude before God for all that God has wrought. From this Christian gratitude is born the imperative to love God and God's creation, to allow God to express the divine mercy through us, especially toward the weak and the abandoned. This Christian gratitude and its ethical implications are nourished and deepened through a close union with God in prayer. It is this vision, it seems to me, which should be at the heart of the life of consecrated religious. If they are to be prophetic, it is in this: that in their lives they point constantly to the tran-scendent moment of the universe and try to develop what it means. It is up to each group to decide how it will express this. Christian meaning exists in--and is to be found in--religious sis-ters, brothers, and priests when they are rapt in contemplation of God as well as when they are picking up dying persons from the streets. When people see one of them unremittingly engaged in both, they believe they are in the presence of a saint. Some contemporary Catholic lay people and members of reli-gious congregations seem to have lost sight of the transcendent pole of Christianity. Their model of Christianity has become what Charles Davis labels "pragmatic." The pragmatic version of 530 Review for Religious Christianity arose, he says, when "the Christian religion ceased to function mythically as an overarching totality . The emphasis therefore shifted to Christianity as a practical way of life or eth-ical system. This is still conceived in religious terms, such as the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of God's children, the kingdom of righteousness . But all these expressions are different ways of formulating the moral imperatives gov-erning human existence." ~ Both conservatives and liberals have made this pragmatic shift in Christianity. Conservatives stress per-sonal and family morality and such questions as abortion and euthanasia, and progressives stress social justice, ecology, and women's rights. Future historians may judge that the Vatican itself, but to a lesser degree, has been drawn into what I am characterizing as an overemphasis of morality. They may well remember Pope John Paul II as the "morality pope" because of his repeated statements about both per-sonal and social morality. In practice if not in theory, love of neighbor and enemy seem to have taken precedence over con-cern about union with God. Today's heresies all seem to be moral heresies. Not many Catholics seem concerned about dogmas, about trinitarian, soteriological, or Christological errors. And yet the history of the early church reveals that this was not always so. (I am at times tempted to fashion a brand-new trinitarian heresy to spur people to think more about God and less about themselves!) In this excessive emphasis on morality, the modern church reflects our secularized times, the age that mistook the world for God. In the late sixties, a time noted for its air of revolution, our seminary faculty once gathered the seminarians for a discussion on the question: W'hat are the most important qualities for being a priest and religious today? Some suggested approachability, oth-ers learning and competence, still others kindness or some other human virtue. I was surprised that no one spoke of holiness--a sure candidate just ten years before--and I pointed this out to Someone could be morally good, could follow punctiliously the rules of a moral system, foster social justice, be chaste and kind, and yet not be a religious person. ~dy-August 1992 531 Dilanni ¯ Religious Life and Religion the group. One of the seminarians fixed me with a stare and said with an air of disdain: "Just be human, Father!" Recently I had the pleasure of interviewing Kiko ArgOello, the Spanish layman and artist who founded the Neo- Catechumenate movement, which offers a series of steps, a way, for modern Catholics to rediscover their baptism and be com-mitted to evangelization. I played the devil's advocate and asked whether his way (camino) of training lay people over a period of years did not produce an arrogant elite and end up creating more division than unity in parishes. His answer was in strict contrast to the seminarian's. He insisted that becoming a Christian today was not easy, regardless of what many priests trained since Vatican II seemed to believe. It did not suffice to simply shout the love slo-gan. Belief that God exists and that Jesus is in some way the son of God was difficult in a secularized culture. Besides, our world of drugs and violence, suburban adultery and abortion, euthana-sia and consumerism, was full of snares. It would not be suffi-cient simply to limit our preaching to a form of positive reinforcement. People had to be called to a public confession of their belief in God and Jesus, be brought to a felt need for con-version, be tested in their resolve, b~ supported by a tightly knit community, and be nourished by an adequate participative' liturgy. Needed, in his view, was a method, a way, a structure, a catechu-menate, 'to bring people squarely before their baptism and its implications for their lives. In so many words he was saying that it was simplistic for the 1968 seminarian to have said: "Just be human, Father." Yes, Christ is at work in the world wherever human good is being done, and we have to recognize and foster such work wher-ever we find it; but we must be aware, too, that fostering human-istic values and being a Christian are not in every way identical. Besides demanding that we be thoroughly moral, Christianity demands belief in many strange things, like the incarnation, the need for redemption, the resurrection, the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, and the role of Mary. For a time in my adolescence, I wished I had been brought up neutral vis-~a-vis religion so that at the age of twenty-one I might consider all the major religions and choose among them without the prejudice of early Catholic training or brainwashing. But I know now that this is naive, for I have recognized that young people who have not been brought up in any religion end up by 532 Review for Religious having no religious sentiment or religiosity. They tend to remain religion-neutral, unable to make a choice in favor of any religion. George Lindbeck, a Protestant theologian, believes that, unless some religion is taught to us when we are young, unless we are brought up in some religious prac-tices, we might not even be capable of religious experience. This may be exaggerated, but I am sure it contains a grain of truth. One thing is certain: People are never brought up in a vac-uum of vision and values. If they do not absorb religious vision and val-ues, they absorb the secular vision and religion-neutral values of the movies and television. Especially in Europe several new lay Christian movements and reli-gious orders have been born in full awareness of this: the Focolarini, the Sant' Egidio community, the Neo- Catechumenate, the Lion of Juda, the Legionaries of Christ, and so forth. They all believe that becoming Christian in a secularized world is especially difficult and demands a way, a method, an entry through a kind of Christian subculture. It means leaving behind a lot of things that can seem very important from the world's point of view, but really are not. It demands kenosis, emptying oneself, in preparation for a radical decision in favor of Christ and God. Karl Rahner once declared: "A Christian in today's world will be a mys-tic or else he will not exist." And he went on to speak of mystagogy, the need of a method to lead people to see everything in God. I believe that one reason why religious congregations are in a mere survival situation today is that, in their admirable effort to take a positive view of the world, they have identified religion too strongly with a humanistic morality that tends to be secular-istic, individualistic, and overly egalitarian. History shows that almost all religious congregations enjoyed strong growth at their beginnings. They were exciting and attractive in part because they were new, but part of their attraction lay elsewhere. The early members had a sense of a religious adventure and cause larger than themselves which rendered them willing to forgo many personal rights and privileges.~They were members of what Besides demanding that we be thoroughly moral, Christianity demands belief in many strange things, like the incarnation, the need for redemption, the resurrection. July-August 1992 533 Dilanni ¯ Religious Life and Religion have been called "intentional" communities as opposed to various "associational" and "bureaucratic" ones that have come into exis-tence since Vatican II.2 They were quite unconcerned with self-expression and equality, not because they were naive and subservient (today's caricature), but because they were caught up in a higher religious vision that enhanced and focused their ener-gies for God and the church. Most religious congregations were founded for three main purposes, the salvation of the members, the salvation of others, and dedication to a devotion or a way of the apostolate. Their charism did not lie only in the third element but in all three. Their purposes were decidedly religious and eschatological as well as incarnational. Today the eschatological has been pushed aside by an incarnational theology interpreted too secularistically and humanistically. Transcendent themes have been toned down in favor of an emphasis on egalitarian rights, on a type of justice interpreted not only as equity but as evenness, a kind of unifor-mity without differences. Everyone knows that only in unity is strength. But egalitarianism, by its very definition, effects an atomism and separateness within a group inasmuch as it deems individual rights and desires more important than the group's religious cause and adventure. Such stress upon egalitarian and humanistic ideals is an ide-ology. It is one way--and only one way--of interpreting democ-racy and justice in society and in religious groups. To oppose that ideology is not to give up democracy but to give it another inter-pretation. This was brought home to me recently as I overheard a conversation between an Mnerican priest--a born-again egali-tarian- and a young female member of the lay Sant' Egidio com-munity in Rome.3 Describing how the community functioned, she mentioned that in her particular community, because of its makeup and history, only certain men and no women were asked to speak at the prayer services. The American priest objected that this was a grave error, that it was supremely important--as a sym-bol and sign to others if not for her personally--that women be allowed to preach in every community. She answered that the Sant' Egidio community did not approach questions ideologi-cally, but pragmatically. Some of the other communities did have women preachers, but because of its particular history and tal-ents, her group preferred not to have them and she was happy with things as they were. She explained that for the Sant' Egidio 534 Review for Religious group three things were of paramount importance: (1) prayer together over the word of God, (2) friendship or mutual support, and (3) work for and with the poor. All else must cede before the achievement of these goals. The American priest's voice rose as he insisted that she was wrong and that the American interpretation of women's rights was correct. But she stood her ground and deftly changed the sub-ject. We have come full circle. In the 1960s, after many years of repression and an exaggerated supernaturalism, we needed to stress personal free-dom and responsibility and a true equality among the races and sexes. We had to recognize our duty before God to take responsibility to build up a world of justice and peace. But this did.not mean that such concerns should come to prevail in reli-gious congregations and sweep all else away in their wake. Now that we have seen the shadow side of such emphases in religious life, we can bet-ter take stock and rediscover that our involvement with the world must begin beyond the world. While the psychological and political agendas were very important for religious life, neither of them was the "one thing necessary." Religious life should center upon that in Christianity which relates our lives to the transcendent. It is here that we must seek its prophecy. It is in reminding people of the divine enchant-ment of the world that it must be countercultural. It is upon this that reflection on refounding religious life must insist. In her arti-cle "Religious Life and the Need for Salt,''4 Joan Chittister asks the right questions regarding contemporary religious life. She wisely concludes that the project of encouraging self-expression in traditionally repressed religious has now been achieved. She says we must now move to questions about the group and how it can be prophetic in today's world. But her answers, giving her interpretation of prophecy, are still too much centered on ecology, social assistance, and human rights and thus, by remaining within a pragmatic model of Christianity, seem but another reiteration of the program of liberal politics. These liberal concerns are impor-tant and must be addressed by the church: the laity, the clergy, and the religious. But addressing such issues, in my opinion, is not going to be the salvation of religious life. Its problems do not 'A Christian in today's world will be a mystic or else he will not exist.' .July-August 1992 535 Dilanni ¯ Religious Life and Relig4on arise from a neglect of them. Religious lack, not moral outreach, but religious centering. They fail to realize what the poor them-selves realize and express in their popular religions, that our union with God through Jesus is central, that we must work at it, and that it is primarily in this that we will be countercultural. Which is more countercultural--to say we must strive to save planet earth or to say we truly believe that the dead are with God because Jesus rose from the dead and that this makes all the difference? I have made some hard remarks and asked some hard ques-tions, and I would welcome a dialogue about them. I am sure I have not expressed them adequately, but I am convinced that they contain at least a grain of truth. I am encouraged in uttering them by the swing of young people in both Europe and North America toward an interest in the mystical sense of religion. In the 1960s the young were caught up in the humanistic values of psychol-ogy and sociology, but today's youth exhibit a great interest in mysticism, religious cults and movements, apparitions and heal-ings, the afterlife; and even reincarnation and the satanic. Does this not indicate that they are experiencing a deep void of mean-ing in an anorexic and bulimic world where money, notoriety, power, individualism, and equality have become the primary val-ues? Does not this cultural change signal that secular humanism for all its ethical achievements has also been an impoverishment by reason of a dearth of religious imagination? Is it not a sign of the times when people living in sophisticated technological cul-tures begin to be attracted to religious beliefs interpreted in a most .simplistic fashion? I know the good responses to the distinction I draw within Christianity between morality and religion. Most will describe it as dualistic--for contemporary pundits the most damning of epi-thets. They will say, "You are separating things that are essen-tially linked." Love of God and love of neighbor are two aspects of the same thing. If you do not care for the person you see, how can you say you love the God you do not see? Those who love God should find their love's primary expression in their dedica-tion to caring for their neighbor, whether friend or enemy. Prayer is missionary and missionary activity is prayer--and on and on. Others will say that I give a false description of the present sit-uation of religious life; they will deny that those engaged in social justice and ecology tend to pray less and to be less interested in the transcendent, in sacraments, and in the eschatological. 536 Reviezv for Religious I know these rejoinders are partly true, but also that they are partly false. I know that the two aspects of Christianity, religion and morality, love of God and love of neighbor, are very closely intertwined, and I am aware of Karl Rahner's brilliant attempt to conjoin them.5 But I know too that they are conceptually distinct because I have seen them separated in the history of the church. At times the church has experienced the extreme of quietism, an overem-phasis on faith without good works, and other times the heresy of action, a hectic involvement in important works of justice and charity to the detriment of prayer and interiority, the soul of the apostolate. It is up to each of us to examine our life to determine where we are. But I am convinced that the problems of religious life stem only partly from a lack of adequate delivery systems and from ignorance about psychol-ogy, social systemics, and anthropo-logical models in an age of rapid change. I am convinced that their deeper source lies in the confusion between religion and morality and in an insistence upon moral-ity because of a loss of faith and interest in religion. If Christian religion is centered almost exclusively upon doing the moral good, upon promoting social justice and ecology, or upon fighting pornography and abortion, then what is the mean-ing of doctrines and dogmas? Are they but religious, accouter-ments? If so, why not be honest and simply drop them? What is the meaning of the redemption through Christ for a religion reduced to morality? What is the meaning of the Eucharist? Are these dogmas and sacraments only stimuli for action, stories and symbols subtly swaying us to do what is truly important: foster-ing the construction of a socially just and ecologically sound world, creating the. kingdom of morality? Is the resurrection just a story whose real cash value is all those smaller resurrections which can occur in a society, in history, or in each human life? How is a religious congregation which centers so strongly on morality to be differentiated from such groups as UNICEF or the Which is more countercultural - to say we must strive ~ to save planet earth or to say we truly believe that the dead are with God because Jesus rose from the dead and that this makes all the difference ? ~dy-Augzlst 1992 537 Dilanni ¯ Religious Life and Religion A life steeped in prayer will produce something we may have lost: a solid number of holy men and women whose life clearly is centered on God. FAO wherein men and women devote themselves to humanitarian causes at times for wages far lower than they could obtain else-where? I know that, since Vatican II, theologians including Rahner and Schillebeeckx have highlighted the thesis that Christ is at work in the world wherever good is. being done and humane causes are fostered. I am acquainted with the theories that the work of building up the kingdom of God is primarily a matter of our present life in the world, that salvation is not only after death but begins here, that the glory of God is man and woman fully alive. I am in sympathy with such emphases, but must also admit that they do not set me on fire; and judging from the vocation statistics of "progressive" congregations, I know that they have not stirred the young. For in my heart I suspect that such emphases are quite incomplete and were (in part) born of a loss of faith in the transcendent. For me Christianity centers not on us but on God. It demands a different vision of the world and reality, which generates a humble gratitude to the God who is responsible for all that is. One of Christianity's concerns is our inborn tendency to distort our freedom, arising from what Luther called the "in-curvedness" of our will. Christianity is about God and sin and the need for God's grace-ful hand to help us make proper use of our freedom. Christian religion must be about God and our relationship with God not only implicitly but also explicitly. It is from a union with God in prayer that light will emanate on how we are to relate to God, the world, and each other. And if a life is to be devoted to religion in a special way, if it is to be a consecrated religious life, it must be lived primarily in view of this relationship to God, not only in ideal but also in structure. It must be structured in such a way that the life of,the group abets in its members this concern about each one's relationship to God and gives witness of it to others. Such a life steeped in prayer will produce something we may have lost: a solid number of holy men and women whose life clearly is centered on God. If this proves true, young people will surely again be attracted to this kind of life, not so much because 538 Review for Religious it is relevant or more interesting than the world, but simply because religious life so construed and so lived is what it purports to be--religious. Notes ~ What is Living, What is Dead in Christianity Today? (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1986), p. 39. -' See Patricia Wittberg SC, Creating a Future for Religious Life (New York: Paulist Press, 1991

Issue 47.5 of the Review for Religious, September/October 1988. ; REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS (ISSN 0034-639X), published every two months, is edited in collaboration with the faculty members of the Department of Theological Studies of St. Louis University. The edito-rial offices are located at Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO. 63108-3393. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus, St. Louis, MO. ©1988 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Single copies $3.00. Subscriptions: U.S.A. $12.00 a year; $22.00 for two years. Other countries: for surface mail, add $5.00 per year; for airmail, add $20.00 per year. For subscription orders or change of address, write: REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Philip C. Fischer, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Richard A. Hill, S.J. Jean Read M. Anne Maskey, O.S.F. Acting Editor Associate Editor Review Editor Contributing Editor Assistant Editors Sept./Oct. 1988 Volume 47 Number 5 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to R~.wEw EOR R~.LtGWOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the department "Canonical Counsel" should be addressed to Rich-ard A. Hill, S.J.; J.S.T.B.; 1735 LeRoy Ave., Berkeley, CA 94709. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from REVIEW ~o~t REI.IGIOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. "Out of print" issues and articles not published as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. A major portion of each issue is also available on cassette recordings as a service for the visually impaired. Write to the Xavier Society for the Blind; 154 East 23rd Street; New York, NY 10010. The Social Dimensions of Religious Ministry Joseph P. Daoust, S.J. This is a slightly revised version of Father Daoust's well-received address on August 13, 1986, to the thirtieth national assembly of the Conference of Major Superiors of Men. He has been his province's assistant for social ministries and higher educa-tion. At present he is on sabbatical in Africa and Asia and has no fixed residence, but he may be addressed at Jesuit Provincial Office; 7303 W. Seven Mile Road; De-troit, Michigan 48221. In a terrifying image of where our civilization is leading us, a prominent Italian writer envisions Western 'man (and woman) becoming like an earth-worm: a simple organism having only mouth, intestines, and anus, do-ing nothing but ingesting, digesting, excreting. ! It is an image of pro-ducing in order to consume, and consuming mindlessly in order to move what has been produced through our societal '.~'gut." Any kind of con-sumption will do, just as the earthworm moves any kind of soil through its intestinal tube. Indeed, that is how the earthworm (and Homo con-sumens) moves ahead in dark, dank, endless underground burrows-- consuming, producing, excreting. When indigestion sets in because of overproduction, war serves as a purgative,°consuming the detritus of ex-cess lives and goods, relieving the constipation of our maniacally pro-ducing and consuming system. Such is one vision of what we are doing to ourselves as a society. There is another vision of what society can become: [God] will reign over many peoples and arbitrate for mighty nations; and they shall beat their swords into pl6wshares,.and their spears into prun-ing hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. But they shall sit, everyone under his vine and un- 641 649 / Review for Religious, September-October 1988 der his fig tree, and none, shall make them afraid; for the mo~th of the Lord of hosts has spoken it (Mi 4:3-4). In this vision, peace comes when each peasant has enough of the earth's goods for simple sustenance and can sit in quiet contemplation of the goodness of a just and beautiful world. All of this is achieved by learning God's ways and walking in God's path.2 Neither of these visions is fully realized in our world today. There are forces at work leading toward the first; the Spirit of God continues the age-old struggle to draw us toward the second. We are called as citi-zens of this age, as Christians, as religious, to invest our lives in help-ing our society make the ancient Deuteronomic choice: "I set before you life or death, blessing or curse. Choose life, then, so that you and your descendants may live" (Dr 30:19). Life is what the reign of God would bring about in our midst; the flowering of a society of justice and peace. The reign of God has profound social consequences. Justice and God's Reign: Scriptural Considerations in Scripture the reign of God is inextricably linked with social trans-formation. When Israel came to know Yahweh, it was as a God who heard their groaning in slavery and delivered them out of bondage (Dt 10:18-19). Remembering their own deliverance by God, the Israelites were bound in covenant not to oppress the poor or weak in their midst (Ex 22:21ff.). For Yahweh is a God who hears the cry of the poor (Ps 34:6). Again and.again Yahweh intervened through the prophets to call Israel back to this elemental demand: Is not th'is the sort of religious p?actice that pleases me?--it is thb Lord Yahweh who speaks--to break unjust fetters and Undo the thongs of the yoke, to let'the oppressed go free., to share your bread with the hun-gry and shelter the homeless poor, to clothe the man you see to be na-ked and not turn from your own kin? Then will your light shine like the dawn and your wound be quickly healed over. Your in.tegrity will go be-fore you and the glory of Yahweh behind you (Is.58:6-8; see also 1: 16, 10:1, 42:5). The religions and gods of the ancient Near East were primarily con-cerned with the legitimation of the established order of things3 (a func-tion still all too current today!), Imperial power, divinely ordained class structures, codes of behavior which reinforced "the way things have al-ways been"--these were the trappings of (eligions whose gods could be captured in images, located in certain sacred places, and therefore con-trolled. The divine power was thus subject to purchase (propitiation), Social Dimensions of Ministry / 64:3 able to be administered and routinized so as to support society's estab-lished ways of proceeding. Israel in the Old Testament is constantly tempted to refashion God in controllable images. Royal leaders and wealthy classes are portrayed as the initiators of this "whoring after' other gods" so as to legitimate their oppression, wars, and sumptuous ways. What distinguishes ancient Israel from surrounding societies is the constant intrusion of an imageless God, who refuses to dwell in temples or in"gold idols fashioned and controlled by the powerful. Yahweh dwells only ineffably on high, and with the lowly (Is 56: 15). Israel's God is dis-engaged from the ways of worldly power and identifies over and over again with the marginal, the dispossessed in society.'~ Indeed the iden-tity of this imageless God cannot be captured in traditional religious ways, but is expressed only by what Yahweh does--primarily acts of so-cial liberation: I am Yahweh . . . who delivered you from bondage (Ex 20:1), who loves j,ustice (Ps 99:4), who sees justice done for the orphan and widow, who answers the poor and needy (Ps 86:1 ), who chooses the weak (Dt 7:7), who reduces princes to nothing, and annihilates the rulers of the world (Is 40:23). Jesus spends his public ministry extending the good news of God's compassion and reign to all. It was a scandal to his contemporaries that he especially~ included suspect classes (shepherds, publicans, tax collec-tors), social outcasts (lepers, prostitutes, adulterers, Samaritans), and the poor. He went to his death coffsciously assuming the role of the Suffer-ing °Servant of Yahweh, knowing that this was the only way to bring about the reign of his Father. Some sought his death because he reso-lutely presented an unconventional, iconoclastic face of God Ioying the outcast, the db'wntrodden, the poor--"He has blasphemed.'~ Others sought his death because' his proclamation of God's justice threatened the social order.5 The Scriptures, then, portray a God who cares passionately about jus-tice, indeed even a "pain-embracing" God6 who acts in solidarity es-pecially with the oppressed and the marginalized. Christ in his ministry and message seals this revelatioh of God constantly acting in the world so as to bring about its transformation. The Gospels close with Christ risen inviting us down through the ages to "Follow me." Justice and God's Reign: Cultural Considerations Down through the ages the Church has wrestled with that impera- 644 / Review for Religious, September-October 1988 tive with varying degrees of success. Like the Israelites of old, the Church is often tempted to replace the radical, transforming call of the Gospel with something more palatable to the cultural and social powers that be. Oppressive divisions of wealth and power, wars to protect these divisions, sumptuous living for some and dire poverty for others--these still need legitimation as of old. The idols which legitimate today are ide-ologies, social and economic theories, materialism and consumerism apo-theosized as a way of life. Idolatry in a literate society is more likely to use words than precious metals to achieve its effects. But religion is still being domesticated so as to legitimate and maintain, rather than confront, these idolized patterns of injustice. One hundred fifty years ago, Alexis de Tocqueville visited America and found our culture and social institutions permeated with a new idea: Individualism is a calm and considered feeling which disposes each citi-zen to isolate himself from the mass of his fellows and withdraw into the circle of family and friends; with this little society formed to his taste, he gladly leaves the greater society to look after itself . They form the habit of thinking of themselves in isolation and imagine that their whole destiny is in their hands . Each man is forever thrown back upon himself alone, and there is danger that he may be shut up in the solitude of his own heart.7 This individualism intersected congruently, then as it does now, with the competitive pursuit of self-interest, defined in terms of material well-being. But de Tocqueville found these social "habits of the heart" coun-terbalanced and modulated by a strong tradition of biblical faith, with its emphasis on self'-sacrifice for the common good, supported by the re-publican virtues of our early democracy: public duty and civic equity. Modern commentators have found these modulating forces to be with-ering, and individualism, competition, and rampant pursuit of material self-interest becoming exclusive social preoccupations.8 Individualism, like any other human creation, has much to recommend it, much human value. But when it becomes absolute, unquestioned, unfettered, it dis-torts and truncates human interaction. Its idolization creates and sustains injustice in society on a mass scale. Recent studies of American life and religious values have shown the distortions that unfettered individualism produces ir~ our cultural patterns of faith and religion.9 Historically., the disestablishment of religion America may have helped compartmentalize religious faith away from public social concerns. But religious individualism has been the moving force for the privatization of religious faith and practice. Social and cul- Social Dimensions of Ministry / 645 tural patterns of our society have been immunized from religious critique or challenge in the faith of many. Religion is felt to deal only with per-sonal or family issues; it intersects with public policy only to challenge it if' it intrudes on these narrow issues. Other social policies and struc-tures, individualism itself, materialism, the competitive economic envi-ronment- all are beyond the competence of religious critique. God and faith have no relevance in the marketplace, the business or political world, or anywhere outside the "soft" inner realm of the personal and the familial. In fact, religion blesses "the way things are" in these secu-lar real-world social settings. It legitimates them and the results they bring about, as effectively as the compartmentalization of religion to tem-ple worship and sacrifices did in ancient Israel, with consequent uncon-cern for the oppressed, the hungry, the poor. Religion is seen culturally by most as an idiosyncratic choice, a strictly personal preference or conviction as to which "brand" each per-son would like to "consume." And American consumers of religion largely choose a faith distorted by cultural forces so as to give them res-pite from social chaos and from a sense of social destiny beyond their control. They do this by retreating inward, to focus on the inner self, or by retreating outward, to externally imposed structure coming, they be-lieve, directly from God. The first of these privatized patterns of religion, the dominant U.S. cultural preference, is the retreat inwards to the inner self. ~0 Personal ex-perience of one's inner self is the one secure basis for religious mean-ing. Self-realization, personal growth, is the highest aspiration. There is a great similarity to the goals and language of psychological therapy. Re-ligious practice is spiritual utilitarianism: "What's in it for me?" Spiri-tual experience is primarily individual and prescinds from the world and its problems. The world and even God are seen in terms of their impact on this inner self. Morality is individualistici commitments to others, to the world, are transient: "s(~ long as it feels right or helps me grow." The Church can be reduced to a kind of spiritual Kiwanis Club or psy-chological. therapy group in the individual's pursuit of self-fulfilling ex-perience. The second pattern of religious individualism is no less privatized. It is more prevalent among the less affluent, or among those whose self-image is not strong enough to found religious meaning there. Faith is placed in sources of meaning external to self and the real world. God speaks from "outside'"the ordinary world (and the inner self), directly giving rules and tenets which, if they are rigidly adhered to, will bring 646 / Review~or Religious, September-October 1988 about salvat.ion of the obedient individuai--there is little hope for the world. Fundamentalist adherence to biblical texts, magistral father fig-ures, or traditions gives meaning and some sense of security in a bewil-dering social Order. Morality is personalistic rather than societal; it deals with interpersonal and family relations in clear, simple answers; it leaves unchallenged the sociocultural setting in which these are played out. The world, society at large, is either beyond question or beyond salvation. In either case, faith has little to say to it. ., Both of.these cultural patterns of religion, therapeutic withdrawal to the inner self and sectarian withdrawal to external structure, are the prod-uct of individualism. It is individualism retreating from confrontation with a chaotic, seemingly uncontrollable social environment. Material-ism, competitive pursuit of self-interest, ruthless power pervade the secu-lar realm of business, politics, the media. Recent rapid shifts in social structures and paradigms destabilize a cultural setting already inhospita-ble to traditional religious values. Individuals, frightened, isolated, pow-erless, withdraw from the imperatives of biblical faith which might re-quire them to confront these social forces to work for the new creation of God's reign. A religion of inner escape or outer control seems to of-fer a haven from the heartless world. But both forms of religion lack the ability to integrate the self and/or God with the surrounding society. Per-sonalized religious experience supplants the "mighty acts of Yahweh" as the basis for belief. And such faith is fragile, fading when the per-sonal experience fades. There is only a faint hold on commitments, to faith itself and to the other-centered giv.ing which builds on faith. Church, rather than being the fundamental sacrament of God's insertion into the world, becomes a community of convenience or of protection from the world. In solipsism or sectarian withdrawal, religion stands apart from worldly matters. It is a pale shadow of robust biblical faith: the faith of a people on mission from a world-transforming God. This description of American religious behavior is not just the way millions.of lay believers of all religious backgrounds practice their faith. These are tidal forces affecting the faith life of all of us as members religious orders and congregations. We are equally tempted to withdraw from the fullness of biblical faith into therapeutic blandness or rigid struc-turalism. We too can live more easily with these idolized forms of relig-ion, which neither do justice nor admit the injustice of such unconcern. Religious life itself can become an enclave for self-realization or secu-rity, safely compartmentalized away from the rigors of God's call and mission to a troubled world wracked by social sin. Which one of us has Social Dimensions of Ministry / 64"/ not felt keenly the longing to huddle, Jonah-like, even in the belly of a whale, rather than face Nineveh? Justice and God's Reign: New Directions But also in our lifetimes as religious, we have witnessed a remark-able movement of God's Spirit. It is transforming the Church and relig-ious life, calling us again to our biblical roots. The God who cares pas-sionately about this world, who hates idols and the injustice they le-gitimate, is neither absent nor sitting quietly in a culturally designed com-partment. Embracing the pain of the poor and the marginalized, God broods over our bent world "with warm breast and with ah! bright wings." ~ In Vatican II, the Church chose to position itself as a people in serv-ice to the world, seeking to transform it in the biblical image of God's justice. ~- The 197 ! Synod of Bishops specified this further: J~stice and participation in the transforming of the world fully appear to us ~s a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the gospel, or, 'in other words, of the Church's mission for the redemption of the human race and its liberation from every oppressive situation (Justice in the World, no. 6). The social teaching of the Church has gone~ beyond a reformist long-ing for organic, static society. In ,.magisterial teaching and theological de-velopment there is the commitment to struggle for and with the margi-nhlized to achieve justice. The spiritual is not compartmentalized from the affai'rs of this world, but integrated as a critical, driving force to shape '~'a new earth where justice will abide.''~3 In'theory and in prac-tice, from Medellin to the Philippines, in our inner cities and in recent pastoral letters of U.S. Bishops, we have witnessed the Church exercis-ing the ancient 'special love of Yahweh for the poor. ~4 Our challenging mission is newly clear, as are the many social forces which oppose it. It is the mission of our "pain-embracing" God, it is the mission of Christ see~king the reign of God.' It is fresh and new in our age, and as old as the prophets: "This is wfiat Yahweh asks of you, only this: to act justly, to love tenderly, and to walk humbly with your God" (Mi 6:8). What Justice Requires But what does it mean to do justice'? or to transform the world? or change social structures? The justice which flows :from faith in Yahweh has a dynamic, trans- 648 / Review for Religious, September-October 1988 formative quality. Subtle philosophical distinctions may be appropriate for impartial, uninvolved observers. But there is a simplicity and stark-ness to biblical justice questions, which are raised in God's name from peasants (Amos, Micah), slaves (Moses), and exiles. ~5 The royal circles of Egypt, Jerusalem, or Rome are preoccupied with questions of pros-perity (how to get more) or security (how to keep it). The prophetic voices from below demand that freedom, sustenance, places of dignity in the community be given (back) to every one Of God's chosen people. Everyone has a right to these goods, as a birthright from God who cre-ated and gave them all to the community in the ~fi~:st place. God will act to make things right again if those in power will not listen. The primary expectation of God from Israel is the doing of justice, in this sense sharing with or restoration to those on the margin of society: the widow, the orphan, the stranger, the poor. Every other ethical norm or covenan-tal requirement flows from this reading of social reality. There is to be a redistribution of social power and goods to achieve a society where all can sit under their own vine and fig tree, with no one to trouble them. Or as gentle Mary puts it in Luke: "[God] has pulled down princes from their thrones and exalted the lowly. The hungry he has filled, with good things, the rich sent empty away" (Lk 1:52-53). The pastoral letter of the U.S. bishops, Economic Justice for All, contains an eloquent articu-lation of what justice requires in our times. The scriptural section of that letter is especially worth meditating upon, to touch i'nto our faith as the force which moves us to justice. The religious reality described there can be summarized as the community of the human race--the community in which and through which God creates each of us as individiaals-- building community. This community is given all of creation to enjoy, and God's love be-sides. In response, God asks in covenant that the community be com-mitted to care for one another, that they show the same resilient love (he-sed) and solidarity toward each other that God has Shown them, The touchstone of this solidarity, from the time of the prophets, has been whether the community cares for those at the margins of society, those without power to demand a share of what the community has been given by God. This preferential option for the poor is as ancient and as crucial to the covenant as Yahweh's earliest commands to Israel concern-ing the widow, the orphan, the stranger in the land (Ex 22:20; Dt 10:.18). In fulfillment of the covenant, the community needs to do more than distribute food and clothing to the poor~ It has to bring ,them in from the margins, allowing them to participate in the creative life of the commu- Social Dimensions of Ministry nity. Then they can provide for themselves in dignity and will no longer be marginalized. In this, the pastoral letter goes beyond the usual em-phasis, in Catholic practice, on works of charity. These are seen to be insufficient since the poor have a right to a creative place in society, not just to be passive recipients of our largess. Bringing the marginalized into full participation in community life will, of course, build up the community itself. It will then be more able to show solidarity to those still at the margin, bringing them into fuller participation, and so forth. The cycle of response to the covenant is also the cycle of the community regenerating and building itself up as a soci-ety of justice. The ~uli religious insight is that, in this dbing of justice to one another, God is made present, is found, is worshiped at the cen-ter of this communal re-creation. Faith and justice reinforce each other, even merge, as God moves us to transform our society. This cycle de-scribes positively how God cails us through justice to renew the face of the earth. But there is also resistance to the Spirit of God; it creates injustice in the structures of society and reverses the cycle of creating a commu-nity of justice. A community can tear itself apart by denying meaningful participation to the poor, ignoring the increasing masses of the margi-nalized, replacing communal solidarity with relentless pursuit of self-interest. This injustice the Spirit of God calls upon us to confront, for the Spirit "convinces the world concerning sin and justice and judg-ment" (Jn 16:8).~6 A practical example may clarify how social structures can resist trans-formation. Some one hundred fifty years ago, the Jesuits in Maryland owned slaves. When Jesuit authorities in Rome remonstrated with them over this situation, the American Jesuits responded that the slaves were being very well cared for and, indeed, would likelY suffer much worse if they wei'e given their freedom and turned loose in American society. The Jesuits of Maryland missed seeing the social structure--slavery-- which needed to be transformed, and focused on the personal dimension of care the slaves received. It seems so evident now, but to those en-meshed in the toils of unjust social structures, they often seem "natu-ral," "the way things are,", unquestionable and unconfrontable. The U.S. bishops of the last century were also unable to confront slavery as an institution until the Civil War settled the question for everyone. ~7 One wonders if the terrible price of that war would have been paid had the churches and religious .people of the land not resisted, by and large, the call of the Spirit to transform the structure of slavery. 650 / Review for Religious, September-October 1988 While it is clear that God can work to bring good even from wars and great social cataclysms, this is not the way in which the Spirit of God desires to achieve the transformation of the world. The model of the Suf-fering Servant of Isaiah becomes normative for us in the cross of Jesus. Justice is a constitutive element of what the reign of God is about, but "suffering with" the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized is the man-ner of achieving God's jus.tice. We are called to follow our "pain-embracing" God, and our crucified Lord, in confr6nting the evil of this world. It is a manner far different from ou~ ordinary human institutions of violence, vengeance, and material power. God's ways are not ours, and God's just,~'ce cannot be fully achieved w. ithout a~lopting God's ways. Principles of Ministry for the Reign of God If I have been at all clear, it seems to me that two principles flow from what has been developed thus far. I would like to make these two principles explicit, go on to a couple practical strategies for implement-ing them, and then conclude with three sets of questions for considera-tion. What God has done for us and what God asks of us create a first prin-ciple. An essential part of the reign of God is justice, specifically the jus-tice which flows from living out a faith in Yahweh, faith in Jesus. There-fore, followers of Christ should have a concern for justice as a central focus of all their ministries. There are not justice ministries separate from other ministries, any more than there can be ministries separated from faith. Faith and justice are the complementary core of all Christian min-istry. Secondly, the "pain-embracing" love of God, especially inclusive of the marginalized in soc.iety, characterizes the ministry of Jesus "even unto death, death on a cross." The followers of Jesus are missioned to work for the reign of God in like fashion: through experiencing the strug-gle for justice "from below," at the sidle of the downtrodden, accept-ing the conflict or defeat which that entails, believing in the way of the Suffering Servant who is the Lord. Practical, Strategies The following suggestions are practical strategies for implementing these two principles. They are not new, but they might be helpful~ 1. Reflection on mihistry, and particularly on the justice dimension of ministry, should be based on experience. We experience the living God in ~'the joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men [and women] of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way Social Dimensions of Ministry / 651 afflicted.'? ~8 Christ dies and rises again for us in sharing the struggles and visions of real people. Experience draws us beyond ideologies and preconceptions; it energizes us for our quest for the reign of God. But the experience must be reflected upon. Stream-of-consciousness ministry may be personally vivifying, but it does not help us understand the social forces that create what we experience, or how we habitually respond. Social analysis can gradually remove the limitations of our cul-tural blinders and make us more critically aware of the social structures which must be transformed to "make clear the way of the Lord" (Mr 3:3). But so~zial analysis is often sterile, immobilizing, unless it is joined with faith and reflection on what God is saying to us. Relating both our experience and our analysis to the wellsprings of our own faith life en-ergizes us to act, and inspires us to discern how to act, for the reign of God. Our ministry is, then, m~ade reflective and revivifieO. And it gives us. further experience, which can be further reflected upon, leading to fur-ther inspiration and discernment. And so on. Many of you will recognize this process for reflection on ministry. It has been variously called the hermeneutic circle, the circle of praxis, or the pastoral cycle. 19 It is a methodology for moving steadily and re-flectively toward more authentic ministry. It may sound a little ominous at first, with terms like "social analysis" and '.'theological reflection." But it can be done very simply. It has been effective among illiterate peas-ants. 2° All of us ought to be able to do it. As a strategy for ongoing re-flection on ministry, it is.best when done communally, as a form of com-munal discernment. 2. In all ministries, there is the opportunity to experience the joys, hopes, griefs, and anxieties of ordinary people. But at least in orders like the Jesuits, most ministerial settings provide scant opportunity to come into contact with the poor and the marginalized. This should not mean that these ministries are exempt 'from the imperatives of justice-seeking or that they are unable to carry out ministry for the reign of God authen-tically. Ministries such as education or pastoral work with middle- and upper-class publics can seriously commit themselves to the work of con-scientization for the reign of God. These ministries deal with those who exercise power and influence over "the way things are"; their publics can bring about or at least come to tolerate changes in the social order which lead toward justice for the marginalized. It is a crucial element of the mission of all these ministries to communicate the call of the liv-ing God for solidarity, especially with the marginalized, and to urge con- 659 / Review for Religious, September-October 1988 sistently that social injustices be transformed to bring about the reign of God. But particularly in these ministries, the lack of any lived experience of the poor or oppressed strengthens ct]ltural-religious tendencies toward therapeutic blandness or conformist externalism. We should attempt to build into these ministries, and into the lives of their publics, some ex-perience of real people living at the margins, victims of unjust social con-ditions. There are immersion programs, social-service projects, inte-grated discussion groups, and other forms of contact between people whom our social structures tend to isolate from each other. Such ex-periences will often be episodic, ephemeral, perhaps even seem voyeur-istic. But they can be honed to a finer edge of reality if they are carried out in cooperation with people who are in consistent, full-time ministry or presence among the poor. Within religious congregations we can leaven all our ministries by missioning some of our best people to ministry among the poor, asking them to share with all of us the insights and challenges of their lived ex-perience. The enlivening experience of God present at the margins can be corporate, shared by brothers or sisters in widely divergent ministries, if conscious efforts are made to foster such sharing. For this leavening to occur, it is important that the religious we mission to ministry among the poor be among our best, mainstream people willing and able to in-teract with a wide range of our corporate membership. My experience has been that we too often allow the lone rangers, the disaffected, the angry, or the difficult to wander off in ministry to the poor. Or we so isolate good folks sent into difficult ministries of social justice that they burn out quickly. As religious communities we can become more effec-tively present with the poor, with consequent enriching of all our apos-tolates, if we will take care to engage in such ministry corporately and reflectively. Mere presence among the marginalized does not guarantee any re-flective stance, in terms of either social analysis or theological reflec-tion. There is ample evidence of religious, ministering regularly among the poor, who never question the social structures which afflict their peo-ple. Or worse, they adopt a benevolent one-way relationship of "giv-ing" to the poor, rather than living with and learning from them about the reality of God. To counter these tendencies, itis helpful to be in con-tact with those engaged in the direct ministry of social change, challeng-ing some aspect of social injustice from an integrated faith perspective. As a full-time occupation, religious ministry for social change is rare Social Dimensions of Ministry / 653 this country. There is every indication that God's spirit is calling us, through the Church, to make it more prevalent. But it is unlikely to be-come a dominant mode of ministry in any religious congregation. That does not mean that a few good men or women could not be missioned, in each of the larger ~ongregations, to engage in this newly urgent min-istry. Not only will this serve social transformation for the reign of God; it can helpail our ministries become more competent to deal with the so-cial and theological questions most pressing in our society. Small or large religious congregations can relate to interreligious social-justice centers in most major cities of the United States. And individuals in any minis-try can become advocates of social change in one area or another, as par-ticipants in coalitions of concerned people devoting time and energy out-side their ordinary works to transforming society.2~ There should be no religious congregation so burdened with maintaining historical com-mitments that it cannot find ways to mission at least some key members to collaborative or part-time work for social justice, so as to leaven the entire ministry of the group. In this strategy, then, every ministry can participate in some level of social action for the reign of God: conscientization of the more afflu-ent and powerful, ministry of presence and social service among the marginalized, direct ministry for social change of unjust social structures. Having all three levels of social ministry within a congregation, if there is communication and cross-fertilization among them, can enrich the mis-sion of all for the reign of God. Even where all three levels are not pos-sible, much the same effect can be achieved by collaboration with other religious and lay people committed to working for the transformation of society. No matter which ministries are present within a congregation, all must become imbued with a central concern for social justice. The reign of God and the love of Christ draw us all to this. Some Questions for Consideration Let me turn now to three sets of questions, for which, I assure you, I have no answers. But they may be worth wrestling with in thinking about the future of religious life. I. Most religious congregations had as part of their founding charism a special concern for ministry among the poor.22 Most of our congrega-tions several generations ago ministered mainly among the poor in Amer-ica: immigrant Slavs and Germans, Italians and Irish, still on the mar-gins of American society. Why now are the vast majority of American male religious working in ministries for the more affluent? Was it a form 654 / Review for Religious, September-October 1988 of ministerial "bracket creep," where we drifted up the income ladder along with the traditional publics we served, moving with them in from the margins of American society? If we were to decide anew about where to focus our ministries, what might the Spirit call us to do for the reign of God? 2. Most young men and women coming into reiigious life have been formed by American sociocultural conditioning. They look to religion to foster their own self-realization or to shelter them from the world's turmoil through external authority. Our older veterans of religious life are subject to these same alluring siren songs of American cultural relig-ion. Doour models of early and continuing formation, with their empha-sis on psychosocial development or on external structures of religious life, challenge cultural limitations of religious belief and practice? How much therapeutic self-nurturing or sheltering in external authority do we allow? How can we transcend these tendencies in order to instill full bib-lical faith, which integrates God, society, and self? How form religious for mission, to join our suffering, pain-embracing God in transforming the world? 3. The last set of questions is not mine. They come from Archbishop Weakland when he was asked how Jesuits could help implement the so-cial vision of the Economic Pastoral. :His response went something like this: (a) You Jesuits have a lot of access to the powerful in society. They are your alumni, counselees, fellow board members. You turn to them to support~your own works. Will you use that access to power on behalf of the marginalized and their agenda of justice? (b)You Jesuits have ex-perience of the third world, knowledge of the marginalized. Will you bring that forcefully into the consciousness of the American people, who are so woefully ill-informed about the struggles and attitudes of the poor? (c) There are many good young people, in business, the professions, or factories, who are dissatisfied with what our society offers. They want to remain lay men and women, but long for a way of life, a vision, more consonant with the Gospel. Can you imagine, and then image credible lifestyles and life goals for these lay Christians? Archbishop Weakland's q'uestions are generalizable, I would think, for almost any religious con-gregation. Conclusion ¯ I would like to observe, in conclusion, that fait.h does not seem to be a question at the margins of society. Faith in God is very much alive in the third world and in the inner city. There the overwhelming ques-tions are those of justice. Faith seems most fragile and in doubt in the Social Dimensions of Ministry / 655 sterile, cluttered tunnels of our earthworm society of affluence. Faith with-ers here, though we overnurture it with self-concern, though we fence it in with our fears. But faith in the living God is a wild thing. It thrives at the margins, where struggle and hope for God's justice blaze brightest. If we go there, our own religious life may be rekindled, as we join our God in renewing the face of the earth. Let us go, then, without guilt or rage. Let us go in joy because our God draws us, calls us to join the struggle there for the transformation of the world. There, too, we shall meet the love of our lives, Jesus the Lord. NOTES ~ Alberto Moravia, The Red Book and the Great Wall (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1968);' pp. 12-21. -~ Mi 4:2. See Walter Brueggemann, "Vine and Fig Tree: A Case Study in Imagina-tion and Criticism," The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 43 (1981): 188-204. 3 See W. Brueggemann, '~OId Testament Theology as a Particular Conversation: Ad-judication of Israel's Socio-Theological Alternatives," Theology Digest 32:4 (1985): 302-325. This excellent study of the conne~ztion between Old Testament theophany and justice in the social order was the Bellarmine Lecture at St. Louis University in 1985. I am indebted to it for many of the insights in this scriptural section. 4 See Norman Gottwald, The Tribes of Yahweh (Orbis, 1979), chapter 49: "Mutual Reinforcement of Yahwism and Social Egalitarianism." 5 Jn 11:48-51. See Jon Sobrino, Christology at the Crossroads (Orbis, 1978), pp. 201 ff. 6 The term is Brueggemann's. See his "A Shape for Old Testament Theology: Em-brace of Pain," The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 47:3 (I 985): 395-415. 7 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, first published 1835-1840. Quota-tion is from Anchor Books edition (1969), pp. 506-510. 8 See J. F. Kavanaugh, Following Christ in a Consumer Society (Orbis, 1981), or his address to this Assembly in 1985: "Religious Life and Leadership in the Con-text of American Culture." From a different perspective, see Daniel Bell, The Cul-tural Contradictions of Capitalism (Basic Books, 1976). 9 An outstanding example of such studies is Robert Bellah et al., Habits of the Heart (Univ. of California Press, 1985). I have relied upon it heavily for this section: ! cannot recommend it highly enough. Another recent study of religious and social trends concurs with much of Bellah's findings: see J. Chittister and M. Marty, eds., Faith and Ferment (Augsburg/Liturgical Press, 1983). ~0 See Bellah, op. cir., pp. 235ff. ~ The phrase is from G. M. Hopkins's poem, "'God's Grandeur" (1877). ~2 See especially Gaudium et Spes, nn. I-3 and passim. ~3 Gaudium et Spes, n. 39. See C. Curran, "Catholic Social Ethics: A New Ap-proach'?" Clergy Review (Feb.-Mar. 1985). 656 / Review for Religious, September-October 1988 ~'~ On the history of the preferential option for the poor, see D. Dorr, Option for the Poor: A Hundred Years of Vatican Social Teachings (Orbis, 1983). ~5 See Brueggemann, Parks, and Groome, To Act Justly, Love Tenderly, Walk Hum-bly: An Agenda for Ministers (Paulist Press, 1986), a fine series of reflections on the Micah text and on justice. m6 See Pope John Paul ll's two recent encyclicals on sinful social structures, Domi-hum et Vivificantem (1986), no. 56; and Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (1988), passim. ~7 See Doris Gottemoeller's talk to this Assembly in 1985: "Challenges to Relig-ious Leadership from a Changing U.S. Church," p. 7. ~8 Gaudium et Spes, no. 1. 19 As developed, respectively, by Juan Segundo, The Theology of Liberation (Or-bis, 1976); by Paolo Freire, The Pedagogy of the Oppzessed (Herder & Herder, 1970); and by Holland & Henriot, Social Analysis (Center of Concern, 1984). The last has a simple, practical treatment in chapter I. 20 See Ernesto Cardenal, The Gospel in Solentiname (Orbis, 1979). 2~ Examples nationally include: Amnesty International, Bread for the World, Catho-lic Worker, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Interfaith Action for Economic Justice, Just Life, Network, Pax Christi, to name only a few. There are countless local and regional grouPs as well. 22 From a brief survey of the self-descriptions of U.S. male religious groups listed in the latest vocation guide, Ministries for the~ Lord: A Resource Guide and Direc-tory of Catholic Church Vocations for Men (Paulist Press, 1985), this seems to be true for the great majority of nonmonastic religious congregations of men. I'd Love to, Lord, But. Paul Wachdorf Father Wachdorf's "Leading People into Prayer" appeared in our May/June 1988 issue. His address remains the same: University of Saint Mary of the Lake; Munde-lein, Illinois 60060. In the Gospel of Luke, chapter 4, Jesus returns to his home town of Naza-reth, goes to the synagogue on the Sabbath, and reads from the prophet Isaiah: The spirit of the Lord is upon me; therefore, he has anointed me. He has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and release to prisoners, to announce a year of favor from the Lord (Lk 4:18-19). These words give a tone and a direction to the public ministry Jesus was about to begin. In 1971, the Synod of Bishops meeting in Rome produced a docu-ment entitled Justice in the World in which they state: Action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world fully appear to us as a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the Gospel, or, in other words, of the Church's mission for the redemp-tion of the human race and its liberation from every oppressive situation (Justice in the World, Synod of Bishops, Second General Assembly, Nov. 30, 197 I). The teachings and the ministry of Jesus and the teachings of the Church have consistently proclaimed that action on behalf of justice is not simply an option, not just a matter of personal preference or inter-est, but is an integral part of the gospel message and the Christian life-style as we are called upon to live it. 657 Review for Religious, September-October 1988 Given the crucial importance of this ministry in the Church and in the world today, I would like to reflect on my own journey into and ex-perience of the ministry of social justice from two viewpoints. First, I will look at some of the common resistances people encounter in them-selves as they hear the gospel challenge of social justice. Then, I want to examine some possible steps which people might profitably pursue to help them break through their resistances and respond more fully to the challenge of social justice. Intellectual Assent vs. Active Participation For the past seven years I have worked with the social justice pro-gram at Mundelein Seminary. Prior to that, I served in a parish for six years. During my years in a parish, I always gave intellectual and verbal assent to the principles of social justice. After all, how could I as a priest do otherwise? But as I look back on those years, I realize that my no-tional assent was not often translated into real and different patterns of behavior. Practicing what I preached about social justice was no simple task, although I did not realize that at the time. Resistances, Excuses, Rationalization~ After my appointment to the seminary, I was elected as the faculty representative for our Peace and Justice Committee. Frankly, I was not enthused about this appointment. But since ! felt somewhat insecure in my new environment and in my new work, it seemed to be an offer I could not refuse. I began to think about my commitment and involvement, l won-dered, "What am I supposed to do?" Soon I recognized within me sev-eral resistances, excuses, and rationalizations. In the past, they had kept me from becoming involved in the ministry of social justice in any sig-nificant way. I wanted to say yes to the Lord and to respond to the call of social justice. But my excuses kept getting in the way. At that point, I realized that 1 would have to critique my resistances with honesty through dialogue and prayer. Otherwise, my resistances would effec-tively block me from ever becoming involved in any way at all. Prophets Are Not Popular Quickly, I recognized the first resistance. Prophets are not popular. From Old Testament times to the present day, men and women who sting the conscience of a nation, a people, or a Church become unpopular. They are often criticized; they have their motives questioned; and they are pushed to the fringes of society. I'd Love to, Lord, But. / 659 ! remember very clearly an incident that happened as I was growing up. In the early 1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King led a march through my neighborhood, a white Catholic stronghold, to Marquette Park. I remem-ber standing on the corner on which my parish church and rectory were located watching the march. There were hundreds of white people lin-ing both sides of the street. Many of them were shouting, cursing, or throwing things at the marchers. Two of the priests came out of the rec-tory and began telling the people to go home and leave the marchers alone. Some of the people responded by cursing at the priests and tell-ing them to mind their own business. I saw a man spit on one of the priests. The following Sunday at Mass, the priests spoke out in favor of the marchers and their cause and spoke against the behavior of the bystand-ers, many of whom were good parishioners, pillars of the church. A few people at the Mass got up and walked out. Those days, I helped count the Sunday collection. That week and for a few weeks afterward, the col-lection went down significantly. I have never forgotten that incident. I still admire the courage of my parish priests. At the same time, I am aware that my later reluctance in seminary and in my initial years of priesthood to become involved in the ministry of social justice or to preach about justice issues was strongly influenced by that experience. In my initial involvement with the Seminary Peace and Justice Com-mittee, I soon came to a basic understanding. ! must be willing with com-plete honesty to critique that part of myself that desires to be popular and to be liked by others. Otherwise, I would never say anything controver-sial or would never speak out or would rarely take action on behalf of issues of social justice. Poverty is Messy and Unglamorous A second resistance for me rests in a simple fact. Poverty is messy and unglamorous. For the past seven years I have volunteered on a part time basis at an overnight shelter for the homeless. Many of the people who come to spend the night there are not "pretty." They are dirty; they smell; they are often sick; some have head lice; some are alcoholics; some belong in a halfway house or mental institution. I have always been fortunate enough to grow up and live in a clean, healthy, and comfortable environment. Throughout much of my life I have been isolated and insulated from the poor and the homeless. I rec-ognized another need for honest critique. I needed to confront that part of myself that wants life always to be nice, comfortable, and pretty. Oth-erwise, I would never become involved. 660 / Review for Religious, September-October 1988 Myths, Stereotypes, and Prejudices A third resistance for me consists in myths, stereotypes, and preju-dices. Our culture is filled with them--about racial, ethnic, and relig-ious groups and about the poor and those who work for and with them. "The poor are lazy and would rather be on welfare . If they really wanted to, they could better themselves . They like being poor. See how happy they are . People involved in social justice causes are un-patriotic . All social justice organizations are communist inspired." The list goes on and on. I cannot go to a social gathering without hearing at least one joke that plays upon racial, ethnic, and cultural stereotypes. At times, I have told and laughed at those same jokes. I needed to confront and honestly critique my own myths, stereotypes, and prejudices. Otherwise, I would never become involved. Social-Justice Ministry is Disturbing There is a fourth resistance. I find this ministry disturbing. Working in the area of social justice has forced me to critique my own lifestyle, my attitudes about material possessions and wealth, and my use of the world's resources. I must admit that I like the good life. Conspicuous consumption is the name of the game in American society. In my early years of priest-hood when I was no longer a poor student but had a regular salary, I re-ally enjoyed having nice things. They compensated for my "great sac-rifice" of celibacy. I needed to honestly critique my own desire to live the good life and my tendencies toward materialism. Otherwise, I would never become involved. Fear A fifth resistance for me is fear. I found within myself a whole clus-ter of fears. I believed that if I worked with the poor and on behalf of social justice, I would be injured, harmed, or abused in some way. When I spent my first night at a shelter for the homeless, I was thor-oughly convinced that I was going to get head lice. TV news broadcasts and newspaper articles have always been filled with stories of crime and violence among the poor and in the inner city. When I was in college, I was robbed at gunpoint by two young black men. That experience re-inforced an attitude that had been drilled into me in all kinds of ways in my neighborhood: all black people are dangerous and to be feared. I needed to critique with honesty and courage that part of myself that de-sires security and safety at all costs. Otherwise, I would never take the I'd Love to, Lord, But. / 661 risk of becoming involved. An Overwhelming Sense of Poverty and Injustice in the World There is a final resistance. When I consider the extent of poverty and injustice in the world, I feel overwhelmed. I say to myself: What can one person possibly do to make a difference? My efforts will be futile and a waste of time. The work is innately frustrating. I will continually run into brick walls and have to deal with bureaucratic red tape and unsym-pathetic people and institutions. Progress is often measured in inches. You live with little or no sense of accomplishment. I realized that if I was not willing to honestly critique my own feelings of being over-whelmed and my own desire for instant results, then I would never be-come involved. Overcoming Resistances ~ It was not easy for me to look at my resistances. It is no easier to-day. Life seemed to be more pleasant when I closed my eyes to the re-alities of poverty and injustice as they existed all around me. Even after seven years of working with our Peace and Justice Committee, I find that I can still bring out of my storehouse old and new excuses which warn me to "back off," to rest because "I have done enough." As I con-tinue to come in touch with each of my resistances, I am aware that there are various steps that I have to enter into in order to overcome them. MyNeed for Challenge A first step is to allow myself to be challenged by others. I found myself challenged recently in a way I least expected. My sister who is a registered nurse and a certified nurse midwife recently volunteered to work for two years in Papua New Guinea as a lay missionary. I asked her why she wanted to do this. She told me that she was aware of the many talents, gifts, and blessings God had given her throughout her life. She felt that serving as a lay missionary was one way in which she could best express her gratitude to God. As I listened to what she had to say, I felt a lot of pride and admira-tion for my sister. At the same time, I felt a bit embarrassed as I realized that my own commitment to serving the poor at times looked pale in com-parison. I need people like my sister to challenge me and to keep me look-ing at my resistances. I need people like my sister to inspire me and to keep me in touch with my desire to bring to others the Good News that Jesus proclaimed in the Gospel of Luke as he began his public ministry. They need to say little. Their lives are bold proclamation. 669 / Review for Religious, September-October 1988 As important as they are, such challenges are ~not enough for me. I have an amazing capacity to ignore or rationalize away the challenges that come from outside of me. To break through my resistances, I need to pray, to dialogue With others, and to simply begin. MyNeed for Prayer A second step for me is to bring my .resistances before the Lord in prayer. I begin by naming as honestly as I can my fears, my doubts, and my inner resistances. I express to God in my prayer what I am feeling and why I am feeling it. I ask God to break through my denial, to re-move from my eyes the scales that blind me to the,breadth and depth of my resistances so that I can see them for what they are. I place my resis-tances in the hands of God and invite God to respond. Here begins what I call the zone of discomfort in my prayer. To say to God "thy will be done" rather than "my will be thine" is~very fright-ening. What if God reveals to me something 1 do not want to see? What if God asks me to do what I do not want to do? At this point, I must qui-etly and patiently wait for God to respond, trusting that the God who loved me into existence will not abandon me or ask me to do anything that I am not capable of doing. MyNeed for Dialogue Prayer leads me to a third step. I need to talk to another person about my resistances. St. Ignatius in his Rules for the Discernment of Spirits, Week I [326] talks about the evil spirit as a false lover who "acts in or-der to keep his own suggestions and temptations secret, and our tactics must be to bring out into the light of day such suggestions and tempta-tions to our confessor or director or superior" (David Fleming, S.J., The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius: A Literal Translation and A Contem-porary Reading [St. Louis: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1978], p. 213). Resistances need to be brought into the light of day so that they can be seen for what they are. When I do not talk to another person about my resistances, I find that they can gain power to control me, even after I have brought them to prayer. I can easily deny them or sweep them un-der the carpet. In hones( dialogue with another, I am given the gift of freedom of choice. In honest dialogue with another, I find challenge, new perspective, affirmation, support, and the courage to begin. My Need to Begin A fourth step is to begin. At Mundelein Seminary, there is a Spiri- l"d Love to, Lord, But. / 663 tuality and Justice group composed of faculty and students. Each mem-ber of this group has chosen a concrete action to pursue during the school year in some area of social justice. People have chosen to fast, to work at a soup kitchen or a shelter for the homeless, to deaccumulate their pos-sessions and to live more simply, or to pursue the Pax Christi vow of nonviolence. The premise behind this group is that we live ourselves into new ways of thinking, valuing, and behaving. The way to begin is robe-gin. The way to break through and break down our resistances is to be-gin doing something, no matter how small or insignificant. I have chosen the Pax Christi vow of nonviolence as my action for this year. In the sh"ort time that I haqe pursued this, I have already be-gun to experience ways in which my thinking, my attitudes, my values, and my behaviors are changing. I can feel my resistances to living out this vow b(eaking down in the very act of acting. The words of Mother Teresa are most applicable here: I never look at the masses as my responsibility. I look at the individual. I can love only one person at a time. I can feed only one person at a time. Just one, one, one. You get closer to Christ by coming closer to each other. As Jesus said: "Whatever you do to the least of my breth-ren, you do to me." So you begin . ! begin. I picked up one per-son. Maybe if 1 didn't pick up that one person, 1 wouldn't have picked up 42,000. The whole work is only a drop in the ocean. But if I didn't put the drop in, the ocean would be one drop less. Same thing for you, same thing in your family, same thing in the church where you go. Just begin . . . one, one, one. (Source unknown) MyNeed for Support A final step for me is my need for ongoing support. My commitment to working for justice in the world is fragile and tenuous. I find that I need ongoing challenge to help me keep looking at and dealing with my resistances. I also need the support and affirmation of others to keep me going when I experience moments of discouragement and frustration. The Spirituality and Justice group of which I am a part provides me with opportunities for ongoing challenge, prayer, dialogue, and action. At our initial meetings, we spent time praying about the commitment we hoped to make. We broke into dyads to talk to another about why we chose to be a part of this group, about the action we were planning to pursue, and about the fears and resistances we were experiencing inside of us as we prepared to begin. We came back into the larger group to share the fruits of our dialogue. We concluded with shared prayer. At this point, most of us in the group have chosen and have begun 664 / Review for Religious, September-October 1988 to pursue an action. We see future meetings as an opportunity for us to take time for solitary prayer as we continue to bring our actions before God. The meetings help us to share in aone to one way and in the larger group the impact that our action is making on our thinking, valuing, and behaving. The meetings offer support and prayer for and with one an-other in our actions. Here we give witness and challenge to one another as we keep looking at and confronting our resistances. Conclusion The journey into the ministry of social justice is challenging, diffi-cult, and painful. There are many ~tesistances that cooe from within and without. There are many starts and stops. It is a journey that cannot be successfully negotiated alone. There can be no authentic journey with-out God and fellow travelers. My experience is that the journey is well worth the effort for my good and the good of others. May the Spirit of the Lord be upon us in our quest to "bring glad tidings to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and release to prisoners." Understanding Novitiate Formation Wilkie Au, 'S.J. Father Au has just completed six and a half years as novice director. He is writing a book tentatively titled Acquiring Habits of the Heart: Holistic Religious Forma-tion. He may be addressed at Loyola Marymount University; P.O. Box 45041; Los Angeles, California 90045. Vatican II,s call for the renewal of religious life set into motion a radical reexaminatio.n of the purposes, processes, and structures involved in the formation of candidates for religious life. The aggiornamento of John XXIII required that those responsible for religious formation make the adaptations needed to prepare religious candidates fora lifetime of dedi-cation and service in a rapidly changing world and Church. Because sen-sible adaptation depended on having a clear sense of what objectives were sought, much of the discussion among formation personnel (forma-tores) in the postconciliar years centered on the purposes and goals of the different phases of the formation process. Consequently, the noviti-ate or initial formation in many orders was thoroughly evaluated in light of the renewed understanding of religious life in the modern world, and many dramatic changes followed. Nevertheless, more than twenty years later the question is still being asked today: "What should be the overriding aims and objectives of the novitiate?"~ According to Father Gerald Arbuckle, S.M., a former as-sistant general of his community, many formation personnel today agree that the experience and the efforts to adapt the novitiate program accord-ing to the requirements of Renovationis Causam have not always been as successful as they would have wished. Many are still uncertain about what to do in the novitiate. Many questions remain: "Should there be a one,to-two-year novitiate? . When should the formative apostolic ex-periences take place and what should they accomplish? . How much 665 666 / Review for Religio. us, September~October 1988 separation, if any, from the world around them should novices experi-ence?" In brief, many questions about the aims and objectives of novi-tiate formation persist.2 Today the drastic drop in the number of those entering the novitiate adds further reason for adaptations in novitiate formation. To be accept-able, these adaptations must, however, retain the essential goals of the novitiate. Precisely what these needed changes are and how they are to be implemented will depend on concrete circumstances of place and per-sonnel. But, more importantly, before any sensible adaptation can be made, it is imperative that there be a clear rearticulation of the basic goals of novitiate formation. Otherwise,. there is the danger that our ad-aptations will be misguided and essential aspects of novitiate training be inadvertently°lost. The purpose of this article is to articulate an under-standing of novitiate formation, based on my si'x years of experience as director of novices of the Jesuits of the California Province. It is my hope that this article will stimulate and contribute to a discussion of novitiate formation at a time when formatores throughout the world are attempt-ing to deal with the adjustments made necessary by, among other things, declining numbers. While this article will. reflect Jesuit documents and my ,own experi-ence working within a Jesuit novitiate (with a group averaging between twelve to fifteen,new candidates every year), I am hopeful that other re-ligious groups of men and 'women working with smaller numbers can dis-cover in my comments what is universally true of the novitiate process in general. In a word, I believe that any novitiate program that purports to embody the spirit of Vatican I1 must include three essential aspects: (1) vocation discernment; (2) religious, socialization; and (3) Qngoing in-dividuation. These three overlapping purposes of the novitiate must, in my opinion, be retained no matter what adapta!ions, are made to accom-modate changing circumstances. What follows is a discussion of these three major goals of the novitiate. Vocation Discernment The objective bf vocation discernment in the novitiate is to help nov-ices come to a peaceful awareness and a free acceptance' of God"s will for them in regard to their state of life. Candidates come seeking help in discerning wh(ther God is indeed calling them to a lifelong commit-ment to tile service of Christ with this particular religious group. Sev-eral considerations are helpi~ul in providing this assistance to them: Confirmation of a Call versus "Weeding Out" The nOvmate must be Viewed as a positive process, as a concrete aid Novitiate Formation / 66"/ to those trying to test out their call to religious lif~. The novitiate should not be designed or perceived as a "weeding out" system, something ,like the basic training of an elitist military unit or the strenuous audition for a coveted part in a chorus line. The novitiate process would be vitiated at its core if it were to be seen as a systematic attempt to test candidates by deliberately placing artificial obstacles before them and screening them on the basis of their ability to overcome these obstacles. The de-structive and dysfunctional consequences of this negative view of novi-tiate formation can be documented in the "horror stories" of many older religious. In addition to the regrettable pain and htirt inflicted on peo-ple, a negative approach ~to the novitiate is fundamentally flawed because it encourages fearful and anxious novices to circumvent, rather than in-vest in, the complex process of discernment. Vocation discdrnment requires an openness and attention to one's in-terior movements, especially in prayer, and an honest disclosure and dis-cussion of these movements in spiritual direction. These attitudes of open-ness and honesty cannot exist in the kind of atmosphere of fear and threat which a "weeding out" approach inevitably produces. Furthermore, such an approach focuses too much attention on external requirements that need to be met in order to survive, like ~'hoops one has to jump through" to make the grade. Dangerously distracting, such a pre-occupation with "making it" can seriously jeopardize the integrity of one's discernment process. Good discernment relies heavily on a per-son's ability to hear the voice of the Lord speaking deeply in the soli-tude of one's heart and in the concrete circumstances of one's life. In light of this, the novice director can be most helpful by imitating the posi-tive role of Eli, the priest, who directs the young Samuel to the place where he is instructed to respond to the Lord's summons by saying, "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening" (1 S 3:1-9). The Dynamic of Election and Confirmation The term "election"' was used by lgna~tius of Loyola to designate the choice made by a person seeking the will of God regarding some con-crete matter in his or her life. For the last four centuries, Christians have found the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius helpful in making an elec-tion, especially when trying to determine how they should serve Christ. For Ignatius, such a determination was best done in the context of prayer, for "prayer is the place where we sort out our desires and where we are ourselves sorted out by the desires we choose to follow. ,,3 The spiritual discernment that takes place in the novitiate results in an election regard-ing the direction one's vocation should take. Besides providing direction, Review for Religious, September-October 1988 however, the election process in the novitiate also seeks to test out the depth and freedom of a person's desire to serve Christ through the life of the vows. The Exercises were designed by Ignatius to help in "preparing and disposing the soul to rid itself of all inordinate attachments, and, after their removal, [in] seeking and finding the will of God in the disposition of our life for the salvation of our soul."4 In a Jesuit novitiate the Exer-cises are usually made in the course of a thirty-day retreat soon after en-trance. This experience provides the context in which the Jesuit novice director helps the individual novice either to make an election regarding his vocation or to reaffirm his previously~ made decision to be a Jesuit. Those who make an election to pursue the Jesuit way of life must then generously engage in the novitiate process with the hope that the Lord will clarify and confirm their desire. Thus, vocation discernment in the novitiate involves a two-year period of' monitoring one's deepest desires and ascertaining whether the desire to serve the Lord as a Jesuit perdures and deepens throughout the course of the novitiate. If this desire per-dures, the novice can then express this desire through the first vows of a Jesuit. Michael J. Buckley, S.J., describes these first vows as an offering, following upon an election, made in perpetuity, very much like the initial election of the Exercises. Like this offering, they are con-tingent upon the subsequent confirmation by the Lord, worked through a human being's personal religious history over the next ten or fifteen years.5 Until he takes his final vows many years after the novitiate, "the Jesuit lives in a period of probation, testing whether the first offering of his life to God [through first vows] is accepted and confirmed by divine providence."6 Buckley summarizes this Ignatian dynamic well by explain-ing "the way in which one moves toward finding and giving his life over to the will of God" within the framework of the Spiritual Exercises. There isthe initial offer of a choice to God our Lord, an offering which is made according to a time for making an election and which is then presented before the Lord . What the dynamic of the election looks for after the moment of offering is the subsequent confirmation'by God. Election as a religious history, as an experience of Providence, devel-ops over time between these two major events: the time of human offer-ing and the period of confirmation by God.7 Clearly, then, the objective of vocation discernment in the novitiate is to help novices determine whether the depth and direction of their Novitiate Formation / 669 heart's deepest desires move them to make a self-offering of themselves through vows. Absolute clarity and certainty regarding the future can-not be expected at the end of the novitiate period, since the person's self-offering must await "the subsequent confirmation by God." As Buck-ley eloquently states, For a man who follows God, who listens to God throughout his serious experience, the future is unknown and mysterious--not unlike God him-self. And he moves into this mystery without prematurely forcing clar-ity because his experience of God directs this movement.8 The Test of Existential Validation Colloquially stated, the test of existential validation asks novices this question: "Does the shoe fit?" This is an important question for voca-tion discernment, and it must be asked on a regular basis. While the Ig-natian election helps novices find God's will for them in the deep de-sires of their hearts, the test of existential validation enables them to dis-cover God"s will in the concrete details of their lives. The method of existential validation is basically very simple. When they first enter, the novices are asked to live the life of a Jesuit as if they have already taken the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Then they are asked to pay attention to the "fit" throughout the course of their novitiate. In other words, they are asked to "try on the shoes of being a Jesuit" and check for the fit as they actually walk in those shoes. In their concrete experience, do they find that living the vows in an actual Jesuit community is life-giving and productive? Do they dis-cover that, with the passage of time, there is an increasing congruence between what they want for their lives and Jesuit ideals? As they grow in knowledge of what being a Jesuit involves concretely in this histori-cal time and place, do they find a match between what they desire and what life in the Society of Jesus offers and requires today? Another aspect of existential validation involves testing the authen-ticity of one's desire. This is done mainly by checking for the congru-ence between what one professes to value and desire and how one actu-ally chooses, decides, and behaves. Although all human beings live with a discrepancy between the ideal and the real, drastic and consistent de-viations from the norms and aspirations of religious life should make one question the genuineness and depth of one's desire to be a religious. Though painful and disruptive, getting in touch with authentic desires can be a liberating experience. Furthermore, while self-reporting is an important means for gather- 670 / Review for Religious, September-October 1988 ing data in the process of existential validation, the feedback of the re-ceiving community is also very important in testing out the existential fit between the individual novice and the peculiar charism of a particu-lar religious institute. Vocation discernment in the novitiate must ascer-tain not only if a person desires to take on religious life, but whether he or she has been given the gift and charism to live that life. A realistic assessment of this capability is a crucial aspect of vocation discernment. For example, from the concrete evidence of a person's life, can it be judged that the Lord has given the aspirant to an apostolic religious com-munity the following prerequisites: -- the ability to live in community with relative peace and joy? -- the capacity to love with celibate chastity in a non-exclusive man-ner? -- the.freedom to live with simplicity and detachment? -- the ability to be mobile and available to be sent anywhere on mis-sion? The underlying presupposition of this line of inquiry obviously is that one's God-given abilities, personality, and inclinations can indicate in helpful ways the precise form and manner in which one is being called to serve Christ. Not to pay serious attention to these concrete indicators is to disregard an important aspect of vocation discernment. Vocation Shortage and a ~,ranny of Numbers I would like to make a final comment regarding vocation discern-ment in the novitiate. It seems to me that the declining number of candi-dates c~n create a ,~ituation in which vocation discernment is not engaged in with seriousness and detachment. The disordered desire to keep the few that come can jeopardize and short-circuit the discernment process. At a time of drastic diminishment, external pressures to hang on at any cost to the few that do enter are sometimes exerted by formed members of the community. This pressure, as well as the interior unfreedom of formatores themselves, can impede a thorough discernment process.9 Fur-thermore, unconsciously treating novices with a "precious few" men-tality can lead to a form of coddling that would be unhelpful for relig-ious formation and spiritual growth. Religious communities that have had only a few candidates during the last decade and at present experience only a trickle from year to year are particularly susceptible to this dan-ger. Religious Socialization: "Habits of the Heart" The term "religious socialization" has been popularized by John Novitiate Formation / 671 Westerhoff III in discussing the question of how elements of religion and faith ,~are transmitted from one generation to another. While he does not apply the term to the formation of religious candidates, nevertheless, it seems to capture quite well one of the essential purposes of the noviti-ate, that is, the handing on of a religious tradition and lifestyle to per-sons desiring to enter the life of a religious group as fully participating members. Religious socialization, according to Westerhoff, is a process consisting of lifelong formal and informal mechanisms, through which persons stistain and transmit their faith (worldview', value ~syst~m) and lifestyle. This is accomplished through participation in the life of a tradition-bearing community with its rites, rituals, myths, sym-bols, expressions of beliefs, attitudes and values, organizational pat-terns, and activities.~° As defined by Westerhoff, religious socialization is a lifelong proc-ess and thus does not exactly describe the novitiate, which (to the relief of all involved) is limited to one or two years. Technically speaking, re-ligious socialization is equivalent to the whole process of formation, which more and more is being viewed as a lifelong affair. Because of ongoing liturgical renewal, biblical and theological reflection, and the rapidity of changing conditions of our times, religious have been urged to commit themselveS seriously to "continuing formation." ~ Neverthe-less, the ~oviiiate is the initial phase of the lifelong process involved in the assimilation of members into religious life. Viewed as such, Wester-hoff's notion of religious ~ocialization provides a useful way of under-standing an essential purpose of the novitiate. Adaptations of novitiate formation must be guided by the essential goal of religious socialization. The basic question raised by the task of handing on the tradition Of religious life to new aspirants is this: What is tO be~handed down and how? What values, beliefs, mores, and ways of proceeding has the receiving community judged to be of perennial worth, such that they should remain permanently .definitional of the group? To employ a phrase of Alexis de Tocqueville, the nineteenth-century French observer of democracy in America (a phrase recently popu-larized by a national bestseller), what are the "habits of the heart" that the receiving community deems absolutely essential for maintaining its group life with integrity and vitality'? In "habits of the heart" Tocqueville included "notions, opinions, and ideas that 'shape mental habits'; and 'the sum of moral and intellectual dispositions' " as well as habitual practices with respect to such things as religion. ~- Once the receiving community has come to a clear consensus on the 672 / Review for Religious, September-October 1988 content which it wishes to transmit, then it must decide on the most ef-fective means for this transmission. The question of how to raises a num-ber of considerations which every novice director must ponder if the no-vitiate program is to have any intelligible rationale. Some of these im-portant considerations will be discussed below. The Question of Contact and Separation For the sake of effective religious socialization, there often arises the question of what contact novices should have with family, friends, those in ministry, and formed members of their own religious order. Arbuckle has provided a very useful framework to reflect on this question. ~3 Re-lying on anthropological data regarding initiation rites, he proposes three-stage process for the novitiate, which, according to him, is essen-tially an initiation rite: the stages of separation, liminoid, and the incor-poration or reaggregation. Stage I emphasizes separating the novices from the ordinary life they have left behind in order to dramatize the radicality of the transition from lay life to religious life. While this stage may be brief, the separation also symbolic. The symbolism must express to the candidate that in order to respond to the call of the Lord there must be a withdrawal from the world of "or-dinary" living with its roles and interests, its speed, and its distraction. The symbolism must convey the message that to follow the radical de-mands of the gospel message one must be prepared to "leave father, mother, brothers, sisters, and all things" for the sake of the Lord. 14 To convey this new dramatic reality, novices should, at this stage, be separated physically and geographically from other members of the group who have already gone through the passage of initiation. Not to separate them, "when the aims of the initiation process are so different from the aims of postnovitiate training, is to make the realization of the novitiate aims impossible to achieve."~5 The second stage, called liminoid (from the Latin, limen, threshold), requires the kind of seclusion that fosters strong investment in commu-nity building. It is precisely in the context of a vibrant community life that the novices are to experience the "habits of the heart" which the receiving community wish(s to transmit to its new members. This is the time for introducing the novice to the unique spirit of the institute, peculiar charism within the Church, and its characteristic way of proceed-ing. By so inculcating its spirituality, mores, history, and tradition, the receiving community aims to bond the new member to its past and thus Novitiate Formation / 673 to provide a foundation for the novice's identification with the group. According to Arbuckle, this second stage of relative seclusion should last about a year. The third stage is that of incorporation or reaggregation, a period when novices are reconnected with the religious family outside the no-vitiate. This stage should be as long as or even longer than the liminoid stage. Basically a time of "evaluated pastoral experience," this stage is to be seen as an integral part of the novitiate process. Arbuckle ex-presses the aims of the third stage by citing paragraph 25 of Renovationis Causam: Besides gradual preparation for apostolic activities, they [that is, the ex-perimental periods outside the novitiate] can also have as their purpose to bring the novice into contact with certain concrete aspects of poverty or of labor, to contribute to character formation, a better knowledge of human nature, the strengthening of the will, the development of personal responsibility and, lastly, to provide occasions for effort at union with God in the context of active life.~6 In my opinion, Arbuckle's three-stage approach provides a rich and comprehensive understanding of the novitiate process, as Well as a sound basis for determining the question of the amount of separation and con-tact that would be helpful for novices. That there be some kind of alter-nation between separation and contact has also been clearly endorsed by others. For example, the Jesuit decree on novitiate formation states: Although entrance into the novitiate should entail a real separation from the life previously led in the world, superiors should nevertheless pro-vide that the novices, while consistently maintaining a spirit of recol-lection, should have sufficient social contact with their contemporaries (both within and outside the Society). Likewise the necessary separation from parents and friends should take place in such a way that genuine progress in affective balance and supernatural love is not impeded. IV The Arbuckle model is useful because it enables the novitiate to ef-fectively bond new members to the religious group, which is the goal of religious socialization. The bonding is both with the past (the commu-nity's traditions and history) and with the present (its present members and ministries). By means of form'al and informal contact, then, the re-ceiving community links its new members to its group life. The Question of Structure and Nonstructure It is my opinion that both structure and nonstructure have important and different functions in the process of religious socialization. The no- 67'4 / Review for Religious, September-October 1988 vitiate process must include times for both. Structured time is important for thi~ development of the habits and skills necessary for sustaining a lifetime of religious dedication. This time of structure is the period tra-ditionally known as "common order" during which the novices's day is regulated according to a schedule with definite periods for communal and personal prayer, for work around the house, for conferences and classes with the novice staff, for individual study, and for apostolic in-volvements. Because the development of habits such as those that con-tribute to a faithful prayer life and spiritual discernment requires regular repetition and practice, structured time for such training is important in novitiate formation. Equally important is time for more freedom and less structure in the novitiate learning process. These times of nonstructure provide an op-portunity for the novices to test out to what extent, they have internal-ized and appropriated what they have sought to learn during times of struc-tured learning. For example, has the individual novice found himself or herself able to faithfully sustain a regular prayer life when away from the structural supports of the novitiate? To foster personal responsibility among novices for their own development, the Jesuits' 3 i st General'Con-gregation stated that "a necessity is that the no~,itiat~'s way of life be not so rigidly determined that the novices, lacking in all initiative, can hardly ever practice spiritual discernment, or even obedience itself, ex-cept in the form of a passive and impersonal submission."~8 The non-structured periods of the novitiate allow the novices as aspiring religious to find out truthfully and behaviorally what changes in their lives and at-titudes have actually taken place as the result of their training in the limi-noid stage. Therefore, I believe that a rhythmic alternation between struc-tured and nonstructured time is an essential dynamic of the novitiate learn-ing process. The Question of Experience and Reflection Another important learning dynamic in the novitiate involves the com-bination of experience and reflection. This mode of learning, variously called experiential learning or praxis, calls for the novice's active engage-ment in learning experiences and a subsequent reflection upon those ex-periences, with an eye to what insights and knowledge can be.,gleaned from them. This form of experiential learning is applicable to many ar-eas in which novices are called to grow, that is prayer,t9 interpersonal relationships,2° and ministerial effectiveness. The goal sought through this mode of learning is, in the words of the Jesuits' 33rd General Con-gregation, "a transformation of our habitual patterns of thought through Novitiate Formation / 675 a constant interplay of experience, reflectipn, and action.' While experiential learning can be a powerful form of learning, there is always the danger that it can lead to anti-intellectualism, if it is not carefully applied. Experience is the indispensable raw material of expe-riential learning. But it remains unprocessed--that is, raw material-- without the equally important process of reflecting on the experience. The danger is effectively obviated when serious effort an~d sufficient time are devoted to dwelling on the experience in such a way that ideas and principles are abstracted out of it and feelings are symbolized. In addition'to serious reflection, there is a further requirement of ef-fective praxis. To be used intelligently, experiential learning must be grounded in a well-thought-out theory of experience. As John Dewey warned in 1938, "The belief that all genuine education comes about through experience does not mean that all experiences are genuinely or equally educative. Experience and education cannot be directly equated to each other."zz Mere insisten~ze on the necessity of experience, there-fore, is notenough. In Dewey's words, "Everything depends on the qual~ ity of the experience which is had."z3 Therefore, to use the experiential mode of learning in the novitiate effectively,formatores must ensure (!) that the quality of the learning experiences engaged in by novices be se-riously evaluated and (2)that the novices, with the assistance of a skilled facilitator, give sufficient time and attention to follow-up reflection on their experiences. The Ongoing Process of Individuation The third major aspect of novitiate formation calls for the ongoing fostering of the personal growth of candidates. While the agenda of the receiving community is stressed in the process of religious socialization, the individuation process respects the agenda of persons in their individ-ual growth process. Since it is the case, more and more, that candidates enter the novitiate at such diverse ages and at such different points of p.er-sonal development, novitiate formation must seriously recognize individ-ual differences and aid individuals to move ahead, not regress, in the de-velopment of their selfhood. After all, the ability to give of oneself in self-donation presupposes that one first possesses a self. According to Carl Jung, the process of individuation is a gradual growth toward whole-ness and harmony, involving the progressive differentiation and detailed development of all parts of the human personality. Since individuation is a lifelong project, entry into religious life cannot halt its progress with-out stunting the healthy maturation and development of religious as hu-man beings. 6"/6 / Review for Religious, September-October 1988 Since Vatican II, religious have been strongly ehcouraged to take con-tinuhl human growth seriously and to take care that their commitment to religious life does not impede their prior responsibility as human beings to a~tualize their God-gi~,en potential. In the eyes of an increasing num-ber of c,~ontemporary theologians, the motivation for continuous human growth is clearly a religious one. Human life'is seen as a gift fr6m the Fi~ther. At the same time, God couples the gi~ft of life with a challenge to person~s to be cocreatorsof their lives, freely fashioning their lives into "something beautiful for God." In this ongoing process of human de-velopment,~ the Lord of creation and the human works Of his hand col-laborate. Therefore, for the person who seeks to respond to God's in-itiative, a commitment to continuous growth'is not only a choice, but requirement. To deny the inner impulse t.oward continuous growth is tan-tamount to not responding to God, because, in the words of Gregory Baum, "as d.estiny, as summons, as love., God is present in man's mak-ing of man."~-4 John Haughey, S.J., states that the refusal to take seri-ously one's vocation to be a cocreator with God also takes on a moral dimension. When the refusal to choose leaves the work of God's hands unfinished, then this peculiar kind of inaction takes on a moral dimension. Why.'? Because the unique way of manifesting some aspect of the fullness of God that every person is born to manifest remains potency. Refusal to come to the point of decision, choice, or commitment can leave some-thing of creation itself unfinished and hence God's glory incomplete. This constitutes evil at the level of:being itself. An individual thwarts the purpose of God's creating him by refusing to exercise the cocreator-ship that he could exercise. That which is called forth by God is ren-dered void by man.25 Consequently, religious life and novitiate formation must reinforce among no'vices the importance of continuing their commitment to the proc-ess of individuation as they are simultaneously socialized into the group. Growth in spiritual maturity depends heavily on integral human devel-opment. This truth has long been captured in the Scholastic adage that "grace builds on nature." Leo P. Rock, S.J., a former novice director, applied this truth 'to novitiate formation in a pithy way: "Grace does not substitute for nature, but fulfills it. Healthy, sane personality develop-ment is the most fertile soil in which grace can take root and grow. Growth in religious life can best happen in the situation which best fos-ters personal human growth.''26 The following considerations may be helpful toformatores as they consider how to best foster such prerequi- Novitiate Formation / 677 site human growth in the novitiate: The Developmental Nature of Human Growth Human growth takes place in stages, with each stage presupposing and building on preceding ones. As deveiopmentalists put it, these stages are. invariantly sequential. A person cannot, for example, go from stage one to stage four by skipping the intervening stages. This principle thus requires t~at every individual novice be met where he or she is on enter-ing the novitiate, and then helped to proceed ~forward, stage by stage, from tha.t personal starting point. This is especially important because per-sons entering religion today .vary so much in age, background, and de-velopment. An undifferentiated treatment of novices would prove to be an unenlightened and eventually frustrating appr6ach. Another key consideratibn is that, as a Jesuit formation document puts it, "human development does not proceed at the same pace in eve-ryone." z7 This fact calls for adaptation of the process to individuals. Therefore, in. fostering growth in the novitiate, it seems important that the focus be kept on the individual and the particular~areas of his or her life that stand most ready for development at any particular time. Force-feeding of any kind not only risks dging violence to people, but will ul-timately be countbrproductive in leading to any kind of significant, long-term learning. Personal Responsibility and Religious Obedience The renewal of religious life since Vatican II has certainly challenged men and women to understand and qive the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in ways that do not impede personal maturity and psycho-logical health. Twenty years ago Jesuit John Courtney Murray spelled out this challenge in a talk to fellow Jesuits. He warned that religious obedience poses a real danger to personal maturity if it fosters the abdi-cation of personal responsibility for one's life and choices. Obedience is a perilous"path to personal maturity, according to Murray. This is be-cause the vow of obedience, if poorly lived out, produces people "who to a degree are purposeless, their lives not consciously and strongly pat-terned, not inwardly directed toward a determined goal with all the or-ganized power of the whole self.' ,28 Religious can succumb to the trap posed by obedience by being pas-sive and overly submissive to authority figures in order to gain accep-tance and approval or to enjoy a kind of infantile dependence free from the anguish of personal decision-making. Those who manifest these and othe'r forms of immature behavior often rationalize their way of acting Review for Religious, September-October 1988 in spiritual terms, thus disguising and denying what they~ are actually do-ing. When they say that they "just want to follow God's or the supe-rior's will," it is sometimes simply a rationalization to justify their to take responsibility for themselves.29 This becomes obvious when the superior clearly has no strong feelings or particular preference about wfiat should happen and in fact would like the religious to assume some independent initiative and to indicate a clear preference. Realizing this threat to maturity, ihe document on Jesuit formation makes clear that "the more the noviceg are stimulated to assume respon-sibilities with prudent and discerning charity, the more successfully will .they acquire Spiritual maturity and the more freely will they adhere their vocation."3° A correlative document on Jesuit obedience states that mature obedience is unattainable apart from the constant cultivation a spirit of initiative and responsibility.3~ A Discernment Model to Develop Responsible~Obedience To foster personal responsibility within the framework of religious obedience, I have used the following eight-step model to teach novices a way of practicing dis~zernment: Step 1" Identify the decision to be made or tl~e issu~ to be resolved. Step 2: Examine the underlying values or concerns (human, Chris-tian, religious, and Jesuit) involved. Step 3: Take time to pray over the matter, paying attention to how one is being drawn or led in prayer. Step 4: Discuss the matter with a spiritual director. Step 5: Dialogue with the superior and engage in a mutual search for God's will in the matter. Step 6: Strive for a state of lgnatian "indifference," that is, a state of inner freedom and equipoise which allows one to accept whatever decision or resolution would be for God's greater glory. If a person is unable to achieve "indifference," discussing the matter in spiritual direction can bring valuable self-knowledge and clarity about how best to proceed in the search for God's will. Perhaps, more prayer and dia-logue with the superior regarding conflicting values and perspectives may be needed before a peaceful closure and decision can be arrived at. Step_ 7: Accept the superior's decision with ,trust in God's. provi-dence at work within the dynamics of religious obedience. Step 8: Stay open to the emerging data of ongoing experience to check for confirmation. In a study of lgnatian obedience, John Futrell, Novitiate Formation / 679 S.J., states that "the principal means of confirmation of the decisions of the superior., are the mutual contentment of himself and his com-panion and the proof of living experience.' ,32 If there is serious doubt "that the superior's decision truly reflects God's will, the process of ,prayer, consultation, and dialogue must begin again. This discernment process promotes personal responsibility and growth because it requires the full engagement of the novices. In com-ing to a decision, they must work with.their religious superior, rather than have things fully decided or resolved for them from above. Step I requires them to invest in the process of defining the parameters of the issue from their personal point of view. Step 2 involves a process of val-ues clarification in which they state the values that are at stake in the de-cision. Steps 3 and 4 give them the chance to critique these values, both alone in prayer and together with a spiritual director. Steps 2, 3, and 4 press them to ask an important twofold question: "Am I free to pursue my values.'?" and "Are my values worth the pursuit?" By requiring them to come to some kind of tentative stance or decision before dialogu-ing with the superior, these steps promote their sense of selfhood, which is largely shaped in the process of personal decision-making. Finally, if attained, the spiritual attitude of Ignatian indifference provides them with the inner freedom which guarantees that their act of autonomous choice can be integrated with religious obedience. For, in the end, indifference allows them to accept whatever is decided with a sense of adult respon-sibility and commitment to the way of evangelical obedience. Summary Reflections Before ma~king a concluding recommendation, it might be helpful to summarize what has been proposed here: I. Adaptations in novitiate formation must always be guided by the three, essential goals of the novitiate: vocation discernment, religious so-cialization, and ongoing individuation. 2. Novitiate formation as it relates to vocation discernment must be seen as a positive aid concerned with the confirmation of a call, rather /han as a negative process of "weeding out" candidates. The process of election monitors the will of God being expressed in the heart's deep-est desires, and the process of existential confirmation searches for the will of God manifested in the concrete circumstances of one's life. 3. Novitiate formation as it relates to religious socialization is the proc-ess by which a religious community receives new members and bonds them to the community's past and present by (a) sharing with them its tradition, spirituality, mores, and "habits of the heart" and (b)welcom- 680 / Review for Religious, September-October 1988 ing them to its current fellowship and ministries. 4. Novitiate formation as it relates to ongoing individuation is the process by which the, personal growth and development .of individual nov-ices are fostered, even as the novices are being socialized into the com-munity. Towards this end the novitiate attempts to promote individual initiative and personal responsibility within the context of religious obe-dience. In light of what has been proposed above, I recommend-~that, wher-ever and whenever possible, communities with small numbers of nov-ices (for example, five or fewer) join together with,other compatible groups ~to form a larger formation community, Examples of compatible groups might be novices of different provinces of the same religious or-der (for example, an interprovinciai Jesuit or Dominican novitiate) o con-gregations with the same founding spirit (for example, Franciscans, Bene-dictines, Mercy Sisters, St. Joseph Sisters). In my opinion, the goals of religious socialization are. better accomplished in larger groupings and are very difficult to achieve with just two or three novices ~ibsorbed into a regular apostolic house. This is especially true of the liminoid phase of religious socializa-tion, which relies heavily on an experience of community. During period, novices are meant to acquire the religious values,mores, and spiri-tuality of the group by experiencing daily life in a vibrant community, whose central ministry is the socializing of novices into religious This regrouping for the sake of forming larger formatiow communities can be on a full-time or part-time basis. A very successful example a full-time merger has been Loyola House in Berkley, Michigan, which houses the joint Jesuit novitiate program of the Chicago and Detroit prov-inces. Part-time collaborative programs have taken various forms. For example, for two straight years the Jesuit novices of the California and Oregon provinces joined together for two months to experience the Ig-natian Exercises together. Last year three Jesuit novitiates'pooled their resources and spent five weeks together to study the history of the or-der. Another example of such successful collaboration is the intercom-munity novitiate experience in such places as Los Angeles and Denver. Large and autonomous formation communities can provide S'everal very important dimensions of novitiate training that communities of or two novices cannot provide. Briefly, they are the following: Peer formation. In my experience, peer formation is an important as-pect of religious socialization, As novices experience together the dif-ferent aspects of religious life and share theirjfaith and religious experi- Novitiate Formation / 681 ences with each other, they are supported and "edified," in the best sense of the word. Spiritual conversation among novices regarding the story of their vocation, their experience in prayer and ministry, their strug-gles with the vows and with community living can provide much needed support and insight. Liturgical formation. Larger, autonomous novitiate communities are more likely to have a well-planned, coordinated liturgical life, which can be very important in the spiritual formation of novices. When there are only two or three novices living together, chances are that there will be no orga0ized liturgical life in the community. Instead, the novices may merely join in a convenient parish liturgy. When this occurs, the peda-gogical function of liturgy within formation is greatly diminished. Staffing and programmatic advantages. Because of the growing short-age of active members in practically every religious community in the United States, the search for qualified personnel for the various apostolic works of a community often invites a subtle competition among the vari-ous ministries. As a result, there is a danger that novitiate formation will get short shrift because of the very small number of novices being min-istered to. A larger group of novices in some kind of interprovincial ar-rangement would provide a stronger claim for greater investment by the community (a) in qualified formation personnel whose work is given full-time status and assured of some continuity and (b) in some regular and relatively fixed program of instruction for the training of novices. With-out this kind of investment, it is hard to expect that a person asked to be a part-time novice director for one or two years will devote the time and energy needed to understand the complex process of novitiate for-mation and to develop the skills and knowledge needed to do a good job. When left to function on their own, communities with just a trickle of novices tend to create a makeshift, ad hoc arrangement to handle the for-mation of the few. It seems that having several ongoing, large-group, com-mon novitiate programs which could accommodate novices from vari-ous communities that share the same charism or spirit of a founder would be helpful for meeting the need created by the drastic drop in recent years. None of this would be complete without a word about the inherent, not to say mind-boggling, paradox of religious life and growth. While we are called upon to use all of the knowledge and expertise at our dis-posal, it is the Holy Spirit who effects growth, who gives life, and whose gifts shape the soul--a Spirit who, much to the surprise, despair, and con-fusion of our best-made plans, still blows where it will. This does not Review for Religious, September-October 1988 relieve us of the responsibility of bringing what expertise we can muster to fostering human, spiritual growth. But it reminds us that it is the Holy Spirit, whose ways transcend all our human expertise and wisdom, often confounding them, who effects and shapes the growth we hope to facili-tate. NOTES ~ See Gerald A. Arbuckle, S.M., "Planning the Novitiate Process: Reflections of an Anthro.pologist," in REVIEW FOR REL~6~Ot~S (July/August 1984): 532-546. , 2 Ibid., 15.~ 532. ~' 3 Ann and Barry Ulanov, Primary Speech: A Psychology of Prayer (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1982), p. 20. '* Annotation # I, The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, translated by Louis J. Puhl, S.J. (Chicago: Loyola Upiversity Press, 1951). 5 Michael J. Buckley, S.J., "Final Vows in the Society of Jesus," in National Jes-uit News, vol. 10, no. 7, April 1981, p. 8. 6 Ibid., p. 9. 7 Ibid., p. 8. 8 Michael J. Buckley, S.J., "The Priesthood as a Religious Event," in The Berkeley Jesuit, spring 1970, p. 7. 9 "In all selection and testing of seminarians, necessary standards must always be firmly maintained, even when there exists a regrettable shortage of priests. For God will not allow his Church to lack ministers if worthy candidates are admitted while unsuitable ones are speedily and paternally directed towards the assuming of other tasks and are encouraged to take up the lay apostolate readily, in a consciousness of their Christian vocation." Paragraph 6, Decree on Priestly Formation (Optatam Totius), in The Documents of Vatican !I, ed. Walter Abbott, S.J. (New York: Amer-ica Press, 1966). ~0 John Westerhoff III and Gwen K. Neville, Generation to Generation: Conversa-tions on Religious Education and Culture (Philadelphia: United Church Press, 1974), p. 41. ~ Nos. 138-140, "The Spiritual Formation of Jesuits," in Documents of the 31st and 32nd General Congregations of the Society of Jesus (St. Louis: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1977), pp. I I 1-113. See also no. 23, "Companions of Jesus Se~nt into Today's World," Decree # I, Documents of the 33rd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus (St. Louis: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1984), p. 50. ~2 Quoted in Robert N. Bellah et al., Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Com-mitment in American Life (San Francisco: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1986), p. 37. ~3 Arbuckle, op. cit., pp. 540-545. ~': Ibid., p. 540. ~5 Ibid. ~6 Quoted ibid., pp. 542-543. t7 No. 22, Decree 8, "The Spiritual Formation of Jesuits," Documents of the 31st and 32nd General Congregations of the Society of Jesus, p. 104. Is Ibid., no. 19, p. 103. 19 For an explanation of how praxis or experiential learning is applied to prayer, see my "Teach Us to Pray," in Company: A Magazine of the American Jesuits, vol. Novitiate Formation / 683 I, no. 3, April 1984, pp. 8-10. 2o For a discussion of the experience/reflection dynamic in learning about interper-sonal relationships, see my "Particular Friendships Revisited," in Human Devel-opment, vol. 7, no. I, spring 1986, pp. 34-38. 2~ Decree I, -#40, Documents of the 33rd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus. 22 John Dewey, Experience and Education (London: Collier-MacMillan Company, 1938), p. 25. 23 Ibid., p. 27 (emphasis in the original). 24 Gregory Baum, "Reply and Explanation," in Ecumenist, vol. 9, Nov.-Dec. 1970- Jan.-Feb. ! 971, p. 18. z5 John Haughey, S.J., Should Anyone Say Forever: On Making, Keeping, and Break-ing Commitments (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1975), pp. 23-24. 26 Leo lb. Rock, S.J., "The California Province Novitiate: What We Do and Why," an unpublished paper, September 1973, p. 4. 27 No. 24, Decree 8, "The Spiritual Formation of Jesuits," Documents of the 31st and 32nd General Congregations of the Society of Jesus, p. 105. 28 John Courtney Murray, S.J., " The Danger of the Vows," in Woodstock Letters, fall 1967~, p~ 42 I. 29 For a discussion of obstacles to mature religious obedience, see my "Dealing with Projection: Recognizing and Removing a Common Obstacle to Mature Religious Obe-dience," in Human Development, vol. 6, no. I, spring 1985, pp. 6-1 I. 30 No. 23, Decree 8, " The Spiritual Formation," in Documents of the 31st and 32nd General Congregations of the Society of Jesus, p. 105. 31 Nos. II and 12, Decree 17, "The Life of Obedience." Documents of the 31st and 32nd General Congregations of the Society of Jesus, pp. 164-166. 32 John C. Futrell, S.J., Making an Apostolic Community of Love: The Role of the 'Superior According to St. Ignatius of Loyola (St. Louis: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1970), p. 143. Some Thoughts on the Vocation to Celibacy Clifford Stevens Father Stevens has been, over the course of many years, a Trappist, a parish priest, an Air Force chaplain, an editor of The Priest, and a small-town pastor. He has pub-lished a novel, Flame Out of Dorset, about St. Stephen Harding, twelfth-century Cis-tercian. Last appearing in our pages in 1986, he writes from the monaste(y he founded: Tintern; Monastery Road; Oakdale, Nebraska 68761. The very foundation of the vocation to celibacy must be the complete free-dom from compulsion with which the choice of celibacy is made. Free-dom from external compulsion, in that no one can be forced by external pressures to choose the celibate vocation, and freedom from internal pres-sures, ascetic, moral, spiritual, which would make the choice of celibacy anything but a conscious, free choice, based on something within the vo-cation to celibacy itself. The choice of celibacy is not a rejection or de-nial of the excellence of marriage. ~ It is rather an affirmation of realities that transcend sexuality and marriage.2 This "anthropological" base of the choice of celibacy is a critical factor in celibate happiness, and that celibate happiness is based precisely on the facts that [ could find happiness in marriage, that in choosing celi-bacy3 ! am just as free to choose marriage, and that marriage has a good-ness and nobility all its own. There is a profound reason for this complete freedom from compul-sion based on the specific excellence of celibacy itself, and not in com-parison with something else. The profound reason is this. The gift of sexuality and its directedness toward intimate expression'~ in marriage comes, with our very creation, from God's goodness, his wis-dom, and his benevolence. It is an integral part of our humanity and our 684 Thoughts on Celibacy masculinity, and no power on earth can deprive us of it because it comes with the~very blueprint of our nature. (This article looks at celibacy from a masculine point of view, not because the feminine viewpoint is not im-portant, but becduse it is outside the author's experience.) The ,gift of sexuality, in fact, is the root reality of our bodily exis-tence and of our masculine nature, and has a power and a goodness that enriches human life immeasurably. However we want to describe it, you and I, men endowed with all the gifts of a masculine nature, are shaped and fashioned by every ripple and nuance of our living flesh for physi-cal intimacy with a woman. To hide this from ourselves in the name of celibacy would rob the choice of celibacy of half its meaning. The choice of celibacy can never be based upon a denial or ignoring of the inherent goodness of sexuality or the preeminent goodness of sex-ual intimacy in marriage,s Moreover, it is possible to possess one's sexu-ality in this full awareness of its essential goodness, in complete inno-cence, with a wholesome sense of dignity, freedom, wonder, apd joy in its possession and, with the same complete innocence, to look forward to and experience its joyous expression in marriage; or, if one is a celi-bate, to be profoundly appreciative of its joyous expression in marriage, with the same complete innocence.6 The choice of celibacy is not based upon a lack of appreciation for sexual intimacy in marriage or upon any conviction that the experience of marriage is in any way displeasing to God. These are simply unsound anthropological bases upon which to build a vocation to celibacy and, unwittingly, they can plant deep in.the recesses of one's motivation a time bomb ready to go off. It is unfortunate that in the history of Christian spirituality the voca-tion to celibacy has often been explained in terms that denigrate the value and beauty of sexual love in marriage. The impression is given that the choice of celibacy is somehow a flight from something radically unspir-itual and that the celibate looks upon conjugal intimacy as something be-neath his dignity, something that would mar his perfect purity. The choice of celibacy, if it is genuine, has nothing of this motivation about it, but is based solidly and squarely upon something more positive and something more exhilarating. Celibacy must be based on a profound appreciation for the gift of sex-ual intimacy as personal gift and endowment from God and as an inte-gral part of one's masculine inheritance. Nobility of soul does not fail to plumb and to appreciate the riches of masculine possibility which is the natural inheritance of an awakened and full manhood. Review for Religious, September-October 1988 This possibility, with all its splendor and enrichment, does not ex-haust the human possibility, but it does enshrine some of its noblest in-stincts, of the feelings and of the mind, and an intimacy that mirrors the very passion of God himself. As a celibate I set aside intimacy with a woman, with all its rooms of joy and beauty, only for a greater intimacy and its even more won-drous rooms of beauty, and its universe of joy. But in doing so, I will not deny the power, the significance, or the magnitude of the masculine expectancy that I set aside and turn away from. This intimacy, by what-ever name it is called, is riveted into my very flesh; the lineaments of this passionate preoccupation are traced and interlaced in the warp and woof of my very biology. The gift of manhood with all its passionate possibilities is one of the richest gifts of God. I set it aside freely, not with no appreciation for its beauty, and not with regret, but because I have stumbled on a greater beauty, a more powerful intimacy, and a more earth-shaking encounter. In the shadow of that intimacy and in the tremor of this expectancy, every other human possibility fades into insignificance. I do not hide from myself the shattering loveliness and singular beauty of the sexual intimacy that could be mine, but celibacy reaches out to something greater, fully as rich, fully as valid, and as fully a com-plement to my manhood as the rich experience of love in marriage. This is the sound anthropological base upon which the vocation to celibacy is founded. It may not be part of one's original motivation since, in the beginnings of a vocation, you are simply too busy and too taken up with the excitement of a new direction to reflect upon every element of your motivation. But ultimately what is implicit in your choice must be made explicit by thought, reflection, and personal exploration, and there must not be in the root motivation of celibacy anything resembling spiritual or moral snobbery or looking down on marriage. The choice of celibacy must be based upon some excellence in the vocation of celibacy itself, and not in mere comparison with something else. Only then can the specific excellence of the vocation to celibacy become part of your own life,~and--I am sure I do not have to repeat--thespecific excellence of celibacy is not the fact that you do not have a woman in your life or that you sleep alone. This is a necessary condition, but if that is all that celibacy means to you, you could end up being the most miserable of men, deprived of the crowning act of your masculine nature, the finest and noblest expression of your manhood, with nothing to take its place. That would be a deprivation of singular magnitude. Thoughts on Celibacy And this is something that we should never forget: As celibates we deprive ourselves of this crowning act of our masculine nature, the fin-est and most genuine expression of our masculinity that is sexual inti-macy in marriage. If that terrifying vacuum were not filled with some-thing that touched with joy the very roots of our manhood, the dep-rivation and emptiness would be almost too much to bear. This is one of the consequences of celibacy that has not often been touched upon, but it certainly explains some of the strange aberrations of clerical and religious life and some of the tragic consequences of an ill-motivated and immature commitment to celibacy. One of the major problems in the vocation to celibacy is that many celibates have not through deep personal reflection made explicit in their own minds what was implicit in their choice of celibacy and have ac-cepted, quite uncritically, an evaluation of sexuality in general, and of their own sexuality in particular, that is based on tenets of a Neoplaton-ist and Stoic anthropology embodied in an older type of spirituality. This evaluation notonly placed no value upon sexuality itself, but tended to denigrate as totally unworthy of the spiritual person the inti-mate expression of sexuality in marriage, thus negating the very mean-ing of sexuality and placing a negative judgment on the very possession of one's sexuality. Really, it all starts and ends there: What evaluation and judgment do you place upon the intimate expression of sexuality in marriage? If that judgment is a negative one, you can never really be com-fortable in the possession of your own sexuality. The true Christian evaluation of sexual intimacy in marriage, based upon the vision of sexual love embodied in the Christian revelation it-self, is that the intimate expression of sexual love in marriage is (i) the crowning act (in fa~zt, the primary and unique act) of one's manhood, (2) the finest, noblest, and most genuine expression of one's masculinity, (3) the unique expression of love between a man and a woman, (4) God's crowning gift to one's bodily existence, and (5) the gr,eatest earthly gift that God has given to the human race. This is implicit in the very choice of celibacy, even though that evalu-ation may not have been part of the conscious motivation when the choice of celibacy was made. Historically, the negative sexual tenets we have mentioned are part of a North African phenomenon that included Neoplatonism in Alexan-dria, the monastic movement in the same area, the spirituality of Eva-grius Ponticus, Tertullian, and St. Augustine (and the ascetic movement in the West), and the monastic spirituality of John Cassian, who reflected Review for Religious, September-October 1988 in his writings the sexual anthropology of the Alexandrian monastic move-ment. A healthier anthropology can be found in the robust passion for life in the classical Greek tradition, reflected in the best of Plato and the monu-mental work of Aristotle, later embodied in the Spirituality of the Greek Fathers and in the philosophical achievements of Saints Albertus Mag, nus and Thomas Aquinas. That anthropology recognized the inherent goodness of our senses and our sense life, the inherent goodness of hu-man sexuality, and the innate and preeminent goodness of the intimate expression of sex in marriage. This view, however, was never embod-ied in "traditional" spirituality and had little influence on spiritual doc-trine. The work of Aquinas, however, bore fruit in many areas over the cen-turies even though some of his basic tenets were condemned by an older "Augustinian" sChool soon after his death in 1274. In the documents of the Second Vatican Council, particularly, Gaudium et.Spes, the Aqui. nas view was recovered, and we have in the council documents a posi-tive and wholesome anthropology of sexuality7 which should have a pro-found influence on future spirituality. NOTES ~ "Students should have a proper knowledge of the duties and dignity of Christian marriage, which represents the love.that exists between Christ and the Church." Op-tatam Totius, Decree on the Training of Priests of the Second Vatican Council, ed. by Austin Flannery, 0.P~., no., 10, p. 715. 2 "They should recognize the greater excellence of virginity consecrated to Christ, however, so that they may offer themselves to the Lord with fully deliberate and gen-erous choice, and a complete surrender of body and soul." ibid. 3 Celibacy seeks, on the basis of personal:experience and personal judgment, a con~ tinual intimacy with God and with divine things; it provides that personal solitude without which, for this p_articular individual, such continual intimacy with God would be impossible or unlikely. Celibacy is not chosen because there is any value in mere sexual deprivation, but because it is a natural step towards a lifestyle totally or domi-nantly preoccupied with the eternal and the divine. Celibacy bears witness in one's own person to the eternal dimension, to the reality and significance of the eternal in human life. '~ For the purpose of this article, sexuality and sexual intima~3, have these meanings: Sexuality is a gift of God that comes with the act of creation, a personal endowment that should be borne with a certain masculine dignity and yet worn joyfully~ and lightly. Our sexuality is inherent'ly good, and so, too, is the intimacy with a wdman to which it leads. Sexual intimacy is a gift of God that comes with the very blueprint of our nature, Thoughts on Celibacy in the sense that the pattern of that intimacy is molded into our very bodies. Sexual intimacy is part of our human and masculine inheritance, and its expression in mar-riage the very crown of masculinity and femininity. But while sexual intimacy is a gift to our person and our nature, its expression is meant to be embodied in a personal choice based on love, embedded in the marriage covenant, and to be the setting and inexhaustible source of the deepest human hap-piness. Sexual intimacy comes with our nature and our personhood. It is the living expres-sion of the noblest human love and is itself the image and mirror of God's own love for human beings. By celibacy we freely deprive ourselves of this most enriching gift,'this crown of our masculinity, for the simple reason that we, called by God, have other plans for ourselves. 5 The nature of the vocation to celibacy is not a denial of the inherent goodness and sublimity of married love, but an affirmation, the affirmation of something beyond the sexual and beyond the earthly, the affirmation of another relationship and the cul-tivation of that relationship as the main occupation of one's life. Celibacy is a dep-rivation, but it is a freely chosen deprivation of something seen to be part of one's own human inheritance and something preeminently good. St. Thomas links celi-bacy to the virtue of magnificence, a certain exuberance in living, a bursting of the bonds of the ordinary to reach out to the extraordinary. It is based on a hunger for the eternal and for an intimacy as real and as stunning as the intimacy of man and woman in marriage. See Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues (University of Notre Dame Press, 1966), pp. 145-180.' 6 Celibacy is part of the virtue of sophrosyne, touched upon in Aristotle's Ethics, with a fuller treatment in the Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas. The object of sophrosyne is the body, and those things that are of the body (soma, somatos). There are several levels or kinds of sophrosyne: (I) joy and pride in bodily being itself (simple sophrosyne), (2) joy and pride in bodily well-being (dignity), (3) joy and pride in bodily senses (liveliness), (4)joy and pride

Issue 42.1 of the Review for Religious, January/February 1983. ; Rt vtFw I-or Rvt IGIOU~, (ISSN 0034-639XL published every two months ~s edited in collaboration with the faculty members of the Department of Theological Studies of St Lout,, Umverslty The editorial offices are located at Room 428:3601 Lindell Blvd.: St. Louis. MO 63108. REVIEW FOR REI.IGIOtJS is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Instltute of the Society of Jesus. St. I.ouis. MO. © 1983 by REVIEW FoR REI.IGtOtJS, Composed, printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis. MO. Single copies: $2.50. Subscription U.S.A.: $9.00 a year: $17.00 for two years. Other countries: add $2.00 per year (postage). For subscription orders or change of address, write: REVIEW VOll RELIC, IOUS: P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Daniel T. Costello, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Book Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor Jan./Feb., 1983 Volume 42 Number I Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to REVIEW FOR RELIGtOt~S; 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 University; City Avenue at 54th St.; Philadelphia, PA 19131. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from REVtE'W EOR RELtGtOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108, "Out of print" issues and articles not published as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Review for Religious Volume 42, 1983 Editorial Offices 3601 Lindell Boulevard, Room 428 Saint Louis, Missouri 63108 Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Daniel T. Costello, 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 © 1983 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Signs of Hope in Religious Life Today Stephen Tutas, S.M. Father Tutas has been Superior General'of the Marianists. and is now assigned to their forma-tion center in California. The September-October, 1982 issue carried "Preparing for the 1983 Synod." Father Tutas resides at the Marianist Formation Center. 22622 Marianist Way: Cuper-tino, CA 95014. One of the most important contributions religious women and men can make to the Church in any era is to be signs of hope, encouraging others in their own response to Gold's call by a witness of joyful dedication. This call to religious to be signs of hope is as urgent today as in any other time in the history of the Church. The preparatory document for the 1983 Synod of Bishops states that "the dominant characteristic of our era s~ems to have become that of tensions and divisions., situations of incomprehen~ion, of estrangement, of conflict, of schism, of reciprocal condemnation . " In response to this, 1 believe it is absolutely necessary that we religious today strive to be outstanding men and women of hope. We must really believe--and show our belief--that the Holy Spirit is active in the Church today, and that this active presence of the Spirit is the basis for our hope. Points of Convergence For some time now, ! have been especially sensitive to the signs of hope found in religious life. I was privileged to see some of these signs of hope as 1 met with other superiors general of both men and women religious congrega-tions. The various formal and informal meetings in Rome and elsewhere were for me inspiring moments when we were able to share with each other what we experienced in our visits to communities. It was very heartening for me to see how many points of convergence there were as we discussed the main themes of religious life and were able to refer to so many encouraging examples of 4 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 what was actually being realized on a day-by-day basis in religious communi-ties throughout the world. My personal experience included contact with communities of the Society of Mary (Marianists) in thirty one countries on all the continents. As I found in my exchange of views with others, my experience reflected well the general thrusts in religious life as 1 came to identify these through visits and reports. Obviously, not all that I experience is positive and encouraging. I am painfully aware of the inadequacies in my own life and in the lives of others. It ,is always true that the Church "is at the same time holy and always in need of being purified."~ But while recognizing our failures as religious, I believe it is much more life-giving to look at the signs of hope so evident in the lives of many religious women and men and build on these so that together with other members of the Church we can move forward to the third millennium in a spirit of hope. I often pray in the words of Pope Paul VI that "the world of our time, which is searching, sometimes with anguish, sometimes with hope, be enabled to receive the Good News not from evangelizers who are dejected, discouraged, impatient or anxious, but from ministers of the gospel whose lives glow with fervor, who have first received the joy of Christ, and who are willing to risk their lives so that the kingdom may be proclaimed and the church established in the midst of the world."~ After completing my terms of service as Superior General, 1 was privileged to have several months to devote to prayer and reflection before taking up my new assignment as Director of the Marianist Formation Center in Cupertino, California. Most of this time of prayer and reflection was spent in the Mother-house of the Dallas Province of the School Sisters of Notre Dame in Irving, Texas, where I served as chaplain under ideal conditions that made it easy for me to look back with gratitude and to look forward with hope, while sharing my experience of gratitude and hope with the community as I tried to live fully in the present. Now that 1 have taken up my new life and work in California, With the specific responsibility to promote continuing formation in the Marianist Prov-ince of the Pacific, I would like to share with the readers of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS a gummary of the signs of hope that I see in religious life today. Ten Signs of Hope I have selected ten signs of hope that I find particularly striking. It is evident that these signs do not exist everywhere. And where they do exist, the signs .vary in clarity and intensity. But these signs do exist, and my daily prayer is that they become ever stronger and more general throughout the Church, I hope the readers of this article will find in the list a confirmation of their own experience, and a further encouragement to continue working to make these signs ever more clear and ever more general. 1. A strong commitment to ongoing renewal, emphasizing: - personal and communitarian prayer, making union with God clearly the Signs of Hope in Religious Life Toda.v / 5 basis for religious life: - the building of community, recognizing this bonding in view of a shared ideal as the sign of being a true follower of Christ; - the concern for a greater simplicity of life: - the positive understanding of celibacy as a way of loving rather than as a simple renunciation of marriage and of family. These four points constitute a truly radical change in religious life which is often unnoticed as we ourselves go through it. It is not that the value of prayer, community, simplicity and celibacy were lacking in the past, but that we have been able to give new expression to these values in a changing world. I have selected these four characteristics of renewal as being the most life-giving. First and foremost, of course, m,ust be the contemplative dimension of religious life. I find it significant that the "Conclusive Document"just issued by the Vatican as a follow-up to the 1981 International Congress of Bishops and Others Responsible for Ecclesiastical Vocations declares, in speaking of religious states, that "the contemplative dimension is the true secret of spiritual renewal and apostolic fruitfulness in religious life.'~ All renewal programs begin with this contemplative dimension. Efforts are also being made to emphasize community as a sharing of faith: faith is given expression in a concern for simplicity of life: the commu~ nity of faith is always being urged to look beyond itself. These are outstanding fea-tures of various renewal programs. Perhaps never before in the history of religious life has so much attention been given to providing assistance for continuing formation. This itself is certainly a great sign of hope. 2. A rediscovery of the relevance of the founding charism, along with a renewed interest in the person of the founder or foundress, and also a renewed understanding that the founding charism is just as important for the Church of our time as it was at the time of the actual foundation of the community. The document, "Mutual Relations between Bishops and Religious," is an important encouragement for us religious to renew the offering of our cha-risms to the local church, and this with a renewed awareness that we are needed and wanted for the specific gifts God has entrusted to the various religious families in the Church. General chapters, especially in writingconstitutions in response to the Second Vatican Council, have expressed very forcefully how the founding charism is able to meet the urgent needs of the Church in our time. 3. New directions in evangelization, in continued response to that great docu-ment of Pope Paul VI, Evangelization in the Modern World, which followed the 1974 Synod of Bishops on Evangelization. 1 found it very rewarding to read Archbishop Robert Sanchez' address to his .fellow bishops at Collegeville last summer in which he gave heavy emphasis to the dynamic orientations implicit in Pope Paul's statement, saying that "it 6 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 would be difficult to exaggerate the importance that this document will have in revitalizing and prephring the Church for the future . -4 For us religious, this Apostolic Exhortation has sparked and encouraged a gratifying transition from concern about ourselves--even about our survival-- to a greater sense of mission and outreach. 4. The greater insertion of religious corhmunities in the local church and a more ecclesial thrust in solidarity with other religiotls and in collaboration with all others in the local church. As we look back over the past twenty-five years we can appreciate what dramatic changes have taken place in terms of greater collaboration among religious themselves, but also in terms of the active involvement of religious in the life and structures of the local church. The Unions of Superiors General and the national conferences of superiors have provided excellent leadership in this regard. At the same time, more and more bishops are recognizing the unique contribution religious communities can make to the life of the local church. Here, as with the other signs of hope, much needs to be done, but the first step in making this sign clearer and more general is to acknowledge the great strides that have already been realized. 5. The increasing concern for the promotion of justice and peace. 1 am temp~ed to write more extensively aboiat this sign than any other because, as President of the USG Commission Justice and Peace during most of my years as Super-ior General, I was able to witness first hand the response religious have made to the call of the 1971 Synod's document on Justice in the World. Perhaps the simplest statement is best: if the movement to promote.lustlce and peace has developed so strongly in our time. it is in great part due to the courageous initiatives on the part of so many religious throughout the world. 6. The promotion of the laity. It may be surprising to some that ! ha~,e chosen to underline the promotion of the laity as a sign of hope for religious. But ! believe the attention that has been given to the vocation of the laity since Vatican II has served to clarify even more the specific vocation of religious men and women in the Church. Among the significant consequences of this clarification has been greater attention by religious to the witness they give by the quality of their religious life. There is a definite priority given today to being. Religious life, theh, will not be evaluated simply in terms of doing. As important and vital as our work may be, the first and most important contri-bution we religious can make to the Church is in terms of our life. This emphasis religious give to being is a wonderful response to the call of the Church in our time, as this was stated so clearly by Pope John Paul 11 shortly after his election: "What counts most is not what the religious do, but what they are, as persons consecrated to the Lord."5 I also find it encouraging that more and more r~eligi0us ar,e emphasizing a greater collaboration with the laity, recognizing the unique values that each Signs of Hope in Religious Life Today can offer the other. One of my hopes, as a consequenge of the last Synod of Bishops on the Christian Family, has been for a more effective collaboration between the community of religious and the Christian family in the local church. 7. Collaboration in the promotion of vocations. Ever since the Second Vatican Council, the Church has been calling upon all Christians to work together in promoting all Christian vocations. The Conclusive Document referred to ear-lier is an excellent guide t9 help toward the realization of this objective put forward by the council. What I find as a heartening sign of hope is that so many religious communities are making well-organized efforts to collaborate with each other in the promotion of vocations rather than seeking unilaterally to promote their own vocations. Religious who see clearly their responsibility to promot~e a sense of voca-tion in the lives of all, and who offer their own charism to those whom God may call are themselves great signs of hope for the Church in our time. 8. Trends' in .formation and government that assure the best conditions for human development, such as: - concern for affective maturity; - emphasis on freedom and personal responsibility; - endorsement of animation as a way of exercising authority; - general application of the principle of subsidiarity; - appreciation of collegiality on all levels. Each of these points is itself a sign of hope. Taken together, these trends offer great promise for the future of religious life. 9. A reassessement of the role of religious life in the churches of Africa, Latin America and ASia, featuring both a new thrust (from missionary to collabora-tor) and new foundations to implant various expressions of religious life for greater and longer-lasting service to the local church. The kind of thinking sparked by Buhlman's "The Coming of the Third Church" has been both challenging and stimulating for many religious communities. The transition from missionary to collaborator is not easy, but it is being done. and done very well, in so many places. The new foundations, despite the overall decline in numbers and the stead-ily advancing age of communities, are remarkable signs of confidence in God's Providence, that a generous response to the evident needs of God's people is the only way to live. 10. The spirit of hope that is evident in so many leaders of religious today. I am strongly convinced of what 1 like to call "the apostolate of administration." There is nothing more life-giving than a religious leader who is a man or woman of hope and is able to share that hope with others. We religious are blessed in having many women and men of hope among us at this time in the history of religious life. I! / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 As I look at these ten signs of hope, I sense in religious life today a real desire for a way of life that, in the words of Cardinal Pironio, is committed, serious, profound, fraternal, ecclesial. Something really tremendous is happening in the Church today, and this amid the tensions and struggles of life. And so it is very life-giving for us religious to look beyond the day-to-day struggles, the evident failures and shortcomings, to see how God is at work in our lives and to share this experience with each other. Not all that is happening in religious life can be attributed to the Spirit. There is need for continual discernment. But the good that is evident in religious life is a sign of the Spirit at work among us and deserves to be recognized and proclaimed. We are in an age of transition as we experience the death of much of what was familiar and as we experience the birth of a new era in the history of religious life. May our constant prayer be for the grace to believe in the potentiality of our religious communities, recognizing that religious life does have a great mission in the Church today, and that each religious community is called to serve the Church in a special way, offering.its particular charism to be incarnated, adapted and enriched in so many different people. NOTES ~ Lumen Gentium, n. 8. 2Evangelii Nuntiandi, n. 80. 3The Conclusive Document, p. 53. *Origins, Sept. 2, 1982, p. 181. 5October I, 1979. quoted in The Conclusive Document, p. 53. Our Images of God Michael T. Winstanley, S.D.B. Father Winstanley's "The Eucharist as Light and Life" appeared in the issue of November/ December, 1982. He continues to live and teach at Ushaw College: Durham DH7 ORH: England. This is eternal life: to know thee who alone art truly God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent (Jn 17:3). The quality of our praying and living, and of the service we offer to others, depends a great deal on our image of God. The words of Jesus quoted above provoke me to ask: Who is this God whom 1 am invited to come to know genuinely, to whom 1 pray, for whom 1 strive to live? A correlative question follows: What image of God do I communicate to others, do we communicate as religious, as Church? We all have our image of God, though perhaps we have never paused to articulate that image in words. And whether we advert to it or not, we "reli-gious" people cannot avoid conveying an impression of our God to others. We do so, for instance, by the way in which, as parish workers or priests or headmistresses or nurses, we treat the people to whom we minister. And simple, ordinary things can speak loudly about our image of God, things like the architectural design of our churches (especially the position of the altar), the siting and decoration of our community houses, clerical dress, our style of worship. Since all religious have their particular image of God, it is obviously important that, as followers of Jesus, our God be the God of Jesus, the God whom he came to reveal, the God to whom he prayed. It would be rash to presume that his God coincides with mine! It would be equally rash to pre-sume that the image of God we project coincides with the God of Jesus! 9 10 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 Recently, I attended a lecture by the retired Anglican theologian, E.L. Mascall. He was discussing the role of theology in the university. Theo-logy is a word about God. He questioned whether the word about God that was declaimed in the lecture theater was verified in its turn by the word about God so eloquently proclaimed by the life-style and structures of the Theology Department--an interesting question, one that is capable of being transposed to our Churches, hospitals, classrooms, religious communities. A recent con-tributor to this review maintained that the structures and patterns of seminary life have considerable influence (for the worse) on the students' image of God.~ This in turn has a negative effect on their prayer. From what do we fashion our image of God? Later in this article I shall attempt to share with you some reflections on the Scriptures' image of God. With my head ! can acknowledge it as accurate and authentic. But deep down I have another image, a "gut-level image," and this is the image that so often seems to determine my living and my praying. 1 sometimes feel as though I'm watching a slide show in which two projectors are being used and the slides fade into one another. There are the scriptural slides, and then there are the "experience" slides. Sometimes the transitions are smooth and corroborative: at other times there are conflicting and distorting idol-images. One of my friends is a keen golfer. Over his fireplace hangs a picture of a little man in a flat cap who has hit his ball into a bunker and is having difficulty in extricating it. He is just about to move it by hand--ever such a little--when he looks round at the skies and sees a vision of God: an elderly gentleman, with long, flowing beard, his finger waving threateningly. I find it easy to identify with the little golfer. I had a marvelous relationship with my father. I was always sure.of his love and understanding and help. l knew he was on my side; I could trust him implicitly. On the other hand, when 1 was about ten years old, l went for a holiday to the seaside. We were staying with a Catholic family, and they had two children of my own age. On Saturday evening we went to confession. 1 hadn't too much to say, and as I was preparing, l read through the pages of sins which, according to my prayer book, Catholic boys could commit. As a variation on the usual lies and disobedience, I thought I'd add something from the section on the sixth commandment. After all, l had kissed the little girl we were staying with, and maybe that was adultery! The priest behind the grill in that dark box was not amused, but tore strips off me, making me feel utterly evil and rejected by God. When we returned to the hotel, 1 broke down in floods of tears. The scar remains. That slide often fades on to my screen. Maybe God is like that--just maybe. An acquaintance of mine told me that when he wa_s young, he never felt sure of his mother's love. If he was naughty, she gave the impression of withdrawing her love. This made him fearful and anxious and unsure, desper-ately keen to please and not to make mistakes. Our Images of God / "1"~ It is factors like these that have helped to fashion our "gut-level image" of God. Figures like parents, teachers, priests, novice-mistresses have made it easier or more difficult to accept and make really our own the scriptural revelation of God, the Christian image of God. One writer says: "1 am con-vinced that one of the basic reasons for the current difficulties in both Chris-tian and religious life and practice is that we have .lost touch with our God."~ By "our God," he refers to the God of the Bible. So let us explore a little this biblical image of God. The Loving Faithfulness of Yahweh One of the deepest convictions of the people of Old Testament times was that their God, whom they .had come to know as Yahweh, had come out of his distance and mystery, and had approached them, spoken to them, and inter-vened in their history. "At various times in the past, and in various different ways, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets. (Heb I:l). The story began with the call of Abraham--way back somewhere between the nineteenth and seventeenth centuries B.C. Abraham risked changing his whole way of life in leaving behind homeland--and all that was familiar to him--livelihood, status and security, and migrated to the land of Canaan under the impulse of God's engaging presence in obedience to a promise. The most dramatic intervention of God in their history, chiseled indelibly into the national memory, was the Exodus event. This theme recurs like a leitmotiv throughout the various movements of Old Testament literature, and was made present again in the annual celebration of Passover. In one of the descriptions of the call of Moses, the prophet chosen to play such a key role in God's purposes, we read: I am Yahweh. 1 will free you of the burdens which the Egyptians lay upon you. 1 will release you from slavery to them, and with my arm outstretched and my strokes of power, I will deliver you. I will adopt you as my own people, and I will be your God (Ex 6:6). And Yahweh, they believed, did in fact deliver them in dramatic and exciting fashion from their oppressors. In the ensuing.events of Sinai this motley grouping of nomads received a new unity and identity as God's own chosen people, specially favored and uniquely privileged. Yahweh's relation-ship with them and theirs with him were sealed in the Covenant. One of the salient features of the Old Testament writings is the profound consciousness which Israel evinces continually that she belongs to Yahweh, that she is his community, his people. An extract from Deuteronomy provides ideal expression of this awareness: You are a people consecrated to the Lord your God: the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people of his own possession out of all the peoples that are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love upon you and chose you. for you were the fewest of all peoples: but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath which he swore to your fathers . 12 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 Know therefore that the Lord.your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations (Dt 7:6-9). Israel was called, then, because of the love of Yahweh and his enduring faithfulness. And she was called to respond in love and faithfulness to him: this is the meaning of covenant pledge. Again Deuteronomy expresses this in language which is amazing for the height of its idealism and the totality of its commitment: Hear, O Israel, you shall 10ve Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might (Dt 6:4-5). Unfortunately, however, Israel did not in general respond very well. Time and again throughout the undulating course of her history, she turned away from Yahweh, falling far short of the demands of love and fidelity, wanting rather to be like the other nations and to follow their ways. Her infidelity is mirrored in the catastrophes which befell her, like the fall of the N. Kingdom to the Assyrians in 721. But the tragic experience of failure brought growing insight into the nature of her God, the kind of God Yahweh really, is. This insight is spelled out most. movingly and beautifully by her prophets. These men were sensiti~zdy awareof Yahweh, of Israel's special calling, of the demands of the Covenant; they were deeply distressed by her waywardness and infidelity. Their image of God, their understanding of him, can be summed up in the twin concepts of love and faithfulness which we have already met. Does a woman forget her baby at the breast. or fail to cherish the son of her womb? Yet even if these forget, 1 will never forget you. See, I have branded you on the palms of my hands. (Is 49:14-16). For the mountains may depart, the hills be shaken, but my love for you will never leave you and my covenant of peace with you will never he shaken (Is 54:10). I will betroth you to myself forever, betroth you with integrity and justice, with tenderness and love: I will betroth you to myself with faithfulness, and you will come to know Yahweh (.Ho 2:21,19,22,20). I have loved you with an everlasting love, so I am constant'in my affection for you (Jr 31:3). And with this realization of God's constancy amidst their failure is born a firm hope for the future. As Jerusalem was about to fall to the Babylonian troops, Jeremiah proclaimed: Our Images of God / 13 Behold the days are coming, says the Lord. when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah . I will put my law within them. and I will write it upon their hearts: and I will be their God and they will be my people. And no longer shall each man teach his neighbor and teach his brother, saying '~Know the Lord," for they shall all know me. from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord (Jr 31:31-34). And there are those inspiring words of Ezekiel: Then I am going to take you from among the nations and gather you together from all the foreign countries, and bring you home to your own land. I shall pour clean water over you and you will be cleansed: I shall cleanse you of all your defilement and all your idols, l shall give you a new heart, and put a new spirit in you: I shall remove the heart of stone from your bodies, and give you a heart of flesh instead. I shall put my spirit in you, and make you keep my laws and respect my observances. You will live in the land which I gave your ancestors. You shall be my people and I shall be your God (Ezk 36:2513. Yahweh, then, is constant: he continues to be present with his people, present in love, and in faithfulness to his choice and to his promise. The Loving Failhfulness of Jesus Centuries later, a man was wandering through the towns and villages of lakeside Galilee, preaching and healing and exorcising. From amongst those who were interested in him, he singled out twelve, as Mark says (Mk 3:!3-15), "to be with him," to share his friendship, life, ideals, and "to be sent," to share his mission. But these men consistently failed to understand him and his message, they were unable to accept the implications of discipleship. They continued to foster the old expectations, to cherish the old dreams, to think in the categories of success, political and nationalist liberation and prosperity, power and glamor. They failed to grasp the meaning of the kingdom he constantly talked about. They lacked insight to perceive who he was, this Jesus from the backwoods of Nazareth. But Jesus did not go back on his choice. One evening, as they were at supper in Jerusalem around the feast of the Passover, he spoke to them with sadness in his voice, telling them that one of their number would shortly betray him, and another, their natural leader and spokesman, would deny all knowl-edge of him. He went on to say that they would all run away and desert him in the end. At the same time, as head of the table, he broke bread and shared it with them as a sign and pledge of his love and friendship. And he offered the cup of wine, and spoke of the longed-for new covenant, the new fellowship with God, his Father, that would be sealed in his own blood. And one of them did, in fact, betray him very soon: Peter denied all acquaintance with him, cursed him even: and the rest of them took to their heels in flight, to a man. The Roman authorities executed him by the hideous and shameful torture-death of crucifixion. The God whom he had proclaimed to be near seemed very far away. 14 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 But early on the Sunday morning, some women friends found that his tomb was empty. Shortly afterwards, this Jesus appeared to Peter and then to or'hers of the group, and they came to know that the Father had raised him from death. Thus, their Risen Lord brought together again his disillusioned and scattered band, whom he loved still, and forgave, and whom he still looked on as his. his chosen ones, to whom he was fai'~hful still. And he breathed his Spirit into them, and constituted them the nucleus of the new covenanted People of God, a God whom, like him, they could now address as Father. These men came to realize that in Jesus they had encountered the love and faithfulness of God present in their midst, enfleshed. The Loving Faithfulness Which is The Spirit The Farewell Discourses of John's gospel provide us with valuable insights into the way in which the love and faithfulness of the Lord are expressed in the age of the Church: It was before the festival of Passover. Jesus knew that his hour had come. and he must leave this world and go to the Father. He had always loved his own who were in the world, and now he was to show the full extent of his love (13:1). After washing their feet as an expression of his loving service, a prophetic sign of his self-giving on the cross, Jesus returns to recline in their midst. Judas departs into the night. And Jesus opens his heart to his friends: "My children, for a little longer I am with you . . . where I am going you cannot come" (13:33). There is an atmosphere of sadness, of impending loss and bereave-ment: "You are plunged into grief because of what 1 have told you" (16:6). Jesus seeks to comfort and reassure them: "Set your troulSled hearts at rest. Trust in God always: trust also in me" (14:1). Jesus' love for his friends is palpable. Evident, too, is his strong desire to remain with them, faithful to those whom he has chosen. They are his friends, not servants. He has disclosed to them everything that he has himself heard from the Father. He has shared with them all his secrets. His willingness to lay down his life is token of his love for them. "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Dwell in my love" (I 5:9). The manner in which Jesus shows his faithfulness and love (and therefore continues to reveal the nature of the Father as Faithful Love), and also con-tinues to be present with them after returning to the Father, is through the gift of the Spirit, the Paraclete: If you love me and keep my commandments, then at my request the Father will give you another Paraclete to be with you forever. He is the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot accept since it neither sees nor recognizes him: but you do recognize him since he remains with you and is in you (14:15-17). For John, the mission of Jesus is to reveal the Father and to give life. The Paraclete is almost another Jesus. His role is to continue Jesus' mission, to be his presence now that he is absent. He functions as teacher and guide, and as Our Images of God / 1'5 witness to the disciples and to the world (see 14:25-26; 15:26; 16:7-11; 16:13-15).3 A similar understanding of the Spirit's role is to be gleaned from the letters of Paul. When writing to the Church at Corinth, he says: And if you and we belong to Christ, guaranteed as his and anointed, it is all God's doing: it is God also who has set his seal upon us. and as a pledge of what is to come has given the Spirit to dwell in our hearts 12 Co 1:21-22). As in the Old Testament, we find again an emphasis on the free, elective love and initiative of the Father, bestowing that profound reality and sense of belonging, and pledging his enduring faithfulness. It is the Spirit dwelling within us who grafts us into Christ and assures us of a future. In Galatians Paul tells us: "To prove that you are sons, God has sent into our hearts the Spirit of his Son, crying 'Abba, Father!' You are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then also by God's act an heir" (4:6). Through the Spirit we are caught up in the relationship of Jesus and his Father, and so come to know God as love, as Father, just as Jeremiah and Ezekiel promised. The fact that we are God's children, and therefore heirs, means that this relationship has a lasting future, that God is faithful. in that magnificent hymn in the Letter to the Romans we meet those lines which celebrate the heart of the Good News that God is love and faithfulness; If God is on our side, who is against us?. Then what can separate us from thelove of Christ?. For I am convinced that there is nothing in death or iia life, in the realm of spirits or superhuman powers, in the world as it is or the world as it shall be, in the forces of the universe, in the heights or depths--nothing in all creation that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (8:31-39). ISon¢lusion The God of the Bible is best understood as Faithfulness and Love. In this way Yahweh reveals himself in the Old Testament period. In his ministry and passover, Jesus reveals the love and faithfulness of the Father~ In the post-resurrection time, the Holy Spirit takes us up into the enduring love and faithfulness of Father and Son, enabling us to know and to live in that mystery. We find, then, a threefold expression of the faithfulness and love which is our Christian God. Returning to our starting point, we need to ask ourselves whether this is in fact our image of God, whether we genuinely know God in this way. "Have I been all this time with you, and you still do not know me?"(Jn 14:9). We must ponder the interaction in i~ur lives and prayer between this biblical image and those many other images which the experiences of our past have fashioned and which tend to become superimposed, creating a distorted picture, preventing us from seeing the God of Jesus in sharp, life-giving focus. Why do we find it so difficult to surrender fully to this God in loving trust? We stand in such great need of healing and integration. 16 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 And what about the image of God which we communicate to those with whom we live, those we meet in our work? Partners in Christian marriage are meant to show forth, the one to the other, something of the love, acceptance, forgiveness, tolerance, understanding and faithfulness of God--for Christian marriage is a sacrament, is a sign of God's faithful love. Their experience together is intended to be a window into the mystery of God, to be revelation. The high incidence of marital breakdown amongst Christians is a tragedy! In a similar way, we in religious and Church communities are called to mirror to one another the authentic face of the God of Jesus. Communities where there exist intolerance, lack of care and compassion, refusal to forgive, authoritarianism, selfishness, harsh judgments, are actually idolatrous; they betray their whole raison d'etre. Parents, we know, have a vital part to play in shaping their children's understanding of God. Whilst making the demands necessary for growth to maturity, parents must convey to their children a sense of being valued for who they are (and not for what they can achieve), a sense of being loved with a love they cannot lose. Sadly, the imperfeciions of parental love can so easily impart an unfavorable image of God. Likewise, in our ministry within the Church and our mission to the world, we religious are constantly and inevitably (albeit at times quite unconsciously) projecting an image of God to those we meet. We need to be alert to and critical of those aspects of our dealing with others, and of our life-style, those facets of our structures, institutions, regulations, forms of leadership and min-istry, which give the lie to the joy-filled Gospel we announce, which present to our world instead an image of God which is a travesty, perpetuating idols of power, success, security, possessions, which instills fear, guilt, anxiety and hopelessness. Jesus prayed to God as Father. The kernel of his preaching was the kingdom, God's nearness to us in acceptance and saving love. He described the prodigality of God's forgiveness in his parables. More importantly, his own way of living and relating proclaimed in language more powerful than words the palpable reality of his mercy and love, especially for the poor and outcast. The source of Jesus' remarkable freedom, his intuition into what in life is really important, his prophetic overturning of so much that had been acceptable in the society, politics and religion of his day, his breaking down and crossing of so many barriers that kept men apart, was, 1 believe, his image of God. Because Jesus knew that God is Father and is very near, and because he surrendered to the exigencies of such a vision, he could serve others in deep compassion and healing care, he could be near to them in self-gift with a courage and faithfulness that did not balk at death. In killing Jesus, men sought to destroy his God, for they perceived that such a God was too uncom-fortable to live with, and the implications of accepting him were too challeng-ing and demanding, calling as they did for radical conversion in outlook, attitude and way of living. Our Images of God / 17 Perhaps there is still much in our Church and in our religious communities to suggest that we perpetuate the attempt to deface and destroy the God of Jesus, and present instead to our world a caricature, a dreadful distortion. In John's gospel, Jesus, in a moment of controversy with the Jews, exclaims: "I was sent by the One who truly is, and him you do not know . It is the Father who glorifies me, he of whom you say, 'He is our God,' though you do not know him!" (7:28; 8:54)--words which leave us much to ponder. But Jes~s also speaks these words of great reassurance and challenge: If you dwell within the revelation I have brought, you are indeed my discip~.es: you shall know the truth, and the truth will se~ you free (8:31-32). NOTES ~Stephen Happel, "The Social Context of Personal Prayer in Seminaries," REVIEW FOR REI.I-GIOUS 39 (1980), pp. 846-854. 2Francis J. Moloney, Disciples and Prophets (London: DLT, 1980), p. 19. SR.E. Brown. The Gospel According to John (London: Chapmans, 1972), pp. 1135-1143. Discovery Why do ! find so much of me within a wood? As if I stumbled on that part of me most pure and good. There, 1 am wise and simple: I know and am understood. (Why do I find so much of me within a wood?) Why in a wood is my soul set free, - Where my eyes like wild things the silence see And ears hear color marvelously. Why in a wood am 1 free? Why in a wood is truth so true And ! in a wood shot trembling through With a worship terrible, ancient, new? Perhaps ! find in a wood---not me-- but You . Sister Ann Maureen, I.H.M. 11201 Academy Road Philadelphia, PA 19154 Scripture: Literary Text and the Word of God Emmerich W. Vogt, O.P. Father Vogt is a doctoral student of the University of California, Berkeley, and the Graduate Theological Union. He is enrolled in a joint program of these institutions in Near Eastern Religion, focusing on the Old Testament. He is also an instructor at Holy Rosary College (Fremont), and resides presently in the Berkeley Priory: 2401 Ridge Road: Berkeley. CA 94709. With the rise of the modern critical sciences and the subsequent and grow-ing concern for scientific critical study, the historical character of the Bible has again and again been called into question. In their scientific investigations, scholars concede that the biblical narratives are not necessarily factually accu-rate. Some narratives, though perhaps based on actual historical events, are themselves fictional. Moreover, literary and form criticisms have shown evi-dence of various literary techniques and genres, such as mythological lan-guage, present in various narratives. To many, this scholarship has led to a certain skepticism regarding the revelatory character of Sacred Scripture and its reliability as the Word of God, something which has been proclaimed by Christians throughout the centuries. Some are led, on the one hand, to deny any authenticity to Scripture as revelation, while others, more fundamentalist in their approach to Scripture and seeking to preserve their faith in it as the Word of God, become hostile towards all historical and literary critical endeavors. The person of faith, having neither the expertise to make a scholarly inquiry, and lacking sufficient instruction from local pastors or religious educators (who themselves are often confused as to the nature of biblical literature), i~ lbd to reject either his or her faith or the methodology of the modern critical sciences. And this situation is present among both clergy and laity. In essence it is a dilemma which stems from a lack of understanding regarding the nature of Scripture as at once a 18 Scripture: Literao, Text and the Word of God / 19 reality of literary language and the Word of God. An illustration of this dilemma can be seen in the life of John Ruskin, a renowned nineteenth-century English art critic. Raised as an Evangelical Christian, from an early age he was taught devotion to Scripture as the Word of God. However, as a grown man in his thirties he lost this faith largely because of a conflict he saw between Scripture and science. He confided this to a friend, Henry Acland, in 1851: You speak of the Flimsiness of your own faith. Mine, which was never strong, is being beaten into mere gold leaf, and flutters in weak rags from the letter of its old forms: but the only letters it can hold by at all are the old Evangelical formulae. If only the Geologists would let me alone, I could do very well but those dreadful Hammers! I hear the clink of them at the end of every cadence of the Bible verses.~ Geology had been successful in weakening the faith of many Victorians, cast-ing doubt on biblical stories such as the Flood. It is very odd, indeed, that an artist and art critic like Ruskin would have had this difficulty. As an artist he "asserted that art itself must be regarded as a 'universal language,' which spoke not to the connoisseur alone but to the whole of modern mankind: a work of art was closely linked with all the other aspects of contemporary civilization.'"- What Ruskin failed to realize was that Scripture is the Word of God in human garb. It is art, it is literature. It is the Word of God, but the Word incarnated in human language. We have come a long way since Ruskin's time in our understanding of both science and of Scripture. Today we are much more accepting of Scripture's true nature as literature. Yet, we hesitate, and for that very reason, to accept Scripture as the Word of God. "We somehow are under the mistaken assumption that if God were to communicate with us, he would have to do so in exact, scientific terms, revealing to us scientific realities. Recognizing the mythopoeic nature of Scrip-ture, we are inhibited from accepting this as a valid means of divine communi-cation. This was Ruskin's problem, which led him to deny Scripture as the Word of God. An examination of the nature of literary language and its prevalence in human culture, however, will manifest its suitability to express the Word of God. The Nature of Literary Lanaguage The preacher captures the attention of his congregation with a moving story that illustr~ites a certain belief. What holds the interest of the listeners is not abstract religious truths bt~t rather religious truths conveyed in image or story forms. What the artist does with images-in-colors the preacher is able to do with images-in-words,~ and the result is a captivated audience. The human person is intrigued by such story-telling. We are image-form-ing people, and this phenomenon is clearly understood, appreciated, and pur-posely exploited by the artist, whether he be painter, song-writer or storyteller. Colorful images and not sterile abstractions are what captivate the human mind. This is illustrated by Erich Fromm in his study of dreams. 20 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 Let us take a mood in which you feel lost, deserted, where the world looks gray, a little frightening though not really dangerous. You want to describe this mood to a friend, but., you find yourself groping for words and eventually feel that nothing you have said is an adequate explanation of the many nuances of the mood. The following night you have a dream. You see yourself in the outskirts of a city just before dawn, the streets are empty except for a milk wagon: the houses look poor, the surroundings are unfamil-iar, you have no means of accustomed transportation to places familiar to you and where you feel you belong. When you wake up and remember the dream, it occurs to you that the feeling you had in the dream was e~actly the feeling of Iostness and grayness you tried to describe to your friend the day before. It is just one picture, whose visualization took less than a second. And yet this picture is a more vivid and precise description than you could have given by talking about it at length.4 This phenomenon is not something new to the human experience. "The ability to make images is:primeval, and it is no accident that the earliest records of human activity show men making pictures."5 The us~ of literary language, however, involves insight, and our endeavor, if we are to fully enjoy and appreciate the artist's creation, is to elucidate the insight the imagery is meant to convey. The words used, the structure within which they are expressed, and so forth, are all carefully laid out by the designer. Luis Alonso Schoekel makes this point in reference to the literary language of Scripture: In literary language, words have an absolute importance, and they are sought with the greatest care~ They are not merely a way of saying something completely separable from what they say. Words are important for their sound quality, for their rhythm in a phrase, for their aura of associations, and for their resonances in the periphery of our consciousness . 6 The choice of words, the creation of moods through images, the ability to effect "resonances in the periphery of our consciousness" give literary language a charism not possible with philosophical abstractions. However, since the modern world has been so greatly influenced by the scientific mind, oftentimes the value of literary language is not appreciated as a valid means of conveying very real truths about human existence. Nevertheless, human literary achieve-ments give witness to this charism: The power of stories, parables and literal untruths to give us information can well be illustrated in the case of proverbs and "cautionary tales." The tales of the Hare and the Tortoise, the Monkey and the ,lar of Nuts, the Ass in the Lion's Skin, and many others like them, have lasted for centuries, passed from one culture to another, and still appeal today. They have survived not just because they are good entertainment, but because they each have a credible point--that life is like that. The same is true of popular proverbs, "The early bird catches the worm," "Too many cooks spoil the broth," "Empty vessels make the most noise". We test them, not by verification of their literal sense, but through living by them and finding them to work out in experience.7 Trained to search for precise, scientific data, however, the modern mind often misunderstands the nature of mythmaking and storytelling as a valid means of teaching morals or handing on true insights drawn from our com-mon experience. "For the philosopher of the age of reason, myths are barbaric superstitions that grossly befogged the mind of man . -8 Scripture: Literary Text and the Word of God / 2"~ An example of this mentality can be seen in an incident related by John Knox about a man who thought an error had crept into the text of Shakes-peare's As You Like It which reads, "books in running brooks, sermons in stones."~ This man thought that the lines must have originally read, "sermons in books, stones in running brooks." Reflecting on the man's observation, Knox remarks: A work of art is called "truer when it effectively embodies a real vision or mood of the artist, though its correspondence with any objective reality is remote indeed. Even in such a case, however, it would be rash to deny any kind of objective reference. When one calls a work "true,"does one not imply, at the very least, that the vision or mood is to some extent or at certain moments shared by others besides the artist and is therefore not entirely subjective? And does one not probably imply that there is something in the real situation of man in the world which gives rise io, or answers to, the artist's feeling? ¯ . . In other words, when we say there are "books in the running brooks," we are making a statement which, if we regard it as true at all, is for us objectively true--quite as much as the statement that stones are there. We mean that "running brooks" have something to teach us--that they really do.t0 The imagery used in a story possesses a certain power--a power not possessed by mere clear and distinct ideas as such--todraw the mind to truths by way of the imagination. However, clear and distinct ideas expressed in conceptual language is thought by many to be the only valid means of com-municating truth, as we can see from the words of the eighteenth-century philosopher, David Hume: If we take in our hand any volume of divinity, or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain quantity or number? No. Does it contain an experimental reason-ing concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it to the flames. For it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.~ This mentality fails to grasp that the nature of literary language is such that stories created by the imagination, while not factual in themselves, nevertheless present the reader with certain truths about reality. It is the "kind of language that can somehow work upon men and lead them to insight and even action, where a more conceptual language might fail."12 Fiction can contain truth precisely as imaginary; it can be expressive of reality.13 The human mind is not drawn by abstract reasoning alone, and man's life entails more than ideas. We come to learn from sense experience, and such experience cannot be conveyed adequately in abstract reasoning. This charism of literary language was not understood by the rationalist, Humian mind. To misunderstand this charism is to "alienate man from his own nature," a point stressed by Edward Schillebeeckx: We might say that it is empirically demonstrable that man is alienated from his own nature if he thinks he has finished with the symbolic thinking of the religious conscious-ness . But in our one-track Western culture we can also demonstrate that the exclusiveness and absolutism of purely, scientific and technological thought., allows whole areas of our humanity to die out or become stunted, and precisely in doing so alienates man from himself.~a 22 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 A ~:lose look, however, at the literary compositions appealing to popular society will reveal that, despite the tendency to downgrade the role of literary language in expressing truths, this charism of language is very prevalent in our contemporary world. Contemporary "Rock," for example, manifests the artist's expression of "truth through images." Simon and Garfunkel's famous song, "Bridge Over Troubled Water," uses such imagery to tell of devoted friendship in a time of personal struggle. Elton John, whose mu.sic appeals to millions of people throughout the world, expresses in ima~gery an autobio-graphical situation from his early adult life in a song entitled "Someone Saved My Life Tonight." In the song he speaks of his former relationship with a woman he describes as "a princess perched in an electric chair." By way of such imagery, he conveys to the listener something of the reality of that relationship. And many articles have been written about the great influence of the Beatles' songs on contemporary society.15 Their songs abound with colorful literary expressions~ It is by way of such imagery, and not in spite of it, that their message is conveyed. These are but a few examples from contemporary popular imagery-in-music that demonstrate the usage of imagery and symbol to convey thought. "People cannot live by abstractions alone"~6 but ~appeal time and again to the image, and this appeal is perennial. It is found not only in contemporary music but in contemporary literature. The current popularity of the writings of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien is evidence of the charism of literary language in contemporary culture. Those who read them are well aware of their fictitious nature, as are those who flock to see the Star Wars sagas and or.her such science-fiction marvels. "Our knowledge that the stories are not factual is neither here nor there. For the stories themselves have power to arouse certain moral attitudes . In addition to its function of allowing the human mind to be creative in conveying truth through story, there is another reason why the .human person seeks to express himself in some medium other than with clear and distinct ideas and conceptual language. This was touched upon.above in the quotation from Erich Fromm: oftentimes we cannot adequately express ourselves through conceptual language alone. Furthermore, not all of our experiences are capable of such expression. Such is the case with re!igious experience. Some other form of expression is needed. Mythopoeic Thought and the Charism of Literary Language Because of the charism of literary language, linguistic expression can be given to that part of reality which escapes scientific scrutiny but which is, nevertheless, real and a part of our existence. Such is the case, for example, with our human urge for survival, for justice, for happiness. These urges, which are universal, experienced by people of all cultures and generations, come into conflict with the historical, existential living out of our lives.~8 The desire for survival is our common experience. We do not desire life for a given Scripture: Literao, Text and the Word of God / 23 number of years only, but eternally; if given a choice we would not have our lives terminate. Whether by witch doctors or miracle vitamins, we seek to prolo.ng our lives, to avoid aging and death. The same is true regarding happiness: we seek happiness not for a predictable number of years but for all our years. We do not want finite happiness as contingent beings, but infinite happiness as immortal beings. The conflict arises when we find ourselves cruelly thwarted. The experience is traumatic. Answers to queries arising out of this conflict escape the scientist; they evade his scientific scrutiny. From the experience of ourselves as contingent, we realize that "man cannot ground the possibilities of his own existence, his knowledge and his ability in his own planning and his own reflection."19 Out of the conflict arises the question of God, and a merely scientific, conceptual language is not adequate to deal with such a reality as God. The human person, being at home with imagery pre-cisely as a human person, resorts to mythopoeic thought to give expression to queries such as the origin of evil and injustice; man's loss of immortality which he so ardently desires; "the origin of the world and of man; the nature of deity; the origins of society and of social institutions; the ultimate validation of moral principles; the purpose and direction of human existence."z° Incapable of being adequately expressed in conceptual language, such queries find expression in mythopoeic thought. Because the language of conversation rarely enables us "to share all the wealth of an experience, or to communicate the richness of what we live within ourselves,TM mythopoeic thought finds expression in and through the charism of literary language. Although the religious experience deals with "problems that lie beyond sensible experience,"~2 the mind can nonetheless give expres-sion to this experience. John Knox saw this need for mythopoeic expression in religious language: In a word, we find ourselves dramatizing or mythologizing. Use either of these terms you will or find some other: bul however you want to say it, the main point is clear and undeniable: we are no longer speaking factually or literally. We cannot speak so when we are speaking of God, for our speech can use ,only the terms provided by our human .experience and thought, and God transcends both. The divine, however near to, even pervasive of, the human it may be, is still essentially transhuman or superhuman.2s God-talk by its very nature den~ands an expression beyond that of the discursive language of the philosopher, an expression that transcends the philosophical. Schillebeeckx cautions that although our talk of God may be inadequate, that is no reason.for silence: Unless linguistic expression is given to the reality which escapes us but grounds our being, even though this may only be through the "poverty" of symbolic expressions, it threatens to disappear into forgetfulness.24 What the person of faith "has experienced," however partially or brokenly, and therefore needs to affirm is, in its fullness or at its source, 'out of this world.''~ When we read the Christian mystics, we notice their frustration at attempting to find words adequate enough to convey their religious experien- 94 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 ces.26 The very stating of the experience seems to make it something less than it is. This demonstrates that the mythopoeic form of expression is not simply an entertaining way of speaking, as in fairy tales, but is necessary if we would convey all of our experience of reality. If we are going to appreciate the language and literature of the Bible, we need to understand mythopoeic expression and how it was used by the peoples of the ancient Near East. Out of the cultures of the ancient Near East came the literature of the Bible, which we call sacred. Literary Language in the Ancient Near East For many centuries the literature of the Bible had to be studied and interpreted simply on its own merits since no extra-biblical literature was known that could elucidate its past. For example, there was no corresponding historical material to enable the scholar to judge the nature of the historical books of the Old Testament. Did they contain history properly understood by modern terms? Knowledge from the cultures of Israel's past was greatly lack-ing, knowledge that would help answer such questions. This situation has changed drastically over the last century due to the discovery of a great number of ancient Near Eastern texts relating to the Hebrew Bible that not only predate it, but bear some strong resemblances to its subject matter. The ancestors of Israel's traditions did not live in isolation but were greatly influ-enced by the predominant cultures of their day. Pius XII, in his encyclical on the study of Scripture, recommends the study of those ancient cultures: It is absolutely necessary for the interpreter to go back in spirit to those remote centuries of the East. and make proper use of the aids afforded by history, archaeology, ethnol-ogy and other sciences in order to discover what literary forms the writers of that early age intended to use and did in fact employ.27 By discovering the literary forms used by Israel's literary ancestors, we better understand the nature of the biblical literature. Innumerable parallels between the cultures of the ancient Near East and the Scriptures have been documented by scholars.28 The wealth of ancient Near Eastern texts discov-ered since the middle of the last century has revealed, among other literary genres, such genres as "epics and myths, hymns and lamentations, proverbs and 'wisdom' composition,"~9 and these from texts of various cultures: Egyp-tian, Mesopotamian, Hittite and Ugaritic.30 Mythopoeic expression was common throughout the ancient Near East. Would this have had an influence on the literature of Israel, even though this latter is said to include the "Word of God"?. Nahum Sarna explains that there was such an influence, and the influence was no slight one: In actual fact, no advanced cultural or religious tradition has ever existed in a vacuum; it cannot therefore be studied in isolation. This is all the more true of the people of Israel. who strode upon the stage of history at a time when the great civilizations of antiquity had already passed their prime . The ancestors of Israel originated in Mesopotamia, wandered through Syria and Canaan, and settled for a prolonged stay in Scripture: Literao, Text and the Word of God / 25 Egypt . The land of Israel enjoyed a location of unique strategic importance as a corridor connecting Europe. Asia and Africa, as well as a window to the Mediterranean lands. Through it crossed the arteries of international communications, and into it flowed the powerful cultural and religious influences of surrounding civilizations. It is no wonder that the culture of Canaan was a mixed one. for its geographic position perforce imparted to it a richly international character that impeded the maintenance of individuality and the development of cultural and religious independence. In view of all this. the discovery of numerous parallels between Israel and her neighbors should hardly occasion surprise and chagrin?~ It can be said, then, that Israel and her literature were certainly influenced by the dominant cultures of her past, just as the world today is influenced by dominant cultures: McDonald's golden arches are found in Paris; Levi jeans are worn in Africa; and Shakespeare is read in Polish. Israel utilized those methods of expression common in the ancient Near East. and she borrowed from their subject matter and imagery, all the while, however, making it her own. Her literature, then, can no longer be naively regarded as a "dictated" Word of God as if somehow removed from human experience and the modes of expression utilized by the human community. Rather, it is the Word of God mediated through a rich literary language. Literary Language in the Bible Although great progress has been made in our understanding of the Bible since the discovery of ancient Near Eastern texts, a confusion has resulted. Sarna remarks that ¯. the modern student of the Bible has at his disposal a formidable array of primary and secondary tools, the fruits of a century of intensive scholarly endeavor. Excellent new translations into modern English, a deluge of popular works on archaeology, a plethora of enyclopedias, dictionaries, historical atlases, reliable non-technical commen-taries of recent vintage, all deprive any literate person of the excuse of ignorance . But the crux of the matter is that in the eyes of modern, secularized man, the Bible has very largely lost its sanctity and relevance?2 ~ We seem to meet with two extremes among readers of the Bible: those who accept the results of the modern critical sciences and have come to understand the true lite'rary nature of Scripture, but as a result do not regard such litera-ture as inspired, and, on the other hand, those.who, intent on maintaining their faith in Scripture as the Word of God, reject the results of the methodologies of the critical sciences when applied to Scripture. Why is this? The predominance of evolutionary theories, the general awareness of the findings of modern science regarding the "birth" of the universe, and the results of comparat.ive studies showing the influence of ancient Near Eastern mythol-ogies on Scripture--all this has had great ramifications regarding the inspired character of the Bible. Genesis has lost its credibility, having been understood literally for so long and by so many. The modern critical sciences have done much to shed light on the literary characteristics of this literature. As a result of such studies, we know that Scripture expresses its message not simply through 26 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 historical narrative, but also by way of poetic narrative. Because the Bible is great literature, it may contain such literary genres as myth, fairy tale, fable, saga, legend, etc.33 For Jews and Christians the Old Testament is sacred and canonical. Faith proclaims that it is inspired: it is the Word of God. Now, when the modern critical sciences discover the presence of mythopoeic expres-sion in Scripture, should the person of faith regard these sciences as a challenge to his or her faith? Or does the Word of God in revelation find expression in and through the charism of literary language? In studying what he calls "the immanence of transcendence: the possibility of expressing the reality of revelation,''34 Schillebeeckx maintains that "trans-cendence lies in human experience." Revelation itself is not a reality apart from human experience: it can be expressed only in and through the medium of human language in such wise that God's revelation comes in the form 'of human ideas and words. This emphasis on the human situation will help us underStand just how God has acted to communicate his word to the human community. As Thomas Aquinas taught, "In the divine Scriptures, divine things are conveyed to us in the manner to which people are accustomed.''35 We experience reality. What is our common mode of expressing that expe-rience? Oftentimes. imagery and mythopoeic expression. If this is the manner to which we are accustomed, and the manner to which people of the ancient Near East were accustomed, should we be surprised, or our faith challenged, because the mythopoeic nature of some of the biblical narratives is made apparent by the modern sciences? Or should we be surprised that God would use this means, to which we are accustomed, to communicate his Word? On the contrary, such an understanding can only serve to enhance our apprecia-tion of that sacred literature. To lack this understanding is to misinterpret and invalidate the scriptural message. "The devastating effect of all this upon faith, when faith was exclusively identified with a literalist approach to Scripture, is abundantly obvious.''36 If for no other reason, Scripture has lost its credibility because modern man has failed to understand that God's word has come to us precisely in our human garb, the human garb of our language, so to speak. It is a failure on the part of the Christian to commit himself or herself to a living and pervading faith in the Incarnation. Scripture is the Word of God mediated through a mythopoeic expression, and richer by that very mediation. NOTES ~George ,P. Landow, The Aesthetic and Critical Theories of John Ruskin (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1971), p. 266. "-The Ent:vclopedia Americana. 1978 ed. s.v. "Ruskin, John." -~Mhson Olds, Stor.v: The Language of Faith (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America. 1977). p.5. '~Erich Fromm, The Forgotten language: An Introduction to the Understanding of Dreams. Scripture: Literary Text and the Word of God / 27 Fairy Tales and Myths (New York: Rinehart, 1951), p. II. ~Gerardus van der l,eeuw, Sacred and Profane Beaut),: The Holy in Art (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. 1963), p. 155. 6Luis Alonso Schoekel. The Inspired Word: Scripture in the Light of Language and Literature (New York: Herder & Herder. 1965), p. 160. 7peter Donovan, Religious Language (London: Shelden Press, 1976). p. 29. 8Philip Freund. Myths of Creation (New York: Washington Square Press, 1965), p. 20. '~John Knox, Myth and Truth." An Essay on the Language ~?f Faith (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1964). p. 19. The reference is to Shakespeare's As You Like It, Act II, Scene I. ~Olbid., pp. 20 & 21. ~Donovan, Religious Language. p. 16. ~2John MacQuarrie, God-Talk." An Examination of the Language and Logic of Theology (New York: Harper& Row. 1967), p. 205. MacQuarrie is citing from Hebert's The Bible From Within, p. 176. ~JDonovan, Religious Language. p. 29. ~'~Edward Schillebeeckx, Christ." ~he Experience ~f Jesus as Lord (New York: Seabury Press, 1980), p. 58. ~See, for example, 77me. Dec. 22, 1980. ~rRene Wellek and Austin Warren. Theory of Literature (New York: Harcourt, 1956), chapter 12. ~TDonovan, Religious Language. p. 26. ~SThe following are ideas expressive of those heard in a class at the Graduate Theologic~il Union from Professor Kevin Wall. This notion of the conflict between a person's expected desires or urges and his actual, existential situation of life lived in the world is referred to by Professor Wall as the "myth/history conflict." ~gSchillebeeckx, Christ, p. 47. -'°John L. McKenzie. "Aspects of Old ~estament Thought~" Jerome lh'blical Commentary 77:23 (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1968), p. 740. -'~Alonso Schoekel, The Inspired Word. p. 159. 2~McKenzie, "Aspects," p. 740: -'-~Knox, Myth and Truth. p. 5. ' 2'~Schillebeeckx, Christ. p. 55. ~SKnox. Myth and Truth. p. 81. ~'Such was the case, for example, with St. Catherine of Siena. During a mystical experience brought,on in prayer, Raymond of Capua (her confessor) heard her say, Vidi arcana Dei: "1 have seen the secret things of God." Raymond recounts that, "When, after a great length of time, she returned to her bodily senses sh,e kept repeating the expression Vidi arcana dei. Wishing to know the reason for this 1 said, "Mother. why do you keep saying the same thing over and over again. instead of drawing out for us as usual the meaning o,f what you say, or of adding a word or two of explanation?' 'Because,' she said, '1 find it quite impossible to say anything else. or put it into other words.' "But why,'~ I asked. 'do you find this so now, when you never did before?". 'Because.' she said, 'on this occasion ! am so conscious of how inadequate human words are to express .what I saw. I should feel as if I were only belittling God, and profaning him, by any words I could say. When the mind is rapt in God. and is granted the light and the ability to fix its gaze on him. what it contemplates so far surpasses anything that can be put into words that the one thing seems to be the negation of the other. No: this time I cannot attempt to give you even a faint idea of the things 1 have seen. They cannot be encompassed within the limits by which human speech is bound'" [emphasis added]: Raymond of Capua. The Life of Catherine of Siena, tra,ns, by Conleth Kerns (Wilmington, Delaware: Michael Glazier, Inc., 1980), p. 179. ~TPius XII. Divino A.fflante Spiritu. EB 560. -'SNahum Sarna, Understanding Genesis (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), p. xxvi. ~S.N. Kramer, Sumerian Mythology: A Study ~f Spiritual and Literary Achievement in the Third Millennium B.C (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1944). p. 13. ~0See Walter Beyerlin. ed. Near Eastern Religious Texts Relating to the Old Testament (Phila-delphia: Westminster Press, 1978). -~Sarna. Understanding Genesis, pp. xxvi-xxvii. -~'-Ibid. p. xx. ~-~See John I. McKenzie. "The Literary Characteristics of Genesis 2-3," Theological Studies 15 (1954). p. 546. See such scriptural pas'sages as I K 17:7-16; 2 K 4:1-7: 14:9: Nb 22:22-35: and the story of Sodom in Gn 19. ~Schillebeeckx, Christ. p. 55. 35St. Thomas says, "In scriptura autem divina traduntur nobis per modum quo homines solent uti. "Comm. on Heb. ch. I, 1,4 ,quote0 in Alonso Schoekel, The li~spired Word. p. 44. Images of Job Jesse Nash, O.S.B. Brother Nash resides in St. Meinrad Archabbey; St. Meinrad. IN 47577. Every age has its heroes. Religious ages venerate saints and martyrs. Rebellious and turbulent ages tend to venerate rebels and even anti-heroes. Our age is curious in that it is characterized by both tendencies. One would naturally suppose that the heroes of traditional religious groups will sharply clash with those figures idolized by more secular, non-traditional groups in our society. Ahd such is typically the case. What the religious imagination sees as'a virtue, the non-religious or secular imagination disdains. Rarely do both camps find themselves prizing the same figure, whether histori-cal or legendary, as a hero. But the literary character Job is an example of such an exception. Both the traditional religious imagination and the contemporary imag-ination, which includes rebellious religious persons as well as non-religious ones, claim Job as their own. It is the oddity of this dual claim which has prompted this essay. The Book of Job as a Story Like an intricately designed puzzle, the book of Job frustrates the scholar and exegete. It is difficult, some say impossible, to translate. As to how the book came to its final, present form, which is a combination of poetry and prose, scholars are not in agreement. Nor are they in agreement as to how the various parts of the puzzle should really be fit together into one harmonious whole. The questions the book raises are legion. In spite of scholarly difficulties ,with the book of Job, the character of Job has been for centuries a hero of the religious imagination. For Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Job the man has been a hero to be imitated.~ More specifically, .lob was thought to be a model of patience in the face of a~Jversity. St. James represented all Images of Job / 29 three of these great religious traditions when he used Job as an example for his congregation to imitate: "You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, and how the Lord is compassionate and merciful" (5:11). In more recent times Job the man has become a hero of another sort altogether for both the religious and the secular imaginations. Job as a model of patience has been replaced with the model of Job the rebel. Job has even been adopted by the existentialists as one of their own. Today the Job who shakes his fist at the heavens in outrage and the Job who broods over the meaning of life is of more fascination than the older, more traditional view of Job. Scholars and. laity alike are more attracted to Job the impatient than Job the patient? How, we might ask, could two such contradictory models be constructed around the same literary figure? One reason for this difference in models lies in the structure of the book of Job itself, which looks something like this: 1. Prologue chapters I-2 11. Job's Laments and Debates chapters 3-27 111. A Hymn to Wisdom chapter 28 IV. The Debates Continued chapters 29-37 V. The Divine Speeches chapters 38-41 VI. Epilogue chapter 42 In the prologue and epilogue, the book is basically in prose. The rest of the book is mostly poetic in style. In the prologue Job is patient, and at the end of the divine speeches he surrenders to God, repenting in the end (40:3-5: 42: I-6). From these sections of the book the model of Job the patient was constructed. A different picture of Job is found in his laments and in his argumehts with his friends--here Job is not only impatient, he is rebellious. Thus we have the two models. Of course, the problem with either model is that it relies only on sections of the book congenial to the desired model. The book as a whole is often ignored. When this happens we are only given a glimpse of one image of Job when in fact there are three distinct images of Job in the book: one of patience, one of impatience or rebellion, and one of repentance. The images, at first glance, appear to be contra-dictory. How do we reconcile Job's rebellion with his final repentance? Some have chosen to ignore the repentance as though it were out of place in the book. But as Bernhard Anderson has pointed out, the fact that Job repents is the key to the book as a whole.3 Several scholars, along with Anderson, have stressed that the book of Job should be read as a story.4 By reading the book as a story with each of the various sections belonging together, we find that we do not have to choose between the model of Job the patient and Job the rebel. Neither model really reflects the whole story, so to speak. To choose ,lob the rebel over Job the patient or repentant (or vice versa) neglects the fact that in the book we catch glimpses of at least three moments in the life of a literary figure as he attempts to understand himself, his suffering, his world and his God. To read the book of Job as a story is to read the 30 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 movement of one person from self-assured patience to open rebellion to finally repentance and reconciliation with God. From Patience to Impatience In the prologue, chapters I-2, Job is presented as a successful family and business man with considerable wealth in terms of land, livestock, and servants, He was also blessed with many children. Both the extent of his wealth and the number of his children were signs of God's blessing in the popular piety of the day. Of course, the reason for this blessing was Job's righteousness. He was "blameless and upright, one who feared God, and turned away from evil" (I:1). 'The depth of his piety can be seen in his concern for the spiritual welfare of his children: ¯. he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all: for Job said. "lt may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts." Thus Job did continually (1:5). Such a description not only serves to draw attention to Jo.b's piety, it also points to his wisdom. Although his children had every reason to be contented and thankful to the Lord. the possibility of alienation from God was always present. When misfortune did strik~ Job's children, servants, and property, he reacted as a wise man should. He mourned his loss and worshipped God (1:20). He was steadfast, as St. James said. and reconciled his loss with his faith in God: Naked I came from my mother~ womb, and naked shall 1 return: the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord. In all this he did not sin or charge God with wrong ( 1:21-22). Even when Job himself is afflicted with sores over his body, he remains stead-fast. To his goading wife, he retorts: "Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil" (2:10)? Job's so-called patience was maintained because of his conviction that come what may, good or bad, it comes from God. Thus suffering was something to be endured. This too was part of the popular piety of the Ancient Near East (see Pr 3:1.1-12). ' Needless to say. Job's patience does not last long. As Job's patience ends in the story so does the prologue and thus begins Job's poetic lamentations and debates with his friends. Still, Job does not curse God. Rather. he curses the gift of life: "Let the day perish wherein 1 was born, and the night which said. 'a man child is conceived'" (3:3). His friends protest his outburst. Life. as a gift from God, was sacred to these people. Moreover. and here is a point often missed. Job's outburst is out of character for him. Eliphaz chides him: Behold, you have ,instructed many, and you have strengthened the weak hands. Your words have upheld him who was stumbling, and you have made firm the feeble.knees. But now it has come to you, and you arc impatient: it touches you, and you are dismayed (4:3-5): Images of Job / 31 Having helped others, Job now finds himself unable to cope with his own suffering and pain. He is forced to admit he hasn't the strength to be patient (6:11-13).~ Sheol is a nicer alternative than his present life (3:13-19). Sense of God and Sense of Self Job's patience and wisdom crumble before his pain. He is not being true to form, his friend Eliphaz notes. He becomes rebellious and argues with his friends. Claiming that he has not sinned, he argues that he does not deserve to stiffer in such a way (6:10). His outbursts are directed against God as well: "Why hast thou made me thy mark? Why have 1 become a burden to thee" (7:20)? Being bold in his anger, he would even presume to argue face to face with God to defend himself and the record of his life (13:3-5). Such a posture from Job has led John Bowker to think that Job's "sense of God" has been radically altered. Job no longer knows what to expect from his God, who is supposed to reward the righteous and not punish them.5 But is this actually the case? Did Job's experience of suffering cause him to question the very God he worshipped in the prologue? This question is crucial because'on it hinges the model of Job the rebel. Roland Murphy sheds some light on the question. He notes that Job is expe-riencing "the dark side of God.''6 This side of God'is not new to Job or the reader of the book. In the prologue we are told that God is going to allow Job to be tested (1:8-12: 2:3-6). This is the Hebrew way of saying that God is not above such a thing. The reader is almost immediately confronted with "the dark side of God," Job himself in the prologue relates his misfortunes to the hand of God and claims that evil as well as good should be accepted from God. And in his laments Job never doubts the existence of this side of God. The God Job worships in the prglogue is the same God he rages against in his lamentations. True, Job does rebel, but he rebels because he himself has become a victim of this side of God. Where before he counseled and consoled the victim, now he is one himself. Ironically, he asks: What is man. that thou dost make so much of him, and that thou dost set thy mind upon him. dost visit him every morning, and test him every moment? (7:17). Job has always been aware of this side of God, the testing side. But now that he personally is affected by it he questions the rationale .behind this possibility of the God-human relationship. Becoming more rebellious, he even questions the ration-ale behind punishing sinners: "It~ I sin, what do I do to thee, thou watcher of men" (7:20)? It is Job's "sense of self" that has radically shifted. He complains about the nature of a person's sojourn on earth in general--it is like that of a hired-hand (7:1). Old age also stares at him: "my life is a breath" (7:7), he tells his friends. Angrily, he is forced to conclude that suffering is only an additional complicating factor in the problematic nature of a person's life. 32 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 Job's sense of self is shattered by the greeting he gets from his social world. His friends wrongly associate his affliction with sin. His affliction (remember, he is covered with sores) has ostracized him from his natural acquaintances (19:13-19). Worst of all, "I am repulsive to my wife" (19:!7). His frfistration and rage are exemplified in his protest to his friends: "Why should I not be impatient? Look at me, and be appalled, and lay your hand upon your mouth. When I think of it I am dismayed, and shuddering seizes my flesh" (21:5-6). And while all this has hap-pened to Job, the wicked prosper and grow old peacefully (21:7-21). Tested by God and shunned by his social world, Job rebels. One can under-stand his preference for the peace and rest of Sheol (1:13-19). What one cannot understand is how Job got the reputation over the centuries for being patient. But neither is Job's rebellion the last word in the story. To Repentance Job demanded a face-to-face showdown with God so as to resolve the issues he had raised. Yet when God does appear, much to the surprise of the reader, God does not defend himself by resolving the issues. In the divine speeches (chapters 38-41) God is on the offensive, asking some questions of his own: where was Job at creation or can Job control creation? Job is overwhelmed and concludes: "Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer thee" (40:4)? And finally, "I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee: therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes" (42:5-6). But why does Job repent? God does not actually absolve Job as he had demanded. Instead, Job is given a whirlwind tour of, in G. K. Chesterton's famous phrase, "an idiotic universe," a universe in which the wild ass (39:5ff), the wild ox (39:9ff), the ostrich (39:13ff), Behemoth or the hippopotamus (40:15-24), and even Leviathan or the crocodile (the subject of all of chapter 41) are the wonders that attest to God's glory and power. God here literally sings a hymn of praise to the ostrich, the hippopotamus, and the crocodile, creatures ugly or dangerous to humans. But these are the wonders of the universe according to God. He even seems proud of his "idiotic universe." God's description of the wonders of the universe catches Job off guard, so to speak. "What is man that you make so much of him?" Job had asked earlier. God replies by making much of creatures ugly or dangerous. The divine speeches force . Job to realize that he is not the center of the universe and that humans are not the only concerns God has. In regard to the meaning of the divine speeches, Robert Gordis notes: "The universe was not created exclusively for man's use, and therefore neither it nor its creator can be judged solely by man's standards and goals,w ' Job's rebellion was against his world and his God. God appears and shows him how little Job actually knows and understands. To demand to know the reason for suffering is to ask for more than is possible for humans. But God does not himself offer an easy answer. He confirms Job's suspicions that he has indeed created "an Images of Job / 33 idiotic universe." Nevertheless, a person's first obligation is not to understand but to give glory to the creator come what may.8 By his rebellion Job has caused an imbalance in the divine-human relationship. His repentance restores that relationship. onclusion Perhaps the unnerving thing about the book of Job for the reader of any age is that Job does repent. God in his confrontation with Job never addresses the problem of the suffering of the righteous or even the problem of ordinary living, both of which came to frustrate Job. Rather, God in the divine speeches accepts the world as his creation. He lays claim to it in spite of how crazy the world may appear to us. Job repents, but God declares to his friends that Job had spoken correctly of God (42:7). By his repentance Job accepts God in spite of unanswered questions and "an idiotic universe." Herein may lie a model worth our imitation, a model more challenging than those of Job the patient or the rebel. NOTES ~Nahum N. Glatzer, The Dimensions of Job: A Study and Selected Readings (New York: Schocken Books, 1969), pp. 12-34. 2Qoheleth has also been appropriated by some as a rebel or as an existentialist. For a critique of the use of Job and Qoheleth in such a manner see Robert Gordis, Koheleth-- The Man and His World. 3rd ed. (New York: Schocken Books, 1968), pp. 112-28. 3Bernhard W. Anderson. Understanding the Old Testament, 3rd ed. (Eng!ewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1975), p. 559. 4See Glatzer, p. 4: Robert Gordis, The Book of Job: Commentao', New Translation, and Special Studies (New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America and KTAV, 1974): William J. Whedbee. "The Comedy of Job," in Semeia, 7 (1977), pp. 1-39. 5John Bowker, The Religious Imagination and the Sense of God (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), p. 100. ~'Roland E. Murphy, The Psalms, Job, Proclamation Commentaries (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977). p. 79. 7Gordis. The Book of Job, p. 435. SAnderson. p. 558. A Word On Tomorrow's Renewal M. Helen Hardebeek, O.S.B. Sister Helen has been a member of the Benedictine community of Boerne, Texas. since 1960, and is presently working with Benedictine Sisters in Mexico City. She has attended both public and private universities. She writes "influenced by the totality of these experiences . prompted by a strong desire to encourage my sister and brother religious to see the long-range nature of our renewal efforts." Sister Helen may be addressed at Rio Bamba #870: Delegaci6n Gustavo Madero: Mexico 14. DF. 07300. Tired of talking about renewal? Want to know when we are finally going to settle down? You may be in for a shock: we've only just begun. The thing about renewal is that it never should have stopped happening in the Church in the first place. But stop it did--and that fact stands to warn us that stop it can again. We are made of the same weary bones and tired blood and change-resistant mentalities as those who first began to settle for the routine churchiness which provoked John XXIII to call for an opening of windows in the 1960's. Fifteen to twenty years later, most American Roman Catholic religious communities have lived through renewal processes; whether they have lived through renewal experiences remains an open question. Ask a representative religious (if you cannot find a representative religious; ask just any religious you come across), "How is your community renewing itself?." The answer very likely will be, "We already did." Thus do we set ourselves up a~ marvels of.grace or as paragons of delusion. It is a little like asking, "Are you looking forward to springtime?" and being told, "l've already seen one." Members of a community may feel that they have "renewed"just because they have studied and revised constitutions, set up group-defined goals and objectives, and established committees to evaluate the results of the efforts directed toward achieving those goals and meeting those objectives, While 34 A Word on Tomorrow's Renewal such efforts do indicate a willingness to travel toward renewal, they are no indication that renewal has indeed taken place. True, many aspects of our communities have changed, but l~t's face it: not all change is in the direction of renewal, and we are not always wise and clever and alert enough to catch the difference right away--although we may be scandalized at the thought that for all our prayer and sincerity, We, as groups, actually can make mistakes. Perhaps one of the biggest mistakes we are tempted to make is that of canonizing ourselves before our time, thinking that because we have asked the Spirit to guide us and have trusted the Spirit to guide us, thereby we must have made excellent decisions. The truth is that we--none of us--are immune from the probability of making some mistakes--even in prayed-over group deci-sions. We get together, trust, and do the best we can with the information and inspiration at hand. Nevertheless, it can turn out that, with the best will in the world, groups have made decisions which ultimately do not result in the authentic renewal of ministries and of lives that was intended. And~that does not say that the Spirit hds not been with us! After all, whole masses of populations lack success, lack necessities, lack knowledge, even though the working of the Spirit in their lives may be pro-found-- so profound, in fact, that our age probably will not know what groups and which actions have been truly effective in renewing the face of the earth. Looking at the poor and the oppressed and the ignorant~ one could judge that all they do and have done is to make mistakes! But we don't know. And we don't know about ourselves~ either. So one day we may discover that we have made some bad decisions. Does that mean that the Spirit is not with us, "or was not present at the time of the decision-making? Let us transpose the questions to another level: Is the Spirit not with prayerful poor or oppressed or ignorant persons? H~ive we made successful results to be our criteria by which to judge the value of prayer? It is-not necessarily success that characterizes the value of our renewal efforts. True renewal is characterized by love--a love that keeps growing in the same Spirit~regardless of success or failure, a love that does not allow factions to develop--factions made up of those who knew better all along, those who should have known better in the first place, and those who, in the clear light of hindsight, can now tell us better. Is renewalactive within the hearts of the cOmmunity members? If.so, then renewal is active within the fiber of~the community, and that community will be renewed. Ask ~f the community is loving, open, to the ideas of each person, or are there m(mbers whose ideas are always disregarded a priori because, for example, they "talk all the time without thinking!" Some people, unfortunately pei'haps, think by talking: as a result, much of what they say gets tuned out. Yet, in a "controlled-process situation," where solitary reflection is insisted upon as a pre-requisite to the sharing of insights, the tuning out of anyone by any6ne else is definitely a sigff of bad will, and a hindrance to the renewals process. 36 / Review.for Religious. Jan.-Feb. 1983 Another instance: does a clique of judges hold court privately on the inner workings and outer behaviors of the group? Thoughtful dialogue about per-ceived problems and weaknesses can be a sign of a loving community because thoughtful dialogue imp!ies a sincere desire to include ever more intensely Christ who is present where two or three are gathered in his name; but carping criticism is as different from thoughtful dialogue as chewing gum is from eatirig a hearty meal. Attempts at dialogue with chronic complainers are a wrong-way drive down a one-way street--just that pleasant, and just that effective. On the other hand, dialogue, which includes elements of constructive criticism, can be useful and invigorating. is the community loving? Does every person feel free to express opinions and to raise questions, knowing that the opinion expressed will be valued, and that questions asked will be seen not as signs of stupidity, but rather as signs of sincerity? ls the community loving? Or would a member cringe who has to ask for a substitute to wash dishes, a driver to the doctor, a helper on a project which is running late. So many indications of love, or its absence, could be listed--and most of them come down to simple, everyday acts which indicate an unselfish-ness, a lack of self-importance, a kind way of thinking. The process of renewal should, of its nature, be !ight, joyful, and exciting. What was old is becoming young again! What was broken is being healed! What was listless is being invigorated! When renewal is experienced as tire-some, dull, irksome, something is wrong. The mark has been missed. Better to stop and play a game or put a vase of flowers on the table: to sing a song or have an ice cream party. If we are truly renewing, we are becoming more and more like the happiest people who have ever lived: Jesus, whose awareness of the Father kept him headed toward the breathtaking experience of Resurrec-tion; our founders, whose glimpses of what it means to help others come into contact with Eternal Beauty made their lives adventure stories. Our founding documents brim with the possibilities open in life for you and for me. If we are not filled with happy thanksgiving for creation, not convinced that life is a splendid opportunity for sharing a magnificent message, then we still need renewing. How do we become and stay renewed? A lot depends on attitude. We can go through a group process and come out animated or disgusted--it depends on attitude. Any process can fail if those who come to it are disgruntled because they have to work in small groups, or because they had to stop what they were doing to come to "another meeting," or because they have convinced themselves that processes are for the purpose of manipulation. If process after process results in a heavy, sarcastic atmosphere, it may be time to say, "Per-haps we are not going to be renewed. Maybe we are going to die." And a funeral service could well be the next process--to lay to rest the hopes and dreams of the founder, the hopes and dreams that this group had been ¯ intended to realize today. A Word on Tomorrow's Renewal As we have seen, negative attitudes can sabotage renewal efforts. Positive attitudes, however, can enliven these efforts with ease and graciousness. Con-sider, as an example, the study of revised constitutions. As mentioned earlier, a study does not, in itself, guarantee or signify renewal--but the spirit in which a study is undertaken can be, indeed, a sign of renewal, if the corporate and individual qualities of Christian love highlight the interaction as the members explicate their documents together. Usually revised constitutions are couched in current theological terms-- which undoubtedly are interpreted differently among the membership. A study of these terms and of the varying understandings can be a fruitful "grassroots" source of reflection; and when it turns out that interpretations do differ, perhaps drastically, that is just fin!! Why not? Go through your community's constitution by yourself sometime. Is every phrase crystal clear? Is every underlying assumption apparent and familiar to you? Do you have a suspicion that there is more being implied than a cursory reading indicates? Or do you have other suspicions: that you know exactly what particular passages mean to certain others of your group and that your own interpretation differs vastly from theirs? The process of revising constitu-tions was intended to provide a theoretical framework wherein renewal could take place. The riches of our revised documents may be far greater than we realize, especially if we have not given ourselves the benefit of taking a close look at the fine print, and more especially, if we have not taken advantage of the opportunity to share our insights with others, and of learning from their impressions and reactions. Firm understanding of our own thought takes time; firm understanding of one another's thoughts is an even slower process. It is also tricky in that we must constantly allow for change (growth) in our own and in the other's thinking. However, if we are to know both ourselves and our documents, we may need to face up not only to the inspirational aspects, but also to the hard questions that result when differing interpretations are discussed openly. Did anyone ever say not to question our documents? The asking of searching questions may be a great source of renewal, particularly the asking of searching questions by our own Companions, within the context of our own communities. If we are fortunate enough to belong to a group that is honest, open, and tolerant, we can increase in our appreciation of the elusive nature of truth. As we ponder truth's way of moving past our present understandings, its way of surrendering itself only to the most persistent of pursuers, we can grow in our appreciation of the ongoing nature of truthful renewal--and we will not grow tired. On the contrary, we will grow livelier as we support one another as individuals, as we contribute to the cohesiveness and effectiveness of our communities, and as we witness in our ministries that ongoing efforts are needed if we are to become an ever-renewed people on our way to an ever-new God. Am I Growing Spiritually? Elements for a Theology of Growth Matthias Neuman, O.S.B. Father Neuman is a Professor of Theology at St. Meinrad Seminary. An earlier article, "The Contemporary Spirituality of the Monastic Lectio." is still available as a reprint. Father Net~man may be addressed at St. Meinrad Seminary: St. Meinrad, IN 47577. ecently a student at our seminary expressed his judgment about the quality of the theological and spiritual training offered to him: "Because of the many talents, and abilities of our faculty I am sometimes overwhelmed by the,vast-ness of what one should know and be. This has contributed to .a feeling of insecurityand incompetence on my part in tackling pastoral duties and spir-itual responsibilities." In a later conversation this student indicated that the variety of theological disciplines, the pluralism within each discipline, and the multiplicity of personal spiritualities forced him toward too many choices and subsequently a stalled indecision towards his professional and spiritual devel-opment. This young man. rather sharply reflects the problem that confronts many people today. The American religious scene corrals a grab bag of inter-ests, from mysticism to social action, from pure rationalism to biblical funda-mentalism, from family-c~ntered religion to process cosmology. The spiritually minded individual, fortunately or unfortunately, gets exposed to most of these religious trends at"some time or other. Besides being intellectually confusing this incredible mixture tends to stall one's personal integration, growth and competence in the spiritual life. In this article I wish to explore the possibility and issues of a viable "theology of spiritual growth.L' I would like to search out some concrete directives by which a Christian adult might seriously look at his or her life and give a satisfying response to the question: "Am ! growing spiritually?" 38 Am I Growing Spiritually? / 39 This tremendous concern of faith-minded adults for their o~,n spiritual growth cannot be separated from the larger thrust of American religion into the realm of interiority and spirituality. At the outset it would be good to take some time to clarify what is meant by the two terms spirituality and spiritual growth. At least in Roman Catholic circles, and I suspect beyond, spiritualio, has become a "hot" subject in recent years. Books, workshops, prayer seminars and directed retreats proliferate and vie for the increasing crowd of concerned believers intent on deepening their faith. This movement in spirituality high-lights a number of concerns in American religious practice. There is, first, the desire to break through the abstractions and formalismsof religion to gain a personal, immediate contact with God. This desire also wants to go beyond the generality of scriptural l~hrases such as "life in the Spirit" and "following the Lord." These are certainly important but they need to be fleshed out with a commonsense language of our time and culture. Second, prayer is viewed,as "being-in-the-presence-of" the Divine rather than an obligatory addressing of the Deity; it is personal communion with God. Third, by means of spirifuality people wish to free their emotions and use their real-life experiehces as their primary religious foundation in place of theoretical dogmas. And, lastly, the spirituality thrust calls each man and woman to develop a very persOnal and intimate religious practice. These concerns convey some of the flavor of the spirituglity movement, but they do not make precise the structured shifts that take place in the religious practice.of people. Fo.r this we need to know the basic elements of any spiritu-° ality. I would like to suggest four constitutive elements which are always operative, either explicitly or implicitly, within a given spirituality9 I. The point at which God touches people in their dai~v lives. The~real, generating source of any spirituality is found where the person oi" per~ns s~e~nse the p,resence of Mystery or of the Transcendent in their everyday lives. Wher-ever we sense that a power beyonff draws us out of ourselves and gives us a feeling of awe or of selfless love (the Holy), then a spirituality begins.2 Those everyday moments, places, events or persons which join us to the Transcen-dent ground the structural origin of any sPirituality. 2. The supports constructed to protect and nourish this experience of Mystery. The instinctive reaction to an experience of the Holy is to surround it with activities: derived from our best abilities, which are intended to'shore up and protect, and thus contribute to the likelihood that the Mystery will appear to us again. Whatever form these follow-up activities take, they constitute the intrinsic "devotions" of the spirituality. 3. A method of.focusing one's attention,for the renewed encounter with Mystery. Such styles of "attending" are, in fact, methods of prayer. From a phenom, enological perspective, every style of prayer--meditation or contem-plation, communal or ritual movement--reflects a particular way of organiz- 40 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 19~3 ing and stimulating consciousness to prepare for Mystery. 4. A method of growth and conversion. Every spirituality encloses some plan for extending the benefits and riches of one's contact with God into all other areas of one's life. To meet the Transcendent must rearrange values, and that rearrangement must automatically push itself into all other parts of a person's total !ife-world. A spirituality, then, inherently implies some kind of spiritual growth. This last item of the structure of spirituality needs development, thus bringing us to the major concern of this paper: a theology of spiritual growth. Our American culture is obsessed by the need for progress. People feel compelled to constant growth--intellectually, personally and spiritually. Not unlike so many consumer products that we buy, each year (we feel) we should be able to measure ourselves as "new and improved."This often rabid quest mirrors the ethos of American modernity itself, the cumulative result of indus, trialization, technology, mass media and the.myth of prbgress.3 This cultural storm has flooded into the religious milieu of America as well, engulfing all the branches of the Christian tradition. The myth of contin-ual growth, the American dream, has ever so forcefully incorporated itself into our religious practice and hopes. People feel an intense need to be able to measure and plot their progress toward God. They ask for special courses and practica in spirituality, faith formation and prayer. They seek out spiritual directors with whom to identify evidences of their spiritual growth. This state of affairs generates a plethora of problems. First of all, few people seem to have any clear idea or conviction about what "spiritual growth" really consists of, or how to measure it. Like myths about sex, views of spiritual growth get passed around from popularized article to popularized conference. Countless people strive constantly to improve, to grow, but end up terribly frustrated because they aren't sure if they are getting anywhere-- because adequate criteria and a coherent theory are lacking. Marshall McLuhan once wrote: "The price of eternal vigilance is indifference,TM an ominou~warning for so many who cast themselves headlong into plans of spiritual regeneration. This presents us with a serious problem in Christian spirituality today. In the remainder of this article, I will try to indicate some componen~ts of a theology of spiritual growth which might assist Christians to make a better evaluation of their lives in their journey towards the Mystery of God. Three points, will be specifically addressed: i) the necessity of a critique of cultural theories of human growth; 2) a better use of Christian religious rcseurces as a foundation for valid spiritual growth; and 3) the importance of increasL,g *he role of personal responsibility for one's spiritual growth. The Necessity of a Critique of Growth Theories In the last quarter century, under the onslaught of the psychological revo-lution, an ~er-increasing array of theories of human growth have established Am I Growing Spirituall.v? / 41 themselves as elements of the American cultural scene. Philip Rieff's prophetic warning has ~come of age: Psychological Man lives by the ideal of insight--practical, experimental insight leading to the mastery of his own personality. Psychological Man has turned away from his Occidental preoccupation with transforming the environment and converting others. Rather. he now more nearly imitates the Oriental ideal of salvation through self-contemplative manipulation.5 Some perception and schematizing of human growth has traditionally bei:n a part of all folk wisdoms and religious traditions. The transition from child to adult was always hcknowledged, and a large portion of folk literature dealt'with the shifts in behavior, attitude and community-esteem that attach to the passage from boy to man or girl to woman. Similarly, religious traditions Of every kind have alwa3)~ sought to understand the fundamental ~hifts that occur in the course of human life and how this changes the individual relation-ship with God; the Hindu schema of Student-Householder-Wanderer-Holy Person serves as a typical example.6~However, these traditional understandings of human growth have been sharply accentuated and developed in our hyper-psychologized milieu. Not too long ago psychologists began to delineate more precise stages of growth--down to year-by-year and month-by-month. In addition to more narrowly identifying the temporal sequence, they also expanded the list of means by which such growth should occur. One fairly recent book lists a sample of the ways available to contemporary Americans, offering us growth by means of play, breathing, extended perception, smell, taste, touch, sex, family, encounter groups, peak experiences, gestalt therapies, LSD dreams, meditation, training intuition, psychedelic experiences and-- finally--relaxation .7 In such a supercharged atmosphere, is it any wonder that people start Worrying about "having to grow"?. They check themselves month by month to keep tabs on the normalcy of their progress. A man in a parish once told me of his anxiety that his mid-life crisis hadn't started on time! People can get abnormal trying too hard to be normal. A good theology of spiritual growth ought to address this issue head-on. Available theories are legion in our society. Just consider the complexities of balancing together Piaget's cognitive development,8 Erikson's psycho-social theory of growth,9 l~ohlberg's stages of moral development,10 Richard Jones' structuring of imaginal growth,~ Daniel Levinson's modeling of adult life-transitions, 12 and Elizabeth Kuebler-Ross' enumeration of the stages of dying.~3 Apparently the negotiation of one's way through that maze begins with the first month of life and never ends until the final breath. It would be a grim and determined individual who would seek never to sway from the tough road of.such normalcy: "Narrow is the path that leads to life and few there are who follow it" (Mt 7:!4)! What I find distressing is how easily and totally those growth schemas are imported wholesale into spiritual thinking and writing. Piaget and Kohlberg 42 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 are assumed to present ready-made outlines for faith development.14 Erikson's schema is accepted as the basis for identifying the major steps of adult religious conversion.~5 Levinson's adult life-transitions provide the hidden key to a mid-life "spirituality of crisis."16 . 1 would like to suggest that a theology of spiritual growth ought to provide a much deeper and more detailed critique of these'theories of human growth and their uses for spirituality. While there is much excellent research in these cultural theories of growth and development,and while they certainly offer a mine of insights to be tapped for a theology of spirituality, there is still a need for religious prudence in the acceptance of them.' Too often, for instance,, one encounters the feeling that the accurate following of this or that theory becomes binding ,for human happiness. "Normalcy" equals happiness and fulfillmen!! A theology of spiritual growth should exercise some critical defla-tion of such expectations. ,. Again, readers of psychological theories frequently assume~that a particu-lar age-related growth pattern can be made the target of personal decision and attacked forthwith. They forgetthat the most such schemes can accomplish for any individual is to provide possible awareness-points along the way toward long-range programs and decisions, points which might possibly help people to locate the source of some of their present blockages in one or other unre-solved issue of their past lives. There are, in other words, no instant panaceas. In seeking for balance in the utilization of these chronological growth patterns, a theology of spiritual growth would do well to brush off discarded philosophy books, rehabilitating, for instance, the existentialist notion of "event."~7 In the making of a human life, the setting of attitudes, actions and hopes is as much the result of the particular and unique events which happen to an individual as it is of the unfolding of any chronologically structured growth scheme. Most life events occur without our previous consent,'even though others may be defiberately planned and executed. The powerful exis-tentialist insight into event, however, has recently been smothered, philosophi-cally, in the waves of' structuralism. Bonhoeffer's Letters and Papers from Prison provide a good example of one man whose mind, heart and vision had been irrevocably changed and shaped by his unplanned prison experience.~8 Other areas cannot be developed here. But let me suggest that any ade-quate theology of spiritual growth must incorporate and develop four basic d~,namics of human and spiritual deepening. I have drawn these from a theory that combines social phenomenology and cultural anthropology. ,I. Chronological Growth Stages. This dynamic encompasses the many theo-ries that seek to explain how the structural human being (mind, emotions, sociality, and so forth) moves through the trajectory of life. Its purview.is the time line, and it locates the person as moving successively out of. oqe set of structures into a future set. Most of the growth schemas menti.oned above-- Erikson, Kohlberg, Levinson, and so forth--are good exp?sitors of, this Am I Growing Spiritually? dynamic of human growth. Knowing these chronological stages can give us some positive insight into how we have negotiated the human need to cope With emotional maturity, sociality, intellectual responsibility, and so forth. We need to know this, and it can serve as a fundamental indicator of our spiritual growth toward the mystery of God.19 2. Cultural Exposure. Just as significant for a basic human and spiritual deepening is the dynamic of cultural expression to which a person has been exposed. Here growth opportunities point to a richness or expansiveness of social, personal and religious experiences of life. This may be the. most ne-glected of all the basic areas of human and spiritual growth. Americans espe-cially hax~e been provincial---even to the point of denigrating the cultural riches of other peoples. Yet we have ,to realize that there are many ways of meeting the fundamental issues of life in family and society, of entering into interper-sonal relations, and so on. To limit oneself exclusively to the learned patterns of one:s own family or culture is, in effect, to deny the possibility of other ways of growing that God has offered to the human race. Cultural openness is also a means of grasping more profoundly just how God's life me~rges with our own. A personal example may illustrate what I mean here. 1 was raised in a small midwestern town, in a culture strongly shaped by traditional Germanic values. A cardinal belief of that culture was: You never get something,for nothing. That limited experience kept me from really understanding and inter-igrizing the New Testament notion .o.f charism--a gift of God freely bestowed. It wasn't until I had lived in another culture (Italy)~.f.or four years that the cultural expression of pure gift became an experienced part of my reality, enatiling me to interioriz_e this New Testament meanin.g. I doubt that this could have happened if 1 had clung rigidly to my inherited convictions. A broadbased cultural exposure can be a vital dynamic of both human and spiritual growth. Not only should we recognize this, but we should be ,willing to let ourselves be challenged by it. 3. The Depth of TranSformational Possibilities. This dynamic considers'to what extent the indivi~lual recognizes the opportunities that are available for changing one's life~ The previous element cab present numerous possibilities and values to test One's ability to go~ beyond and enrich one's inherited and socialized culture. This dimension of human deepening, though, looks far mor+ r~dically and openly to the future hnd to the goal of humanization than do the previous two areas. It incorporates the hope and realistic expectation that 6ur live~ can actually be reshaped and renewed into a creative new pattern that combines inherited values and newly-learned cultural expressions. The full reality of spiritual growth, then, must internalize the possibility that the true spiritual person will be the result of a creative religious act.2° 4. Integrative and Creative ~)ecision. This final dynamic specifies that unique moment when the three preceding dimensions are brought into mutual interac- 44 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 tion. Chronological growth, cultural possibilities, and projected changes are balanced and ready to be creatively merged by free decisions. This truly inte-grative dynamic of spiritual deepening is the traditional meaning of Wisdom. Christian theology has also called it "discernment in the Spirit of the Lord."!t is an axis of human and spiritual growth which reaches far beyond the simple importation of cultural growth theories into religious spirituality. These four elements of spiritual growth ought to provide at least a basic framework that would take us beyond a simple application of the chronologi-cal growth stages. Spiritual directors and reflective Christian adults should examine all four areas for material to answer the question: Am 1 growing spiritually? Christian Resources and a Theology of Spiritual Growth Having considered the problem of understanding growth in contemporary spirituality and the human social sciences, we must further inquire." Does the Christian religious experience offer any special contributions to this issue of spiritual growth? Does the Christian tradition add any unique perspectives in ascertaining the precise goals, means or methodological steps of authentic spiritual deepening? First, let us acknowledge that Scripture surely affirms some kind of reli-gious maturation. The Apostle Paul gently reprimands his congregation at Corinth: "I treated you as still infants in Christ. What I fed you with was milk, not solid food, for you we.re not yet. rea.dy for it" (I C° 3:1, 2). In another passage he contrasts the ways of Children with those of adults as a norm for spiritual deepening (! Co 13:9-12). Paul further notes the real possibility of regression or backsliding on the" spiritual journey: "! am astonished at the promptness with which you have turned away from the one who called you." (Ga 1:6). Along with other biblical writers (see Jn o16:12) the Apostle of the gentiles presents a definite conviction of the need for growth or deepen-ing on the spiritual journey. But we will look in vain for any systematic description of a life-pattern of holiness in the Scriptures. Alas, no biblical Erikson has appeared to lead us into this Promised Land. At best we can discern religious situations, spiritual responses to the situations, and recogni-tions that people have not progressed as far as they should have. Secondly, from a purely linguistic and cognitive viewpoint the Scriptures complicate the matter of trying to formulate a coherent theory of spiritual growth. This complication results from the cultural and religious pluralism that lies behind the,early Christian writings: this pluralism results in a variety of central symbols--all concretizing the same Christian wa~y.2~ The New Tes-tament encompasses a variety of goals in the spiritual process: the pascha~l pattern of Christ in us (Paul), the kingdom of God (Jesus), the holiness of God (I Peter), the life.and ministry of Jesus (synoptic gospels). Similarly diver~e are the means to attain these goals: aft active moral love (Paul), the new com-mandments (Matthew), loving knowledge (John) and personal conversion Am I Growing Spiritually? (Jesus). As if this were not enough, one fails to find the least evidence of any systematizing method which would trace the step-by-step procedures of spiri-tual growth through the means to the end. While many later Christian writers have attempted to formulate systematizing examples, they all impose a later schema on the earlier texts,z2 The absence in the New Testament of a step-by-step explanation of spiri-tual deepening should be understandable in a moment's reflection: these canonical writings are occasional pieces, not systematic expositions. Moreover, in the cultural milieu of their composition, subjective spiritual growth was not a high priority: it is our modern viewpoint that has elevated it to a primary concern. And yet the richness of spiritual experience in the Christian heritage does possess an immense wealth in its own right, one that need not be clipped or stretched to fit within our cultural categories of human growth. Methodo-logically, this suggests that a revisionist method of theology, such as the one outlined by David Tracy, should be introduced more forcefully into the realm of spirituality.23 The Christian heritage should challenge" contemporary culture, as well as vice-versa. I would like to suggest one issue which might be pursfiEd in this dialectical exchange. The question should be raised: Does the Christian religious vision even allow that spiritual growth have any single necessary ground-plan? Ought we not consider as a real possibility that the reason it is difficult to find a methodo-logical statement of spiritual growth in the Bible is because there isn't supposed to be one? These writings are open-ended! They provide no abs61ute goal of spiritual growth: they offer no absolute means of holiness: they organize no steps in an absolute methodological pattern. Taken as a collection of accumu-lated experience these writings simply give us a variety of examples of men and women who are "on the spiritual way." Like the parable of the Good Samari-tan which avoids a direct answer to the question: "Who is my neighbor?" the wholel import of the scriptural collection deliberately leaves a great deal of latitude for people to choose their own path. The implied message of the Good Samaritan story, "Be loving and you will recognize your neighbor," may be symbolic of the entire scriptural message. Paul's great theme of freedom in the Galatian letter forcefully accents that same open-endedness. "Before faith came, we were allowed no freedom by the Law . The Law was to be our gua~rdian until Christ came . lqow that that time has come we are no longer under that guardian" (Ga 3:23-25). That warning may be spoken against any absolute plan (including a growth plan) that would shackle human freedom. When Paul pleads with his hearers to be guided by the Spirit (5:26), he is admonishing people to remain open and a

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Lessons In Drawing, crayoning Pastel, China and Oil Painting. Geimau and French languages taught and -poken. Special attention paid to Klocutlon and Voice Culture. Normal course wit li Diploma for teaching. Strict attention given to Physical, social and Religious culture. Kee Mar college is located In a most attractive, refined, and healthful city of 14,00.) people. SEND FOK CATALOGUE AND JOUKNAL TO Ecv. 0. L. KEEDY, A. M., H. D., President, Hagorstown) Md. Coffees, Teas, Flour, Fish, and Canned Goods, Queensware, Glass-ware, e/c, etc. ■ ' f^Mi%ifMf, TltUNKS. I.KATIIHU (icons' AM) VALISES, 12 W. MARKKT ST., YORK, PA. Special Attention to Mail'Ofders. §I1©§®; "Isu. EMIL ZOTHE, Engravers Dies[g(tj6P anidj Wjmmfm%''g Jiewelev, 19 SOUTH NINTH STREET, • Opposite Post Office; PHILADELPHIA, PA. SPECIALTIES Masonic Marks, Society Badges, college Buttons. Pins, Scarf Pins, Stick Pins and Athletic Prizes. All Goods Ordered Through G. Z. Stnp. ■MHMMHRBMHMH ADVERTISEMENTS. Importers and Jobbers of «IDRUGS,I» Nos. 16 and 18 W. German Street, BALTIMORE, Offer to the trade their large and well-selected stock of Make a specialty to have on hand everything required by Pharmacists. A complete stock can at any time be selected or wants supplied. &•&■ ALONZO L. THOMSEN,^ RACK, WINDER SHARP AND LEADENHALL STS., P. O. Box 557, Baltimore, Md. I beg to call to the attention ot the Trade that I have re-cently added to my plant a complete set ol Drug Milling Ma-chinery of the most Improved pattern. GEQirft#SP-ANGLM, )(^rrJLZr3 No. 127 Chambersburg St., GETTYSBURG, PA. JOHN E. PITZER, MEMBER POST 9, G. A. R. 4H$S S€S83tT, —DEALER IN— Hats, Shirts, Shoes, Ties, Umbrellas, Gloves, Satchels, Hose, docket (Books, Trunks, Telescopes, (Rubbers, Etc., Etc. AMOS ECKERT. 0ITY HOTEL Gettysburg, Pa. JOHD, E, iu&HES, PROPfi Tins Hotf] is situated on Main street, one square I from 1\ and R. and W. M. R. B. Depots and within one-half minute's walk of the Diamond. Every room is heated, and lighted by electricity. 1'arlors on first and second floors. Bath and Toilet rooms I on second floor, gratis to guests. Rates $1 .50 to I $2.50 per day. Booms without Hoard 50 cents andl upward according to location. Excellent accommo-l dations for -50 people. Electric cars stop at the| door eveiy half hour. Livery Connected, with first-class Teams, and Battle-field| Guides at Low Hates. Dinner -with Drive over the Battle-field SI The College Metcufy. VOL. HI. GETTYSBURG, PA., APRIL, 1895. No. 2. THE COLLEGE MERCURY, Published each month during the college year by the Students Of Pennsylvania (Gettysburg) College. STAFF. Editor : HENRY E. CLARE, '95 Associate Editors : SYLVESTER C. BERGER. '95. E. A. ARMSTRONG, '97. J. EDWARD BYERS, '95- GEO. F. ABEL, 'g7 WILMER A. HARTMAN, '95. HORACE M. WITMAN, '95. ROSCOE C. WRIGHT, '95. Alumni Association Editor: REV. D. FRANK GARLAND, A. M , Baltimore, Md. Business Manager: HARRY D. NEWCOMER, '95. Assistant Business Manager: I. O. MOSER, '96. mnT.™, /One volume (ten months). . . . $1.00 ILRMS. -jingle copies .15 Payable in aivancc. All Students are requested to hand us matter for publication. The Alumni and ex-members or 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 COLLEGK MERCURY, Gettysburg, Pa. CONTENTS. EDITORIALS 19 IINDU GEOGRAPHY AND ASTRONOMY --- 20 LUTHER AS AN EDUCATOR --- 22 COLLEGE LOCALS 25 ALUMNI NOTES --- 29 TOWN AND SEMINARY NOTES 31 ATERNITY NOTES --- 32 | LITERARY SOCIETIES .---33 ATHLETICS --- 34 BOOK REVIEW - - - - - - - - - --35 S.ECENT GIFTS TO THE MUSEUM 35 EDITORIAL. THE business manager of the MERCURY wishes to thank those subscribers who re-sponded so promptly to the bills he recently sent out. It is frequently a very difficult mat-ter to collect subscription money and we are hap-py thus to be free of this unpleasant difficulty. The MERCURY certainly appreciates this mark of thought!ulness and assurance of support on the part of the Alumni and other subscribers. If the MERCURY receives the support it de-serves, it will abundantly repay the societies for their efforts in originating and conduct-ing it. * * * THE prospects for the present base-ball sea-son are unquestionably very bright. It is true that the material from which the team must be selected is rather scarce ; yet it is of such quality that it will be possible to decide upon a reasonably good nine. The oppor-tunity for Gettysburg to raise her standing in the college world is probably better this season than at any previous time in her athletic his-tory. In a few former seasons we may have had more and better material from which to select a team, yet the opportunity of showing off to any great advantage the skill we may have had was not nearly so favorable as in the present season. The number of games sched-uled for this season is greater than we usually have, and the standing of the institutions with which the games are to be played is decidedly higher. Hard work and loyal support from all hands is therefore extremely important. The manager cannot make the season a suc-cess unless the team enter heartily and earn-estly into the work. Neither can the team throw that enthusiasm and spirit into their work which is so essential to success unless ^■IHHMIHH 20 THE COLLEGE MERCURY. they receive assistance and encouragement from the student body. Let all help with hands and mouth to make this season a glori-ous success. Only hearty co-operation can make it such. *** WE were surprised not to see the Stars and Stripes waiving from the dormitory cupola on April 9th, the anniversary of "Lee's surrender to Grant." To have the flag unfurled over the spot where the General made his recon-noitre of the battlefield on that terrible July day of '63, would be a fit commemoration of his surrender at Appomattox. It is a day Ameri-cans should remember, especially Gettysburg people, who had sort of a personal acquaint-ance with the General. A better show of patriotism by the College on such days would not be amiss. For that purpose the new flag was purchased. * * * THE article, "Luther as an Educator," which was begun in the February number of the MERCURY but not continued in the March number on account of the sickness of the writer, will be completed in this number. * * * THE PRIZE SYSTEM.—That prizes are of-fered in all our institutions of learning to those students who attain highest degree of excel-lence in their studies argues in favor of the wisdom of the prize system. The student is encouraged to diligence and painstaking effort by the hope of reward. He is stimulated to greater exertion in the pursuit of knowledge. But there is an element of weakness in the prize system. They who seek knowledge for the "sake of the prize" are not genuine lovers of knowledge. They love the rewards of knowledge. To them wisdom does not have "price above rubies." Had the attainment of knowledge no reward to offer them they would be indolent. It is a question indeed whether or not he is a scholar who has gained knowledge merely for the sake of the reward, either in the prize which is given, or in the honor which it confers, or in the success which it makes possible. "Honesty is the best pol-icy," but he who is honest merely for the sake of policy is not honest at heart. He has not integrity of character. He who tells the truth merely because he finds that in the long run truth brings its own reward, is not really a truthful man. So he who studies merely for the sake of the reward which is offered, is not in the highest and best sense a true student. This is the element of weakness in the prize system. G. HINDU GEOGRAPHY AND ASTRONOMY. These subjects, though separate in our sci-ence, are inseparably allied in the monstrous extravagancies of Hindu science, falsely so called. It would be a waste of time and space to crowd these columns with their wild and ridiculous nonsense upon these subjects. Yet it may be worth while to give the reader an idea as to the unscientific, method of research employed by the ancient Brahmins of India. They claim that the physical universe is di-vided into fourteen spheres—seven superior. The first of which is our earth, and seven in-ferior ; consisting (with the exception of our earth) of immense tracts of space bestudded with the stars, the habitations of the gods, and rising in concentric circles not unlike the rings of Saturn. The seven inferior worlds form regular de-scending series, which, it is needless to say, are the abodes of wicked and loathsome creat-ures. Our own earth is said to be circular and flat like the flower of the water lily in which the petals project beyond each other. Its habit-able portions consist of seven circular islands or continents separated by different oceans. Its central or metropolitan island, the abode of | men, is called Jamba Dvvip. Around this rolls a sea of salt water ; next follows the sec-ond island and around it the sea of sugar-cane juice ; around the third the sea of spirituous THE COLLEGE MERCURY. 21 ) it e t-lis- j ts 3f| is c-le | L1S I liquors ; around the fourth the sea of clarified butter ; around the fifth the sea of sour curds ; around the sixth is the sea of milk. Then the seventh is on uninhabited land of pure gold, so immense that it equals the size of all the [islands and intervening oceans. It is begirt with a bounding wall of huge mountains, which enclose within their bosoms the realms of everlasting darkness. Now, for a conception of the size of this fantastic area of land and sea, the central [island is several hundred thousand miles in di-ameter, and the sea of the same breadth. The [next island and sea are each twice as broad as [the first, and so on for the rest of the islands land their seas until we come to the last. Just [imagine the huge size of our planet, which, in [diameter far excels the distance even of our [sun from us ! In the midst of the immeasurable plain, from Ithe very centre of Jamba Dwip, rises Su-Meru, [the loftiest of mountains, to the height of ■several hundred thousand miles in the form of fen inverted pyramid, having the summit two Ihundred times as broad as the base. This [summit is in turn surmounted with three swel-ling cones—the highest of these cones piercing Ithe upper spheres of vacancy with three golden peaks, which is the favorite residence of the sacred Triad.* At its base stand four lofty Els, on each of which grows a mango tree several thousand miles high, bearing fruit lany hundred cubits in length and sweet as lectar. From these mangos, as they fall, lows a mighty perfumed river, so sweet that lose who drink thereof exhale the odor from leir persons for a distance of several leagues. Phere also grow rose apple trees, the fruit of vhich, the size of an elephant, gives rise to another river which converts the earth over vhich it passes into pure gold. Such is a brief notice of the ideas of Geog-aphy furnished by the sacred writings. In turning to the upper world we obtain a limpse of Hindu Astronomy. The second * Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva as the Creator, Preserver and Destroyer. world of the ascending series, or that winch immediately overvaults the earth, is the re-gion of space between the earth and the sun, which is declared on divine authority to be distant only a few hundred thousand miles. The third in the upward ascent is the region of space intermediate between the sun and the polar star. Within this region are the plane-tary and stellar mansions. The distances of all the heavenly luminaries are given with the utmost precision, but would be of no value here. The moon is placed beyond the sun as far as the sun is beyond the earth ! Next suc-ceed, at equal distances from each other, the stars, and beyond them the planets Mercury, Venus and Mars. . Jupiter and Saturn are also at equal distances from each other, and beyond these the constellation of Ursa Major, and last of all, the Polar Star. The remaining four regions continue to rise at immense and in-creasing distances. The entire circumference of the celestial space is given with wonderful minuteness. In all these four superior worlds are framed mansions of surpassing beauty for the different orders of spirits. The seventh or last is destined for the abode of Brahma, the Lord and Creator, who rules over the whole universe. Such is the exceeding beauty of the palace, that one of the "divine sages" said that it would take two hundred years to enumerate its beauty, as it contains everything that is precious or beautiful or magnificent in all the other heavens but in a superior degree. What then must it be considering the magnificence and grandeur of some of these ! Glance at the heaven in only the third world prepared for Indra, the king of the different ranks and de-grees of the subordinate deities. Its palaces are "all of purest gold, so resplendent with vessels of diamonds and columns and orna-ments of jasper and sapphire and emerald, and all manner of precious stones, that it shines with a splendor exceeding the brightness of twelve thousand suns. Its streets are of purest crystal, fringed with fine gold. It is sur-rounded with a forrest of all kinds of trees and flowering shrubs, whose sweet odors are dif- ^■■iHHH^HMHHMMHH 22 THE COLLEGE MERCURY. fused around for hundreds of miles. It is be-studded with gardens and pools of water, warm in winter and cool in summer, richly stored with fish, water fowl and lillies, blue, red and white, spreading out on a hundred or a thou-sand petals. Winds there are, but they are always refreshing; storms or sultry heats be-ing unknown. Clouds there are, but they are light and fleecy and fantastic canopies of glory. Thrones there are which blaze like the corus-cations of lightning, enough to dazzle any mortal vision. And warbliugs there are of sweetest melody, with all the inspiring har-monies of music and of song, among bowers that are ever fragrant and ever green." Such is a brief description of the beliefs of the ancient Hindus regarding the universe. The reader will remember that these de-scriptions are not to be taken as figurative or emblematic, as is appropriate to a state of glory of whose nature and details the heart of man cannot conceive, but that they were un-derstood as they are taught, in the strictest literality. B., '97. LUTHER AS AN EDUCATOR. II. Thus, in all the world * * * * teachers have heen found necessary when a nation was to be elevated.—LUTHER. Luther is to be called an "educator" in vir-tue of what he wrote and advocated concern-ing education rather than in virtue of his work as a university professor. Among his writings the ones which bear directly on edu-cation are the address "To the Mayors and Aldermen of all the Cities of Germany in Be-half of Education," and the sermon on "The Duty ot Sending Children to School." In the prefaces to his catechisms are to be found many suggestions as to methods of teaching. From these writings we learn what his educational views were, but we get from them no light be-yond the theoretical. He was more than theo-retically interested, however, for we find him bearing, in 1525, a commission from the Duke of Mansfield authorizing him to establish two schools, one primary and the other secondary, in the town of Eisleben. These schools, we are told, became models "both in the course of study and methods of instruction'' for many other schools. As an educator Luther had a clearly de-fined ideal (the absence of which has character-ized many' of the educational efforts of the past). In this he takes the precedence of Herbart, one of the distinctive features of whose work was to inquire as to the end of education. To him it was ethical. Luther's end was the attainment of Christian manhood. Along with this ideal we find running an everpresent view of utility, now toward the church, now the state, but keeping away from sorditity at all times. This "practical bent" can be readily accounted for by considering the purpose his educational writings were intended to serve, and the times in which they were written. Before advocating any reformation in educa tional. matters, Luther surveyed the existing state of education and passed his critical ver-dict upon it. His actions in themselves would be sufficient criticism, but we have criticisms far more explicit referring to the several edu-cational agencies briefly spoken of in a previ-ous article. He says : "The universities are becoming weak, the monasteries are declin-ing." Again : "I should prefer that our youth remain ignorant and dumb rather than that the universities and convents should re-main the only source of instruction open to them." But, lest it be objected that those criticisms were from the religious rather than from the educational point of view, let him speak again: "Instead of good books, the senseless, useless books of the monks * * * so that the Latin language was corrupted, and neither good schools, good instruction, nor good methods of study remained." In this conviction concerning existing ediv cational efforts together with his conception of the possibilities and of the necessities of edu cation in relation to the welfare of both church and state we find the impulse of his educational efforts. They were unselfish efforts. This is very plainly shown by the element of devotion I THE COLLEGE MERCURY. 23 to both the church and the state which is man-ifested by his works. He was convinced that he was discharging a duty second to none as he worried and worked in this cause. It has been said that the German school system of to-day is but a realization of the ideas of Luther. In view of the rank now held by this system, in view of the attention it is receiving from educators of all lands, no greater encomium can be pronounced upon Luther's educational efforts. Nor does the statement appear overdrawn. In Luther's plan he provides three grades of schools—the primary school, the secondary school and the university—thus having a regular gradatiou from the time of the child's first entering school until the time of his completion of the university course. This is substantially the German system of to-day. 'Tis true, the sec-ondary school is quite complex, but this fact [does not disprove the presence of Luther's idea. In this plan we find that forshadowed which is clearly brought forth in his writings, i. e., universal education—the distinguishing feat-ure of Luther's work. He would have no dis-tinctions, whatever, made whereby any class would be deprived of the privileges of an edu-cation. In the light of what now exists, this seems a commonplace idea. But its true sig-nificance is seen when we remember that never before had it been advocated by any man nor had it been practiced by a State. We likewise feee its significance when, we remember that the masterly educational tractates written after Shis day, advocated education for the nobility, or, at best, for the gentility. In a previous ndB^ferticle we have seen how the education of girls iorHwas ver-V generally neglected during the mid-dle ages. (And yet it received more attention [then than at any previous time.) Luther trongly advocated schools for girls that they too might receive the benefit of education. As result of his work in this direction we find im, in a letter written six years after his ap-eal to the state authorities, rejoicing over the stablishment of girls' schools. If Luther had :r-ld| n-u-i-je n- IUI an re-to )se an im the advanced no idea besides the one of universal education—education for the common people as well as for the nobility—his portrait might justly hang in the gallery of educational re-formers. Strange as it may seem, Luther was an ar-dent advocate of state education. This idea was one which dates back to the educational; system of the Persians, and which had been successfully tried by the classic nations. But through the middle ages, after the time of Charlemagne, no evidence of state efforts is to-be found. It remained for Luther, a church-man, a religious reformer, to strike the first effective blow at the existing system of educa-; tion in subordination to the church. In his plea for state attention to education he goes so far as to argue for it "though there were no soul, no heaven, no hell, but only the civil government." He launched severe criticism against the Papists because they manifested no concern, whatever, in civil affairs, because their educational system tended to the cloister and to the priesthood almost exclusively. He did not lightly esteem home education. It was from no such reason he looked to the state. On the contrary he desired much teach-ing to be done in the home. But the condi-tion of affairs was such that home education could not be looked to to supply the demand: made by both church and state. He said that even if the homes could do it, some would not.' The majority of them could not do it if they would. And even if the homes were qualified to do it, duties and employments would leave no time for its accomplishment. Thus, the church being removed by his supposition and the home being unable to accomplish it, if ed-ucation is to be attended to at all, it must be at-tended to by the state. He went one step further and proposed that,when necessary, com-pulsory attendance should be employed by the slate. This movement, at the present time, is making steady progress. In due time so-ciety will reap the benefit of this seed-sowing time. Luther put the matter in a ver}r strong way. His way was: "But I maintain that 24 THE COLLEGE MERCURY. : the civil authorities are under obligations to compel the people to send their children to school.'' But we are disposed to look briefly at some other views he had, many of which are actual-ized in the pedagogy of the present day. The curriculum of studies proposed by Luther was a liberal one. In it, as is to be expected, he gives the first place to religion. Then follow the languages. Compayre laments that Luther wanted only the "learned languages, Latin, Greek and Hebrew." It is true he wanted all these and defended their place in the curricu-lum in a very forceful way. He was arguing against churchmen and used arguments which were of a churchly nature. What arguments he would have used under other conditions we can only conjecture. But it seems that this lament, which remains unannotated by the American editor, does Luther an injustice. His translation of the scriptures is in itself an evidence of his esteem for the vernacular. But we have other testimony. In his address to the Mayors, etc., he says: "Would to God each town had also a girl's school, in which the girls might be taught the gospel for an hour daily, either in German or Latin." And again, . to teach them reading and writ-ing in German a few hours daily." From these we cannot conclude otherwise than that he was an advocate of the vernacular, at least in the primary grade. But even that was a great stride in educational progress. He would have the "whole course in mathematics studied." The liberal arts of the middle ages he did not hold in very high esteem. He wished history and poetry, as well as both in-strumental and vocal music. His arguments in behalf of history are the very ones which led to its proscription by the Jesuits. In speaking of history and poetry he says: "How I regret that I did not read more poetry and history, that no one taught me in these branches. Instead of these I was obliged with great cost, labor and injur}7, to read Sat-anic filth, Aristotelian logic, and Scholastic philosophy, so that I have enough to get rid of it." To one interested in the trend of the peda-gogy of the present day there are in Luther's views several very significant points. He be-lieved in providing physical exercise and great freedom in the school. He says the young have for such things ' 'a natural (that trouble-some and all-comprehensive term) desire which should not be restrained." He also held that "by the gracious arrangement of God children take delight in acquiring knowl-edge." What do we have in this last sentence if not the doctrine of interest, as elaborated in later years ? It seems almost incredible that our present movement of nature studies could have found an advocate at such an early day. But can we question the fact when we hear Luther say: "We are at the dawn of a new era, for we are beginning to recover the knowledge of the external world * * !" He criticised Erasmus for a lack of interest in the mysteries of nature, saying: "Erasmus is indifferent and does not care to know how fruit is developed from the seed. * * Erasmus passes by all that, takes no account of it, and looks upon external objects as cows look upon a new gate." The employment of natural ob-jects in education is generally conceded as one of the hopeful promises of better things. In these views Luther is "a modern" in educa-tional affairs. Space bids us close. In the realm of methods Luther seems to have had many views which are approved at the present time. He was disposed, at times, out of his high esteem of teaching, to rank it above the minis-try. He regarded an experience in teaching as an essential factor in one's preparation for the ministry. "I would have no one chosen as preacher who has not previously been a school teacher." Nor was this experience which he desired that ofan unprepared teacher. He advocated their being trained and prepared before entering upon the profession. What "might have been" we do not know, but the best results of Luther's work for education were interfered with by the Thirty-Years War. When the history of education is written gi THE COLLEGE MERCURY. 25 Ifrom the standpoint of a gradual evolution, Luther's name must have a prominent place. A number of educators following him have I been influenced by him, but we- are able to ; find no educator preceding him from whom his ideas could have been borrowed, by whom [ they could have been suggested. He was a [pioneer in educational reform. His portrait jwas fittingly selected and placed upon the walls of that educational lecture room. H. P. COLLEGE LOCALS. J. EDWARD BYERS AND E. A. ARMSTRONG, Editors. Tennis! Baseball! Caps and gowns! New preps. "Any time after six." '95 on home stretch. Commencement on June 20th. Something new: (?) Ashen walks. "And the green grass grows all around." Required work in the "Gym" ends on 1st of lay. The important question : Who will be the fen commencement speakers ? _ F., '98, says he doesn't like to have Fellows sit on him. Says he prefers girls. Socio says the latest style in spring bonnets is to trim them without Bows. 'Pete" reports a pleasant vacation—lots of un and plenty of good times. Says the latest song in Baltimore is "Nay, O, my, me, O, my!" Work was again resumed on the new ath-letic field during the recent vacation. A full force has been steadily employed, and the Ivork is progressing very nicely. Though college closed on Friday noon, larch 22", "Kitzy" didn't leave Gettysburg |ntil Saturday morning. No reasons were £lven, but the following explains itself: BALTIMORE, MD. March 23, 1895. JEAR IKEY: Reached home safely this P. M. Was sick on the train. Had cramps in my right arm. Think my shoulder must be dislocated. Re-member me to all anxious and inquiring friends. Sincerely, KITZY. Mr. Josie Enniss, a student of Gettysburg College, is home for his Easter vacation.— Brunswick {Md.) Herald. We call him only Joe. Dr. B.'s latest: "What is the cheapest part of a man's face?" Ans.: "His nostrils—two for a scent." The class of '97 has now another reason for the boastful pride which it is continually man-ifesting, in the recent discovery of its happy fortune in possessing a married member. It was made kuown very unintentionally by Mr. S , who accidentally displayed a letter from one of the little ones, addressing him as "Dear papa." Say, Billy, which are your favorite hymns ? Billy W.: I have four: Nos. 235, 261, 330, 344. Look at them once and tell me if you don't think the tunes are charming. It manifests a woeful destitution in geo-graphical knowledge when, in reply to a few questions, a Freshman answers that Egypt is in Asia and that Sicily lies south-east of Africa. Atlases are cheap, Charlie, better get one. A little dog came to chapel the other morn-ing. Dr. H., apparently to justify the little fellow, said : "Now, I know that little dog will-behave himself, if the rest will." There is something wrong with Ikey's cal-endar— he observed passion week, March 28 to April 4. Services were held regularly from 7 to 10 P. M. In the preliminary contest held at the close of last term Kump, '95, was chosen as the one to represent our college in the ' 'State Inter- Collegiate Oratorical Contest" to be held in Lancaster, on the 27th of this mouth. At the same time Wright, '95, was also chosen as a second man. York County Academy is now preparing seven men who will enter the Freshman class next year. We already assure them a hearty welcome to all our advantages, and hope noth-ing will interfere with their purposes. That "smart Alec" C(K)ain is the way Dr. B. designates a famous biblical character. Our friend K., in '97, is indignant that his antedi-luvian ancestor should thus be spoken of. ^^■^■■^^■^■■■■■^■■iM^MBBMB^B^HBB! 26 THE COLLEGE MERCURY. Charlie B., '95, had occasion, recently, to refer to "The dead book." It must be quite an interesting volume. Echoes from the burglar alarm in dormitory during vacation: Waldo—Don't you think I'd better go to my room and get my pistol ? "Brady"—Gentlemen, this is a serious case. "Gov." be careful. Don't rush rashly into danger. Let me go up town and get a police-man. (Faints). Finch (badly scared)—Dear me, I wish I were home. Ikey (after excitement had subsided)—I wish I could have seen the burglar, but I had a pressing engagement that evening, and couldn't possibly be present. We have no knowledge of any instance when an animal spoke, have we ? Sem.—How about Baalam's ass? At a recent business meeting: Mr. Rietz—For critic, I nominate Barbe-henu. Freddy—Mr. President, I nominate her hus-band, "Die." Miller, '95, spent vacation with Leidich, '95, and together they visited many interesting points in Northern Berks County, making geo-logical and minerological investigations. They brought with them many fine specimens. Speaking of the merits of different kinds of bread, Brube remarked: "Yes, I like that steam bread. When I was home we always got our bread from the steam laundry." Dr. Stahley, who was sick and unable to at-tend to his college work for several weeks last term, we are glad to know has again returned from Easton, with regained health, and is now able to pursue his work again in his usual effectual way. Miller, Diehl, Leidich and Moser visited Kutztown State Normal during vacation, and were present upon the occasion of the anni-versary celebration of the Keystone Library Society, connected with the institution. They report having had a very pleasant time and having created quite a sensation among the ladies there. The delightful treat given each year to the Senior class was looked forward to by the present distinguished one with more than usual pleasure. The kind invitation to attend a reception given by Dr. and Mrs. McKnight was accepted by the class most heartily. It would seem as though it had some presenti-ment of what it was to enjoy upon that occa-sion, which will ever be cherished in happy rememberanee as one of the fondest recollec-tions of the class of '95. No effort was spared to make the evening one of pleasure and en-joyment. After spending a few hours in agreeable conversation, etc., the guests were ushered to the dining room, where they were served with such delicacies as would appease the palate of the most fastidious epicure. This sumptuous repast over, toasts followed. Our worthy president, Mr. H. E. Clare, act-ing as toastmaster, called for the following toasts in his natural, pleasing manner: "Our Host and Hostess," Witman; "Class of'95," Byers; "Our Future Career," Kump; "Our Stars," Richards; "Our New Athletic Field," Hartman; "Our Alma Mater," Bell; " '95 as Students," Dr. McKnight. Keffer and Keefer, as also Hollinger and Wiest, entertained for a while with beautiful selections on banjos and mandolins. Several choruses were sung by the class, after which they very reluctantly bade their kind host and | hostess "good night." The Senior Class has shown its college spirit I by deciding to wear caps and gowns during the | spring term and at all Commencement exer-cises. No class, heretofore, in the history of I the institution, has appeared in the academic robe, although we believe it had been partially adopted by a recent class. '95 is to be com-mended for the stand it has taken in reference | to this matter, as it will tend to elevate col-lege spirit and make the class ever remem-ber its last days in college. Let the example, so well set, be followed by '96 and succeeding | classes. It will lend dignity to our Commence- r ment exercises. White, '97, was unable to return on time on account of sickness, We miss him in his ac-[ customed place on the base-ball field as well as| in the class room. It was in Physiology that Dr. S. received | the following answers : ' 'What makes you stand up ? " Harney—"Because I must." In regard to the time when exercise shouldI not be taken, T. says, "It is never well to ex-j ercise before rising.'' And W., in answer toI the question, "When is it not good to go fisli-l ing," sagely replied, "When you can't get I bite." H. told the Dr. that it was better to ex-| THE COLLEGE; MERCURY. 27 ercise in the open air than in a closed room. Hope the Dr. will N. B. The Seniors are taking Natural Theology. It is said the earnestness of the professor rather startled the B. S. men who had never before recited to him. The "rattling" must [have been contagious as we hear of Dick talk-i ing learnedly of a ' 'human man.'' The Sems., who had been boarding at the (Hotel de McCullough, left in a body because the College boys there did not show the proper respect due to them as superiors. Sammie threatened to cut off his mustache Iduring vacation. We see him still nursing it [and it is rumored that he wears it "by re- Iquest" of his best girl. A normal class has been organized at Prep. The course of study to be pursued is modeled {after suggestions of Prof. Thoman. The course twill be a great help to those intending to take the coming county examinations. I At the end of last term several of the boys Book a tramp across the mountains. The Geol- [ogy class will 110 doubt receive the benefit of their observations. Miller.and Leidich '95, took in quite a large portion of Eastern jPennsylvania, getting specimens and visiting natural curiosities. C, Jr., (near close of last term)—"I wish kou fellows over there would keep quiet. I want to stud}'." Fellows across the hall—"What are you tudying ? " C, Jr.—"I'm trying to study out how to get home on the amount of money I have.'' Those of the boys who were lucky enough .0 get to the Phi Kho Mu reception at Irving, 0 April 3, report a very pleasant time. We ould, however, advise one of the boys who as there to carry a microscope which might nable him to tell the difference between real .nd artificial daisies. During the past vacation Isett, '98, gave a peaching in Johnstown Y. M. C. A. Hall and ssisted H. P. Ecker at an organ recital in Carnegie Hall, Allegheny City. He also re-hited at an entertainment given by the students mi King's School of Oratory, of which he is a graduate. As Mr. Kump was. going to the Chapel to lear the lecture delivered on April 9th, by the nan with that unpronounceable name, he hap-pened to glance up to his window in the dorm-itory and saw that his room was enveloped in flames. In less time than it takes to tell it, he and several others were on the third floor and, without raising a general alarm, succeeded in putting out the fire. It seems that the student lamp in the room exploded, scattering oil over the table, chairs and carpet. The table cover is a total wreck as is also the cushion which was used on Mr. K.'s office chair. Among the injured are the carpet and office chair. Perlie now lives in Gettysburg. City in-fluences are beginning to tell on him. He has already begun to drop ruralities and adopt town customs and accents. We have not yet had the pleasure of meet-ing "Baby Nixon." Nevertheless we were rejoiced to see him on the campus a few clays ago. He is the very picture of "Pop." The concert given by the musical clubs of the college on Monday night, March the 18th, was declared by all who heard it the best con-cert ever given in Gettysburg by these organi-zations. Considering this fact, it was unfor-tunate that the clubs received so little patron-age. The audience was the smallest ever present at a concert of this kind, but the ap-plause was very enthusiastic. The Glee Club acquitted itself especially well. Their rendi-tion of the closing "Serenade" was fine. The instrumental clubs received numerous encores. A small amount was realized on the debt of the clubs. The following is a list of students who en-tered Prep this term: R. O. Diehl, Bedminster, Pa.; R. A. Brandt, Lebanon; H. V. Kahler, New Port; G. O. Lutz, Boiling Springs; L. P. Young, Belle-ville; R. D. Clare, Abbottstown; M. C. Wil-liams, Robt. E. Good, C. W. Stock, Gettys-burg; Amanda E. Bennett, Seven Stars; John Hartzel, Gettysburg; Geo. B. Hoover, Brandts-ville: Emory Brame, Mattie B. Johns, J. L-Siever, Gettysburg. The following contributions to the contin-gent fund of Pennsylvania College are hereby gratefully acknowledged : Christ Church, Gettysburg, Eev. L. S. Black, §17.05; Seventh Street Church, Lebanon, Rev. P. C. Croll, 82.12; Elk Lick, Eev. E. S. Johnston, $5; Grace Church, Westminster, Md., Eev. P. H. Miller, $4.50; Salem charge, Westminster, Md., Rev. S. A. Diehl, §1; Chambersburg, Eev. E. H. Leisenring, $13.65; St. Paul's, Millersburg, Eev. B. F. Kautz, $2.50; St. Mark's, Baltimore, Md., Eev. W. H. Dunbar, D. D., $45; Harrisburg, (personal contribution) Eev. S. Dasher, $1; Hazleton, Eev. John Wagner, $15.08; St. 28 THE COLLEGE MERCURY. James', Gettysburg, Rev. A. K. Steck, $4.75; Christ Church, York, Rev. G. W. Enders, D. D. $0.50; Lebanon, Rev. W. E. Stabler, $27.26; Glen Gardner, N. J., Rev. A. A. King, $2.30; Ashland, Rev. G. \V. Fritsoh, $1.20; Williamsport, Md., Rev. M. D. Gaver, $3; Philipsburg, N. J., Rev. T. C. Pritchard, $5.60; Uniontown, Md., Rev. G. W. Baughman, $4; Frost-bnrg, Md., Rev. C. A. Brill, $5; Zion, Harrisburg, Rev. D. M. Gilbert, D. D., $46.56; Taneytown Trinity, Taneytown, Md., Rev. G. W. McSherry, $1; St. Raul's, Newville, Rev. J. J. Kerr, $2; Arendtsville, Rev. D. T. Koser, $4; Phoenixville, Rev. G. E. Faber, $3.28; St. Mark's, Hanover, Rev. C. M. Stock, $12; St. John's, Hagerstown, Md., Rev. S. W. Owen, D. D., $12.40; St. Peter's, York, Rev. T. B. Thomas, $1.50; St. James', Ashland, Rev. W. M. B. Glanding, $2.21; St. Matthew's, Schuvlkill Haven, Rev. D. M. Moser, $5; St. Paul's, Fasten, Rev. A. H. F. Fischer, $20; Messiah, Philadelphia, Rev. M. H. Valentine, $23; Mercersburg, Rev. L. A. Mann, D. D., $2; St. Paul's, Altoona, Rev. E. J. Metzler, $2.71; St. Paul's, Spring Forge, Rev. A. A. Parr, $37.35; St. Paul's, Allentown, Rev. J. A. Singmaster, D. D., $10; St, Matthew's, Reading, Rev. R. W. Hufford, D. D., $12.59; St. John's, Mahanoy City, Rev. I. P. Zimmerman, $4.5o; Holv Trinity, Berlin, Rev. S. J. Taylor, $4.85; Jeffer-son,* Md., Rev. S. A. Hedges, $2.87; Felton, Rev. E. Manges, $2.21; First Church, Carlisle, Rev. H. B. Wile, $26.54; Trinity, Germautown, Rev. L. E. Albert, D. D., $33; Aaronsburg, Rev. A. G. Wolf, $5.51; Zion, York, Rev. A. W. Lilly, D. D., $9.50; St. John's, Lancaster, B. F. Alleman, D. D., $5; Stoyestown, Rev. L. N. Fleck, $7.50; Leitersburg, Md., Rev. Victor Miller, $3.25; West Fairview, Rev. J. L. Nicholas, $2; Third Church, Baltimore, Md., Rev. I. C. Burke, $15; Trinity charge, York county, Rev. F. S. Geesey, S10.40: St. Paul's, York, Rev: W. S. Freas, $12 06. H. C. PICKIW, Treasurer. Y. M. C. A. NOTES. At the last business meeting of the winter term, the following officers were elected for the ensuing year. President, H. E. Glazier, '96 ; Vice Pres., W. E. Wheeler, '97; Cor. Sec, R. W. Woods, '98 ; Rec. Sec, J. W. Kraft, '98 ; Treasurer, I. O. Moser, '96 ; Reporter, H. D. Shimer, '96. The new topic cards for this term have been distributed. Those who have not yet received any may get them at the Y. M. C. A. Hall. The various committees of the Association have been appointed and a list of them may be found in the topic cards. We are glad to see the great interest which many of the boys are taking in the work of Foreign Missions. A special Missionary Study Class has been organized, whose pur-pose is to study the history of missions. The book used for study is Smith's History of Missions. Several members of the class have volunteered their service for the foreign field. All who are concerned about spreading the gospel news to the many millions of heathen who are now in utter spiritual darkness, may greatly benefit the cause by joining this class. Missionary work is honorable, ennob-ling, and worthy of consideration rather than a commonplace thing and a subject of ridicule. On Tuesday evening, April 9th, a very in-teresting address was delivered in Brua Chapel by Prabala Ramachandrayya Gam, B. A. Mr. Garn is a converted Brahmin and a native of Madras, India. He spoke on the "Religion and Society of India.'' The many who had the privilege of hearing him can attest to his superior intellect. He explained the various religious'beliefs that have been and are in his J native country, and showed wherein they are false and how they have degraded rather than elevated his countrymen. In conclusion he made an earnest appeal to all in behalf of for-eign missions. Mr. Garn's intention in coming to this coun-try is to become acquainted with our Ameri-can institutions and to awaken a missionary spirit among our people. During the coming I year he will visit the various institutions and congregations of the Lutheran Church under the auspices of the Board of Foreign Missions. | We insert the folllowing exchange article, hoping that it may be a warning to all our members and student friends. The writer! does not magnify things, but writes the plain, | unvarnished truth : After nearly four years' experience as pas-1 tor in a college town, I am convinced that I Christian students are more likely to suffer from the perils of college life than those whoj are not Christians. This is not paradoxical, for I the latter have nothing to lose, while the I former have everj'thing to lose. It requires! not only the same private watchfulness, prayer, [ self-examination and scripture reading to keep I oneself spiritually minded in college as it doesj at home, but the same faithful attendanceI upon all means of grace, the same prompt re-l sponsiveness to all calls to duty, the same ac-l tive participation in church work. A few mayl possess the native strength of character which I will enable them to exercise this deligence, de-f spite the demands of college work and the pe-1 culiar temptations of college life, but the aver-f age young Christian does not. Without the! safeguards which are afforded such by identi-l I fication with the church where extreme perilsl ' are to be met, what wonder if they yield to the| tendency to spiritual declension ? THE COLLEGE MERCURY. 29 I have seen the religious lives of many stu- [dents intensified by the stimulus of church as-jsociation which strengthened obligation, but I [have seen the religious lives of many more lessened in intensity, and some go out in utter I darkness because of a lack of this association [and obligation. More than one young man, the pride of his church, have I known to en- Iter college with the ministry in view, and in Ithat mistaken pride, pastor and church have [persuaded him that he could stand alone amid Khe perils of his new environment. I have [seen him throw off one moral restraint after [another, then put on the mask of hypocrisy, land finally fling this aside and openly and [shamefully walk in the counsel of the un-godly, stand in the way of sinners and sit in Ithe seat of the scornful. And, instead of go-ling out of college qualified for the holy office I which the church designed him to fill, he has ijone out qualified only to take a position be-lind a saloon bar or a gambling table. Do not pastors and parents who counsel lyouug men to spend several years of the most ■critical period of their lives without the aid [which immediate church relationship would afford them assume a tremendous responsibil-ity ?—College Pastor. ALUIV||\!I. GEO. F.ABEL, Editor. '43. Rev. Eloyd Knight, at one time pastor pf the Lutheran church at Hollidaysburg, Pa., lied at his home in Yutan, Neb., on March '45. Mr. Gilliard Dock, of Harrisburg, son bf the late Judge William Dock, died recently his 68th year. He was a merchant and a nanufacturer.—Ex. '47. Rev. Dr. Reuben A. Fink died at Johnstown, Pa., on March 25, in his 71st pear. '50. Rev. J. Kellar Kost is now living at faola, Fla. '52. Rev. J. S. Lawson is the editor of the Lutheran Monthly, published by the Lutheran congregations of Pittsburg and vicinity. '61. Rev. J. B. Reimensnyder, D. D., has titered upon his fifteeth year as pastor of St. imes Lutheran church, New York City. '61. Prof. J. Howard Wert, of Harrisburg, ?&., is editing a history of the Harrisburg ligh Schools. '62. The forthcoming Lutheran Commentary is under the editorial charge of H. E. Jacobs, D. D., LL- D. Among the contributors are Dr. E. J. Wolf, '63, and Dr. H. L. Baugher, '57- '62. Rev. J. Kistler will become pastor of the mission recently established at Riverton, a new town opposite Harrisburg.—Ex. '62. Rev. Dr. H. E. Jacobs has resigned the editorship of the Ltdheran Church Review, which he has held for twelve years. '70. Rev. A. G. Fastnacht is converting the three-story brick house on corner of Carlisle and Water streets, Gettysburg, into a double dwelling house. '71. Rev. J. Wagner's article on "Distinct-ive Lutheranism" in the Observer for March 8, ought to be read and pondered over by every Lutheran. '71. Rev. Chas. E. Hay has suffered the loss of his wife, Mrs. Flora E. Hay. '72. Rev. J. A. Koser, of Munc3r, Pa-! will begin his labors at Sioux City, la., on May 1. '72. Rev. W. E. Fischer, of Shamokin, Pa., writes : "I read the MERCURY with a great deal of pleasure and profit. The MERCURY is in every way a credit to its editors and the dear old College for which it speaks. May con-tinued and growing success attend it." We are grateful for the encouragement and believe a comparison with other college journals will corroborate what our friend has said. '73. AlbertS. Kemp, with'73 till the Junior year, died recently in Maryland. He had gone to the southern part of the State to have a surgical operation performed for appendicitis, and died under it. He was a Baltimorean and much interested in Gettysburg College. '73. Rev. T. J. Yost has accepted a call to the Lutheran Church at Cumberland, Md., and will enter upon his duties the first Sunday in May. '73. Rev. L. L- Sieber has moved to town. He was engaged in evangelistic work, and will probably make this his centre, at the same time educating his children. '74. Rev. J. A. Wirt, of Hughesville, Pa., has been elected pastor of the church at Des Moines, la. '74. C. J. Reddig, Esq., of Shippensburg, Pa., is treasurer of the Cumberland Valley Sabbath Association. 3° THE COLLEGE MERCURY. '74. Luther A. Burrell has introduced sev-eral important measures in the House of Rep-resentatives, and is becoming one of the most prominent members of the House. '74. Rev. F. W. Staley, of Middletown, de-livered his lecture, "An Hour's Ride With General Phil. Sheridan," before a large audi-ence in St. Paul's Lutheran Church, Allen-town, Pa., on March 7. It was thrilling, elo-quent, instructive and entertaining. '75. The eighth anniversary of the pastor-ate of Rev. E. D. Weigle, D. D., of the First Lutheran Church at Altoona, Pa., occurred on Sunday, March 31st. '76. Rev. S. E. Smith has been installed as pastor of the Lutheran Church at Puuxsu-tawney, Pa. '76. We have received an interesting letter from Rev. Geo. C. Henry, of Shippensburg, Pa. He and J. S. Alleman, of Harrisburg, are working hard to have a class reunion in '96. It is worth all the trouble it may take. '77. Dr. J. B. Scott has been appointed Medical Inspector for this county by the State Board of Health. '77. Rev. Benj. F. Kautz, of Millersburg, Pa., is very successful in his work there. He has one of the best Young People's societies in the State. '79. Rev. M. D. Gaver, of Williamsport, Md., was thrown from his buggy, recently, while driving from Hagerstown to his home. His horse became frightened and ran away. Mr. Gaver's shoulder was badly hurt. '80. Rev. C. W. Heisler now publishes the Denver Lutheran, a four page paper, and uses the entire space for his own congregation. '80. Rev. J. E. Maurer, of Allegheny, Pa., missionary president of the Pittsburg Synod, has been called to Boonsboro, Md. '82. C. W. Bingham, Esq., is president, and Luther A. Bremer, '83, secretary, of the Maryland Association of Linn county, la. '83. Prof. Huber Gray Buehler, of the Hotchkiss School, Lakeville, Conn., has de-clined to consider an invitation to take charge of the English department of the University School in Chicago. This is the third call from well known schools that Prof. Buehler has declined since he went to New England. A few months ago he was one of nine teachers, who were selected to form a permanent con-ference on the teaching of English in second-ary schools. The conference holds its meet-ings in Boston. '83. Rev. Dr. L. M. Kuhns, of Washing-ton, D. C, is conducting a Sunday School in the new town of New Alexandria, Va. '83. Rev. H. L. Yarger, the new field sec-retary of the Board of Church Extension, will close his pastoral labors at Braddock, Pa., in May. He will then make a thorough inspec-tion of all the lot property and real estate of | the Board in the West. '83. John W. Brown, Esq., of Lancaster, son of the late Rev. Dr. Brown, has been elected City Solicitor. '85. Rev. H. J. Hopeman, Dakota City, Neb., was recently presented.with a large ad-justable revolving study chair by his congre gatiou at Homer, Neb. '89. Grace Lutheran church, of Clarion, Pa., presented their pastor, Rev. H. E. Wieand, an elegant open-faced gold watch, as I an expression of good will. '91. Rev. Stanley Biliheitner was installed | pastor of the West Washington (D. C.) Luth-eran church, on Tuesday evening, March 19. '91. On Sunday, March 3, Rev. Aug. Pohl-man occupied the pulpit of St. Stephen's Ger-man Lutheran church, at Baltimore, and I preached an able sermon to a large and appre-ciative audience. '91. Dr. L. C. Peters' address in Philadel-phia is 2132 Oxford St. The Doctor is get-ting along splendidly. '92. Rev. H. E. Berkey has received a call to the Red Lion charge, in York County, Pa. '92. Mr. Frank Hersh, son of ex-Sheriffl James Hersh, has been placed in charge of the I night force of the chemical laboratories of the I Edgar Thompson steel works, at Braddock, I Pa. This is one of the largest of the Carnegie I plants and employs 4,800 men. '92. E. O. Keen is in the middle class of thel Seminary at Lancaster and stands very high in I his class. He is chairman of the Executive I Committee of the Inter-Seminary Missionary | Alliance. '92. H. H. Jones delivered the Undergradu-ate address before the Stille Medical Society, of the University of Pennsylvania, at its an-nual re-union recently. THE COLLEGE MERCURY. 3i '93- J- F- Kempfer was in town two weeks a^o. He is meeting with the same remark-able success in canvassing, which has always attended him. '93- John Hay Kuhns has a pleasing little article in the Observer of March 15, on ' 'Flowers in the Church." '93. C. W. Leitzell has taken charge of a mission at Murphysboro, 111., for six months. '95. H. L. Hoffman was awarded first place in tumbling in the Yale gymnastic contest, and received a fine silver cup for tumbling and ' work on the horizontal bars.—Ex. '93. Marion J. Kline has been appointed agent for the College to hunt up students. '95. C. W. Crawshaw recently paid a few days' visit to his old classmates at Gettysburg. We are always glad to see our old friends. TOW|\I AND SEWIINAFJY NOTES. S. C. BERGER, Editor. Iiff! TOWN. Hon. Marriott Brosius, of Lancaster, has accepted the invitation of Corporal Skelly Post, G. A. R., and will be the orator on next Dec-oration day. . Mr. Brosius is an eloquent and able man and a fine oration may be expected. The repairs to the Catholic church are about complete. Rev. Father Charles Koch, of Danville, has been appointed to fill Rev. Father Joseph E. Smith's vacancy, who has resigned. In tearing down the wooden portion of the McClellan House, one of the oldest buildings -in town, a number of old coins were found ; also receipts dating back to the early part of the century. A Public Reading Room has been opened in Buehler's Hall, on York street, for the profit and pleasure of the young men and young ladies of the town. Rev. Dr. T. J. Barkley recently completed the eleventh year of his pastorate of the Re-formed church of this place. Rev. Barkley has been very successful during these years, and deserves to be congratulated upon his ithful service and encouraging results. Extensive improvements are being made on the Central Hotel, Baltimore street. Miss Jennie Kalbfleisch has gone to Phila-delphia to teach in a kindergarten school of that city. Miss Pauline Wisotzkey is taking a normal course at Shippensburg. Miss Seebach, of Waynesboro, a sister of Julius Seebach, of the Seminary, was recently a guest of Miss Margaret Himes. Rev. Van Cleve preached for the Presby-terian congregation at Shippensburg during their late communion season. The Shippens-burg people were greatly pleased with the reverend, and the Shippensburg News pro-nounces him a "man of remarkable pulpit oratory.'' The new Episcopal church on Baltimore street will probably be completed this coming summer. On Thursday, March 28th, a convention of the Sunday School workers of Adams county was held in St. James Lutheran Church. Rev. C. J. Kephart, Secretary of the Pennsylvania State Association, was present, and also Mr. Geo. H. Seiler, President of the Fifth District, of which Gettysburg is part, and a number of other speakers. Mrs. L- B. Wolf has sailed for India to join her husband, who is a missionary in that dis-tant land. Proprietor Ziegler, of the Eagle Hotel, has issued a very unique and instructive pocket map of the Battlefield of Gettysburg. Mr. Ziegler is thoroughly acquainted with the field. J. A. Danner has issued the eleventh edition of his pamphlet on the battle and points of in-terest about the town. Mr. John Siebold, of Harrisburg, has been secured by Mrs. Huber to manage her drug store in this place. He is a gradate of the Baltimore School of Pharmacy. In pursuance of the action of the govern-ment creating a National Park at Gettysburg, a meeting of the stockholders of the Battle-field Association, was called April 10th, to authorize the transfer of their property to the United States. Major John Bigelow, commander of the fam-ous Ninth Mass. Battery, now of Minneapolis, was here over Sunday, March 12th. He was accompanied by Major Robbins. Wm. McSherry, Jr., has been elected an 32 THE COLLEGE MERCURY. active member of the American Catholic His-torical Society, at Philadelphia. Mrs. A. M. Rice, of Petrolia, Pa., State Lecturer and Organizer of W. C. T. U. work, will be in Gettysburg on the 22d and 23d insts. in the interest of the Loyal Legion and the Women's Christian Temperance Union work. SEMINARY. The celebrated lecture of Rev. Prof. T. C. Billheimer, on the "Holy Land," will be given in Brua Chapel, Tuesday, April 23d, under the auspices of the Missionary Society of the Seminary. The proceeds are to be used for defraying the expenses incident to the build-ing of the "Cold Spring Mission Church." Rev. H. E. Berkey, of the Senior class of the Seminary, has received a unanimous call to Red Lion charge in York county. Mr. Charles W. Leitzell has received a call from Murphysboro, 111., to which place he and his wife have gone. Rev. F. U. Gift will serve the mission church in Scranton, Pa. The speakers chosen to represent the Senior class in the Commencement exercises are as follows : J. W. Ball, Berlin, Pa. J. L. Frantz, Salem, Va. J. B. Markward, Scotland, Pa. E. E. Schantz, Geryville, Pa. The following arrangements have been made for the dedicatory services of the new building, which will take place on Wednesday morning, May 29th, during Commencement week. The dedicatory address will be delivered by Rev. Dr. Dunbar, of Baltimore, Md. Rev. Dr. Baum, of Philadelphia, President of the Board of Directors, will preside and will speak to the assembly. Gov. Hastings has consented to be present and to address the meeting. The dedication is looked forward to with much in-terest and a large number of friends of the institution are expected. The place for the dedication services has not yet been decided, and will depend, perhaps, on the state of the weather. If the weather is clear a platform may be erected, if not, then the chapel will be used. In St. John's Lutheran church, Lancaster, which was dedicated on the 10th inst., there is a memorial window, "Paul Revealing the Unknown God to the Athenians," in memory of the late Rev. Dr. James Allen Brown, form-erly chairman of the Faculty of the Seminary. —Star and Sentinel. The new Chapel was used for the first time on Good Friday. Dr. Billheimer preached in Dr. Baum's | church, Philadelphia, Sunday, April 14th. R. H. Williams who had been south for J some time, on account of his health, returned on Good Friday, physically improved by his trip. W. H. Nicholas preached in his church, St. Andrews, of Philadelphia, Sunday, April 14th. The pipe organ has been in use for several I weeks. It gives good satisfaction and presents | a handsome appearance. Ff^ATRNiTY NOTES. WILMKE A. HARTMAN, Editor. PHI KAPPA PSI. Bro. Keefer did not return to college until I the 6th, owing to a wedding in the family. Bro. Keffer attended the meeting of the Ex-ecutive Committee of the Inter-Collegiate I Athletic Association of Penn'a., which was| held at Harrisburg on the nth. During vacation Bro. Richardson played on I the Columbian College nine, which defeated the | team from University of Vermont. Bro. Carty visited his home in Frederick, | Md., on Good Friday. Bro. Lark attended the entertainment and | reception given at Irving College on the 3d. PHI GAMMA DELTA. Bro. J. B. Markward, '91, assisted Rev. J.l C. Koller, of St. Matthew's Church, Hanover, | during the Easter services. Bro. Geo. C. Baum, '93, received thirdI mention in the Boz art competition for school | design in the architectural department of U. P.f Bro. F. H. Knubel, '93, returned to Serai! nary last week after a short visit to his home| in New York City. Bro. John Hoffer, '94, is now with Holt &| Co., Flour Commission Merchants, at 951 Broad street, N. Y. Bro. D. A. Buehler, '90, of Philadelphia, visited friends in Gettysburg last month. THE COLLEGE MERCURY. 33 Bros. H. L. Stahler, E. H. Leisenring, and H. C. Alleman were recent visitors to Gettys-burg and College. Bro. C. H. Shaar, '96, spent Easter with his parents at Steelton. PHI DELTA THETA. Bro. Forney spent his vacation very pleas-antly as the guest of several members of the Dickinson Chapter. Bros. Forney and Kain attended the recep-tion at Irving College, Mechanicsburg, Pa., on the night of April 3d. Bro. Maynard spent a part of his vacation with friends in Greencastle, Pa. Bro. Eckels was the guest of Bros. Zeigler, Barndt and Van Camp, Alumni of our Chapter, now in Philadelphia, several days last week. The annual Chapter Letters now out show continued prosperity in all of the sixty-eight. ALPHA TAU OMEGA. Bro. E. Leonard Koller, '98, was initiated on the evening of March nth. Bro. Ennis, '97, spent his vacation in Wash-ington, D. C. Bro. Michler, '97, spent a few days of his vacation with Bro. Bacon, of Harrisburg, Pa. Bro. Chas. G. Bikle, of the Senior class in the Seminary, preached at Oristown, Pa., Sun-day, March 10th. Bro. Menges, at York, Pa. '96, spent Easter with friends Bros. P. W. Koller, E. L. -Koller, '98, and Bikle spent Easter at their respective homes. Bro. James A. McAllister, '98, spent a few days with his father at Harrisburg, Pa. SIGMA CHI. Bro. Heindel, '96, spent his Easter vacation very pleasantly in New York City with Bro. Bixler, '98. While there he visited Bros. Wendt, Damuth and Sigafoos. He also paid a welcome visit to the Nu Nu Chapter at Co-lumbia College. Bros. Leisenring, Monath and Wendt, re-cently paid a flying visit to Hanover. Bro. Bixler, '98, of New York City, paid us a welcome visit at the opening of the Spring term. Bro. William Hersh, '91, was iinanimously re-elected Borough solicitor for Gettysburg at the recent election. The term of Bro. C. M. Stock, '74, of Han-over, as Eminent Commander of the York Commandery, No. 2, Knights Templar, has. just ended. As a token of appreciation, a fine gold post commander's badge was presented to him by the Commander}'. We were very sorry to hear of the deaths of Bros. Martin G. Lilly, '84, of York, Pa., and Albert S. Kemp, '71, of Havre de Grace, Md. The former was in partnership with W. H. Von Mengerinhausen as consulting mechani-cal engineer, and the latter was engaged as a book-keeper for Mr S. J. Seneca's extensive business. They were both very industrious and energetic in their respective positions, and with bright prospects of success. By their deaths, we lose two very active and loyal "Sigs." Bro. Edward C. Kershner, '90, of New York City, Medical Inspector of the U. S. Navy, is now also Fleet Surgeon of the North Atlantic Squadron under the command of Admiral Meade. A few clays ago while the vessel was off Georgetown, Barbadoes, at an-chor, Dr. Kershner received a message to at-tend a poisoned sailor on a Nova Scotian ves-sel in the harbor. But he refused to go for the reason that they were in quarantine, and that deadly fevers infested the region. For his actions, Admiral Meade wrote a scathing letter to Dr. Kershner, and reported the case to Secretary Herbert of the Navy, in which he asked for the Surgeon's removal for coward-ice. The case was investigated by Secretary Herbert and he upheld Dr. Kershner in every particular, and required Admiral Meade to apologize to the surgeon for his letter of rep-rimand. We highly commend the Bro. for his firm stand. LITERACY SOCIETIES. ROSCOE C WRIGHT, Editor. The preliminary contest to decide who shall represent our College at the inter-collegiate oratorical contest, was held in Brua Chapel Thursday evening, March 21. W. A. Kump was selected as principal, and R. C. Wright as alternate. The Judges were Hon. Edward McPherson, the Rev. A. R. Steck and C. E. Stable, Esq. The following were the speakers and their subjects. *0. O. LEIDICH, . - "The Beauty of History." 34 THE COLLEGE MERCURY. fW. A. KUMP, "Defeated Victors." *W. A. HARTMAN, - - - "Courage of Conviction." *I. O. MOSER, - "Our Public School System." tR. C. SMITH, "The American Eagle. ' *R. C. WRIGHT, - "Patriotism and Politics." tJ. E. BYERS, "Efficient Education." * Phrenakosmian. t Philomathean. Both Societies have made additions to their libraries. The latest works on Sociology, Evolution, History, Travel and Political Science have been purchased. PHILO. Friday evening, March 15, was "Senior Evening," The following program was ren-dered : Piano Solo, --- Composed by Erb. Welcome, - - . Feldman. "Influence of the Study of Literature," - - Barbchenn. "Demand for College Men," - - Witman. " '95's Social Life," --- Crilly. Quartet, - Erb, Keffer, Kump, Witman. "The Value of Literary Societies," - - -' Byers. "Reminiscences," - - Erb. Cornet Solo, --- Keffer. DEBATE. Resolved : "That Students Should Participate in College Gov-ernment." Affirmative: { *™ Segaiive. j g"**^ Piano Solo, --- Mcisenliclder. Prophecy, "Our Literary Future," - - - Richards. Farewell Poem, - - - Written by Wert. Valedictory, - Kump. Duet, --- Byers and Wert. The following officers were elected April 5 : President, Wert; Vice President, Baum; Corresponding Secretary, Ritter; Recording Secretary, Buck; Treasurer, H. R. Smith; Librarian, Crilly; Assistant Librarian, Stup; Critic, Byers. PHRENA. SPECIAL PROGRAMME. The following historical program on the popular subject "Napoleon," will be rendered in Phrena. Hall, on Friday, April 26th at 7.30 P. M. ESSAYS. "The Early Life of Napoleon," - Vichl. Historical Sketch, - - Glazier. " " - - - - - - ffoover. "The Empress Josephine," - Mnch. ORATIONS. "The Personality of Napoleon," . Leidich. "The Retreat from Moscow," - Longamckrr. "St. Helena," - - - Bell. Declamation—"Waterloo," - Bikle. SELECTIONS. -Resolved, "That Napoleon was a tyrant, usurping and devoting his power to the promotion of his own aggrandizement." Affirmative. Negatiir. MAYNARD, CLARE, MOSER. MILLER, ATHLETICS. HORACE M. WITMAN, Editor. Saturday, April 20th, New Windsor College | at Gettysburg. It has been decided by the State Inter-Col-legiate Athletic Association that the meet shall I be held at Harrisburg some time in May. If | at all possible, Gettysburg should be repre-sented. The nearness of the place of meeting I is an inducement to enter, and it also makes it| important that we should enter. Let the ath-letic men come out and we can yet send a team | to Harrisburg. An invitation has been received from Lehigh to join in a tennis tournament, to be held at | South Bethlehem next month. About ten col-leges are to participate. It has been decided I by the College Athletic Association to send I representatives in singles and doubles and I a preliminary will be held shortly for the pur-1 pose of selecting them. The move Lehigh hasj taken is a splendid one and should be contin-ued. STATE COLLEGE VS. GETTYSBURG. Score: 6-5. The initial game of the base ball season wasl played with State College on the home grounds! Saturday, April 13. The wet field and lower-[ ihg weather were not the choicest conditions I for the best ball, but the game proved an ex-| ceedingly well-played and interesting one| throughout. According to what seems to have become anl established custom, in all contests with ourl friends from State, we lost. In this instance,! at any rate, it must have been force of habit,! for it was by the purest chance that we did not! win by 5-3. This was the score when State came to thel bat to close the ninth inning. The first twol men were easily disposed of. Then came \ man by the hoodoo name of Brown, who! rapped an easy fly to left field. It was well for him and his team that he hit that ball asl he did; for if it had gone back to the cindetl path, or over to the observatory, or anywherel THE COLLEGE MERCURY. 35 that our brilliant left-fielder might have made a hundred-yards clash for it, that game would have ended suddenly and the college bell would be ringing yet. As it was, however, the fly was so easy and sure that a most rare thing happe re 1—the left fielder muffed a ball. After that three hits were made, and the game was won by the visitors. The playing of both teams was of a very high order. The batteries did especially good work, and the general all-round fielding was most excellent. Particular mention might be made of the out-field work of Brown, Richardson and Leisenring, all of whom caught some very difficult flies, after running long distances. In the in-field, Thomas and Rice, for State, and Keefer, Sheely and Gilbert for Gettysburg, excelled. Con.'i lering that it was the first game of the season lor us, we have reason to congratulate ourselves on the lesult. The college has ma-terial for a very strong team, and we may yet hope that "fortune will smile upon us" more pleasantly in our future games and, particu-larly, in the ore with State. The score and summary follow: STATE COLLEGE. GETTYSBURG. Stuart, 2b 2 Rice, s s 1 Walker, 3b & p 1 Greenland. If o Hays, c o Nesbit. p 1 Painter, lb & 3b. o Thomas, cf. & ib. 1 Brown, rf o Kisenher^. cf o R. ill o A. E.I 1 Iveisenring. If. 2 1 1 Sheely, ib 010 Keefer. 3b 3 o 1 Tate, c o o 800 Richardson, cf I o 010 Stiinmel. p 1 o 800 Gilbert, 2b 2 2 o o o Kckt-ls, s. s 1 1 300 Hartzell, rf o 1 000 Smith rf o o R IB. o. A. E. o 3 2 7 T 1 ^ 533 6 o o Totals 6 9 27 6 3 Totals 5 7 26*12 3 *Two men out when winning run was made. SUMMARY. Earned runs—State. 1; Gettysburg, 2. Two-base hit—Walker. Three-base hit—Sheely. Bases >toleu—Stuart. Sheely, Keefer. Bases on called balls—Gettysburg, 1. Hit by pitched ball— Walker. Hays, Sheely. Struck out—By Nesbit, 2; by Walker, 6; by Stiinmel, 6. Passed balls—Tate, 1. Time of game—1 hour 45 minutes. Umpire—Kuendig. Gettysburg. 'ECCK REVIEW." A Text Book of Chemistry intended for the ' use of Pharmaceutical and Medical Students, Samuel P. Sadtler, Ph. D., and Henry Trim-ble, Ph. D., Piofessors of Chemistry in the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy. Pages [950, J. B. Lippincott Companv, Philadelphia, 1895. As the title indicates this volume presents the general principles of chemical sciences with the applications having a special bearing on the twin subjects of Medicine and Pharmacy. The work is complete and adequately covers the fields of Inorganic, Organic and Analytical Chemistry and will prove of great service to students, for whom it is intended. E. S. B. REOENT GIFTS TO THE MUSEUM. S. G. Valentine, Ph. D., '80, a number of minerals from Cornwall Mines and elsewhere. Mr. Charles Laubach, Reigelsville, Pa., jas-per quartz from Durham Mine, iron ore from Elva, lime stone, with ripple marks. Diehl, Leidich and Miller, '95, lime stone, slate bearing pyrite. Bell, '95, jasper from South Mountains. "PONY." Freshman had a little "pony," With a greenish, yellow hide, And whenever Freshman studied Greek, He also took a ride. He rode it into class one day, Which was against the rule, It made the fellows laugh and play, To see a "horse" in school. And so the 'lessor kicked hi in out, But still he lingered near, And graz'd contentedly outside Till Freshman did appear. What makes the horse love Freshman so ? His classmates all did cry; Because the Fresh loves horse, you know, The 'fessor made reply.—Ex. We give below "The Classical Version" of this old "Cat Tale:" OLD VERSION. The cunning old cat Lay down on the mat. By the fire in the oaken hall. "If the little mice peep They'll think I'm asleep!" And she rolled herself up in a hall. Nibble, nibble, nibble, Went the little mice. And licked their little paws. But the cunning old cat Sprang up from the mat, And caught them all in her claws. THE CLASSICAL VERSION. An ancient, crafty specimen of the worthy feline race Reclined upon the hearthrug, with a stately, cat-like grace; 36 THE COLLEGE MERCURY. Within the grand apartment, with its polished, oaken wall, By the miniature conflagration she circled like a ball, And thus she meditated, as she feigned to be asleep: "If tiny rodents should arrive to take a little peep, They'd imagine me in dreamland"—just then a gentle tap; In came the mice diminutive, and puss resumed her nap (?), But e're the tiny rodents could salivate their paws This wicked, crafty feline had clutched them with her claws! A. W., '99. Puella pulchra, I.uua clara, Ad studenti O quatn cara !—Ex If Mary's snowy little lamb Back to the earth would hie, The jokes he'd see about himself Would make him glad to die.— Ex, "I dote on oaks," said the languishing maid, "So noble, so stately, so few; Tell me now, Mr. Jones, what's your favorite tree?" And he answered tenderly, "Yew." C^^Ct^C^ j|j The Standard for All. | Columbia | Bicycles ®® ®®®®®®®® ® ® ®®®®® ® Highest Quality of All. Have you feasted your eyes upon the beauty and grace of the 1895 Columbias ? 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This paper aims to examine how effective Cuba's national security services were in working with drug traffickers to obtain their national goals, how exactly the Cuban government was involved and when these drug operations began, as well as the level of culpability on the part of the Castro brothers and legal veracity of the drug trials. Given the extreme lack of academic study into Cuban intelligence and their potential involvement in the drug trade, this research (utilizing interviews with persons who have direct involvement and insight, analyzing declassified files and memorandums) is highly instrumental in determining how effective Cuba has been in making effective foreign policy in addition to offering insights into how Cuba's military and intelligence agencies have performed covert action operations. ; Winner of the 2021 Friends of the Kreitzberg Library Award for Outstanding Research in the College of Graduate and Continuing Studies Graduate category. ; CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY "Trafficking for a Cause": Cuban Drug Trafficking Operations as a Foreign Policy Alan Chase Cunningham Norwich University Advisor: Gamze Menali 01 June 2021 CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningham ABSTRACT A capable intelligence service and military force is immensely integral to the national security policy of any nation, regardless of their political ideology or international activity. Cuba's national security apparatuses have proven themselves time and again to be exceptional at accomplishing the Republic's foreign policy goals. From the nation's early beginnings, in the 1960s and 70s, elements of the Cuban government were involved in the drug trade, either on an official or unofficial basis, utilizing drug trafficking as a form of aiding likeminded non-state actors, acquiring small arms and other weaponry, gaining U.S. currency, and making war against the United States. In the 1980s, following increased international outcry, multiple members of Cuba's military and intelligence forces were arrested, tried, and either executed or sentenced to prison for their roles in the drug trade. Many international observers, alongside defectors from Cuba's military and intelligence services and foreign governments, claimed that these trials were for show designed to protect the Castros. This paper aims to examine how effective Cuba's national security services were in working with drug traffickers to obtain their national goals, how exactly the Cuban government was involved and when these drug operations began, as well as the level of culpability on the part of the Castro brothers and legal veracity of the drug trials. Given the extreme lack of academic study into Cuban intelligence and their potential involvement in the drug trade, this research (utilizing interviews with persons who have direct involvement and insight, analyzing declassified files and memorandums) is highly instrumental in determining how effective Cuba has been in making effective foreign policy in addition to offering insights into how Cuba's military and intelligence agencies have performed covert action operations. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningham ACKNOWLEDGMENT I would first like to thank my thesis advisor, Professor Gamze Menali, at Norwich University. She provided exceptional advice and support that was highly integral to the completion of this thesis and my degree. Her comments were always well-received and significantly bolstered my paper's overall effect and allowed my research to take on a professional quality. A better advisor could not have been provided nor found. I additionally must thank those persons who sacrificed their time and allowed themselves to be interviewed for my final project. Bobby Chacon of the FBI, Fulton Armstrong of the Intelligence Community, Harry Sommers of the DEA, Mike Powers of the DEA, Pierre Charette of the DEA, Richard Gregorie of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida, Mike Waniewski of the DEA, Harry Fullett of the DEA, and Seth Taylor of the U.S. Customs Service. This work is intended to honor them and their years of service and dedication to the U.S. government. I would also like to thank two professors whom were of immense importance in my academic career; Professor Jonathan Brown and Assistant Professor Joshua Frens-String of the University of Texas. Both sparked my interest in Latin American affairs and guided me on how to conduct historical research. They were inspirations and role models for me as a historian. Finally, I would like to offer special thanks to both my mother and father who supported me in more ways than one through my entire educational career. My family, importantly Kaytlynn Lopez, were a source for comfort, relaxation, and support throughout this endeavor. I could not have done this without any of them. I hope this work looks well upon all of those who helped and inspired me and allows a new generation of researchers and scholars to better understand this period in Cuban history. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningham Table of Contents Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………….01 A Basic History of Cuba's Military and Intelligence Services……………………………….03 Early Beginnings: Cuba and Drugs in the 1960s…………………………………………….07 A Change in Policy: Cuba and Drugs in the 1970s………………………………………….16 The Cocaine Boom: Cuba and Drugs in 1980s……………………………………………….21 The Question of Culpability on the Part of the Castros…………………………………….52 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………61 CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningham1 Introduction Cuba's intelligence and military services are among the best in the world. They have been described in laudatory terms by intelligence professionals, national security theorists, and academics alike. Brian Latell, a former National Intelligence Officer (NIO) for Latin America and career Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analyst, agrees and recounts how veteran counterintelligence officers from all areas of the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) would, "stand in awe of how Cuba, a small island nation, could have built up such exceptional clandestine capabilities and run so many successful operations against American targets".1 The CIA's former Chief of Counterintelligence, James M. Olson, agrees, writing, "no foreign intelligence service rankled me more than [Cuba's]…It was ruthless, it was devious, and worst of all, it was very, very good".2 Analysts from the research and analysis think tank CNA agree with Latell, writing, "[Cuba's] intelligence services are widely regarded as among the best in the world – a significant accomplishment given the country's meager financial and technological resources".3 The longtime lead historian of Cuban affairs, Jorge I. Dominguez, wrote in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics, "Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR)…have been among the world's most successful military".4 Longtime attorney and the Chief of Narcotics for the U.S. 1 Brian Latell, Castro's Secrets: The CIA and Cuba's Intelligence Machine (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), p. 01, https://norwich.on.worldcat.org/oclc/733231302. 2 James M. Olson, To Catch A Spy: The Art of Counterintelligence (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2019), p. 31, https://norwich.on.worldcat.org/oclc/1055568332. 3 Sean Durns, "Castro's dead, but his spies live on," The Hill, Capitol Hill Publishing, published 05 December 2016, https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/308811-castros-dead-but-his-spies-live-on. 4 Jorge I. Dominguez, "Cuban Military and Politics," Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics, Oxford University Press, published 29 May 2020, https://oxfordre.com/politics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-1810. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningham2 Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida (USAO-SDFL) during the early 1980s, Richard Gregorie, has said that Cuba's intelligence services "is better than the CIA in Miami".5 It is apparent that, across multiple fields and specialties, Cuba is a well-regarded foreign power with a highly effective intelligence apparatus and robust military force. Not only that, but Cuba has been able to maintain effective relationships with like-minded state and non-state actors. Throughout the Cold War, Cuba maintained effective relationships with Latin American states by encouraging leftist revolutions amongst foreign populaces and aligning with foreign political parties6, becoming a benefactor to various regimes, political parties, and revolutionary groups in places like Venezuela, Angola, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. These relationships were maintained in a variety of ways from the providing of covert financial and military aid to the physical commitment of Cuban troops to ground warfare. It is well documented that, one of these relationships included the providing of security to drug traffickers and the usage of Cuba as a weigh station for drug traffickers. Through this almost three decade long covert operation, Cuba was heavily entrenched in building up beneficial relationships with non-state actors like the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and legitimate nation states like Manuel Noriega's Panama, finding a steady source of income, and being able to make war against their age old adversary, the United States of America. By efficiently coordinating these operations and working to traffic illicit substances abroad, Cuba was able to improve their standing in Latin America and assist in the making of revolution abroad, essentially using the trafficking of drugs and other narcotics as a form of positive foreign policy. 5 Richard "Dick" Gregorie (former Chief of Narcotics for the USAO-SDFL) in discussion with the author, 08 April 2021. 6 "Castro and the Cold War," American Experience, Public Broadcasting Service, published 2005, republished November 2015, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/comandante-cold-war/. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningham3 Despite the fact that this incident offers a great deal of information as to how Cuba has conducted themselves in a foreign policy sense and has made war against the United States, it has been only minimally studied. In researching this area, one can find only a few academic papers and books written from the late 1990s which covers this issue in depth, with other books on Cuban history or drug trafficking in Latin America failing to cover this area or devoting only a paragraph or two to the entire ordeal. By examining this issue in depth, one can be able to determine just how intricate and involved Cuba's foreign policy endeavors were in addition to better understanding Cuba and the Castro's commitment to the exportation of revolution. This research chronologically catalogs how Cuba engaged in the drug trade, where they expanded and how they altered plans to most effectively suit their own needs. This research also intends to determine the level of knowledge Fidel and Raul Castro, Cuba's most well-known and high ranking officials, had of the operation and show how Cuba's drug trafficking efforts either succeeded or failed in bringing about the results desired by the island nation. A Basic History of Cuba's Military and Intelligence Services To fully and best understand Cuba's involvement in the drug trade, one must first come to understand the nation's intelligence and military infrastructure. The history of the FAR began when Fidel Castro and the military arm of his 26th of July Movement (M26) returned to the nation in December of 1956.7 Though soundly crushed by Fulgencio Batista's forces, Castro's rebellion was able to persevere by launching successful guerilla raids upon important military targets and acquiring a devoted following of students and lower to middle-class Cuban citizens, eventually becoming militarily superior to Batista's forces and claiming the country in January of 1959.8 The rebel army, under the command of Fidel Castro and Ernesto "Che" Guevara, 7 Marc Becker, Twentieth-Century Latin American Revolutions (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017), p. 111. 8 Ibid. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningham4 purged the military corps of Batista's regime, executing, exiling, or simply discharging various officers before officially creating the FAR in October of 1959.9 The FAR was initially under the control of the Ministry of Defense, yet this was renamed to the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (MINFAR) and was headed by Raul Castro, Fidel's brother and later Vice President.10 Between 1959 and 1961, Castro populated the FAR with officers and enlisted personnel who would remain loyal to the new government, implemented educational programs which served to expose the military to Communist and Marxist teachings, and established militias which bridged the gap between Cuba's military and societal structures.11 Cuba's intelligence service, the Dirección General de Inteligencia (until 1989, the service went by the acronym DGI, before being changed to DI; the acronym DGI will be used when referring to this service), was created sometime in 1961, the actual date being unclear, as placed under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Interior (MININT).12 What is clear with the DGI, however, is their connections to the Soviet Union and the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezposnosti (KGB). Immediately following the Bay of Pigs crisis, the KGB assisted Cuba in infiltrating Cuban exile groups in Florida and New York to determine if the Kennedy administration would try and oust Castro from power again.13 In March of 1962, the KGB set up an "operations base in Havana to export revolution across Latin America,"14 while later beginning an information 9 Damián J. Fernández, "Historical Background: Achievements, Failures, and Prospects," in The Cuban Military Under Castro, ed. Jaime Suchlicki (Miami, FL: University of Miami Graduate School of International Studies, 1989), p. 05. 10 Ibid. 11 Fernández, "Historical Background: Achievements, Failures, and Prospects," in The Cuban Military Under Castro ed. Jaime Suchlicki, p. 07-08. 12 "Cuba, Intelligence and Security," in Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Security, ed. K. Lee Lerner & Brenda Wilmoth Lerner (Farmington Hills, MI: The Gale Group, 2004), p. 292, https://norwich.on.worldcat.org/oclc/55960387. 13 Oleg Kalugin, Spymaster: My Thirty-Two Years in Intelligence and Espionage Against the West (United States of America: Basic Books, 2009), p. 51-53. 14 Christopher Andrew & Vasili Mitrokhin, The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB (United States of America: Basic Books, 2001), p. 184, https://norwich.on.worldcat.org/oclc/727648881. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningham5 sharing operation with the Cubans and even putting in place a KGB liaison officer within the DGI.15 Since the beginning of Cuba's foray into the world of counterintelligence and foreign intelligence collection, the KGB has been heavily invested and taken a special interest in Cuban intelligence operations. Early Beginnings: Cuba and Drugs in the 1960s Stratfor, a private geopolitical intelligence firm based in Austin, Texas, wrote in 2008 that, "While seeking refuge from Batista forces in the hills outside Havana, the future dictator was sheltered by marijuana farmers. Castro promised the growers protection for their hospitality".16 While trying to corroborate this claim about Castro's promise is difficult, it is well-documented that the Sierra Maestra mountain range, where Castro and his 26th of July Movement carried out guerilla attacks against the Batista regime, "had been traditional outlaw country long before Castro – rife with smuggling, marijuana growing…".17 Cuban governmental involvement in the drug trade seemingly sometime shortly after the DGI was founded in 1961. A declassified Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD – the precursor to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)) document details how, in 1961, a meeting was held between Che Guevara (then the President of Cuba's National Bank and head of the National Institute for Agrarian Reform (INRA)18), Ramiro Valdes (Che's deputy during the revolution and now head of the "[state's] security and intelligence apparatus"19), a Captain from Valdes' outfit, and Salvador Allende, then a Senator from Chile.20 The meeting first revolved 15 Ronald Young, "Cuba," in Encyclopedia of Intelligence and Counterintelligence (New York, NY: Routledge, 2015), p. 186, https://norwich.on.worldcat.org/oclc/436850527. 16 "Organized Crime in Cuba," Stratfor, Rane Corporation, published 16 May 2008, https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/organized-crime-cuba. 17 Gil Carl Alroy, "The Peasantry in the Cuban Revolution," The Review of Politics Vol. 29, No. 01 (1967), p. 97, https://www-jstor-org.library.norwich.edu/stable/1405815?seq=4#metadata_info_tab_contents. 18 Jon Lee Anderson, Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life (New York, NY: Grove Press, 2010), p. 424. 19 Anderson, Che Guevara, p. 368. 20 Rachel Ehrenfeld, Narco-Terrorism (New York, NY: Basic Books, 1990), p. 24. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningham6 around Chilean politics, "but soon Comandante Valdes turned the talk to setting up a cocaine-trafficking network in order to raise money to help finance Allende…Valdes…suggested that Roberto Alvarez, chief of Cuban espionage, head the new organization".21 While attempts were made to gain access to this document via a FOIA request to the DEA, the DEA was unable to provide the document by the time of publication. This is not the only document which alleges Cuban governmental involvement in the drug trade during the early 1960s. Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN - the precursor to the BNDD and therefore the DEA) Henry Giordano specified in multiple letters and internal memoranda that the FBN and BNDD had located, "a "pattern of Cuban nationals," who were "suspected Castro sympathizers . . . dominating the traffic" and "operating in Cuba, Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, and Chile to distribute large quantities of cocaine throughout the United States",".22 This mirrors what Giordano's predecessor, Harry J. Anslinger, seemed to believe in early 1961, that "the island nation [was] trying to subvert the United States with drugs".23 The BNDD too apparently, "investigated a purported Cuban government operation to sponsor marijuana and heroin crops in Cuba's Oriente province, using a secret department within the country's National Institute of Agrarian Reform".24 While both these incidences mention drug trafficking/production on the part of INRA and within Chile, seemingly backing up what the defector alleged to the BNDD, Giordano and Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury David Acheson both changed their opinions in the mid-1960s. The two officials believed that while individual Cubans were involved in the drug trade, this was not government 21 Ehrenfeld, Narco-Terrorism, p. 24-25. 22 William L. Marcy, The Politics of Cocaine: How U.S. Foreign Policy Has Created a Thriving Drug Industry in Central and South America (Chicago, IL: Chicago Review Press, 2010), p. 92, https://norwich.on.worldcat.org/oclc/592756109. 23 William O. Walker III, Drugs in the Western Hemisphere: An Odyssey of Cultures in Conflict (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources Inc., 1996), 171, https://norwich.on.worldcat.org/oclc/33132446. 24 Marcy, The Politics of Cocaine, p. 91. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningham7 sanctioned and was of such a tiny scale that it would be "too small to have much of an effect on the supply of dollars to that country".25 Naturally, for a government official to change their personal opinion (especially those with the highest access to sensitive documents), they must have been exposed to some form of information which detailed to them that their previously held notion of Cuban involvement was faulty. This being said, evidence collected by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), individual FBN agents, and allegations by Soviet defectors, seem to corroborate the investigations by federal agencies, pointing to drug trafficking endeavors sanctioned by the Cuban government. According to a letter penned by J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime director of the FBI, "several Colombian airplanes taken to Cuba in 1967 were hijacked on behalf of the Cuban government for the purpose of obtaining the cargo—smuggled heroin".26 The Federal Bureau of Narcotics also agreed with the FBI's assessment and even estimated the total worth of the heroin was in the twenty million dollar range.27 Also in 1967, "a Cuban trained Venezuelan intelligence officer established…Cuban link of drugs for guerrilla weapons in the hemisphere," detailing this information before the Organization of American States (OAS), "providing a major connection between Havana, the guerilla movements, and narcotics".28 Acting Federal Narcotics Commissioner and long-time FBN agent Charles Siragusa also claimed in March of 1962 that six Cuban drug traffickers arrested in Miami and New York were transporting cocaine from Cuba to the U.S. for the purposes of "raising money [and] 25 Marcy, The Politics of Cocaine, p. 92. 26 Marcy, The Politics of Cocaine, p. 93. 27 Ibid. 28 Ralph E. Fernandez, "Historical Assessment of Terrorist Activity and Narcotic Trafficking by the Republic of Cuba," The Law Offices of Ralph E. Fernandez and Associates, P.A., Ralph E. Fernandez, P.A., published 22 January 2003, p. 02. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningham8 demoralizing Americans and discrediting Cuban exiles in Miami".29 An FBN agent involved in the investigation and raid also confirmed this.30 A 2003 historical assessment focusing on the Cuban government's involvement in the drug trade and terrorism published by the law offices of Ralph E. Fernandez in Tampa, Florida indicated that Juvenito Pablo Guerra, the Miami group's ringleader, was an intelligence officer.31 Among the evidence that this cell was linked to the Cuban government and that Guerra was an intelligence officer includes "a supply of Communist literature and pictures of Cuban premier Fidel Castro in Guerra's apartment".32 While this piece of information is highly circumstantial in trying to link Castro to the drug ring, it does indicate that this cell was most likely not a grouping of exiled Cubans, ones who fled following Castro's claiming power in 1959, but rather were supporters of the Castro regime. Upon being sentenced in June of 1962 to "fifteen years in prison [for] narcotics conspiracy and assault with intent to kill a Federal officer…an undercover narcotics agent testified that Guerra was closely associated with Premier Castro and has been a member of a ring that had smuggled cocaine into this country from Cuba to obtain arms for Dr. Castro during the revolution".33 Also in the early 1960's, a FBN agent named Salvatore Vizzini was involved in the arrest of, "two Cuban agents…in Miami with large amounts of cocaine in their possession".34 29 "Cuba Plot Is Cited in Narcotics Raids," The New York Times, The New York Times Company, published 31 March 1962, https://www.nytimes.com/1962/03/31/archives/cuba-plot-is-cited-in-narcotics-raids.html?searchResultPosition=78. 30 "Big Cocaine Seizure Held Cuban in Origin," The New York Times, The New York Times Company, published 30 March 1962, https://www.nytimes.com/1962/03/30/archives/big-cocaine-seizure-held-cuban-in-origin.html?searchResultPosition=106. 31 Fernandez, "Historical Assessment of Terrorist Activity and Narcotic Trafficking by the Republic of Cuba," The Law Offices of Ralph E. Fernandez and Associates, P.A, p. 02. 32 "Big Cocaine Seizure Held Cuban in Origin," The New York Times. 33 "U.S. Jails 2 in Narcotics Case; One Reported Close to Castro," The New York Times, The New York Times Company, published 02 June 1962, https://www.nytimes.com/1962/06/02/archives/us-jails-2-in-narcotics-case-one-reported-close-to-castro.html?searchResultPosition=12. 34 Ehrenfeld, Narco-Terrorism, p. 25. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningham9 Recounting the arrest in a 1978 letter to Morley Safer of CBS' 60 Minutes, Vizzini detailed that the subsequent investigation proved conclusively that the arrestees (Ramon Diaz and Jose Barrel) were both working for the Cuban government and were either selling the cocaine for profit or were involved in trading the coke for weapons.35 Throughout Vizzini's law enforcement career, this would not be the only time he would encounter evidence of Cuban governmental involvement in the drug trade. Writing in his 1972 memoirs, Vizzini recounted one undercover operation in which he was sent to San Juan, Puerto Rico and received a teletype by HQ. The teletype contained "a lot of unconfirmed rumor" which included headquarters' suspicion, "that Castro and his boys were secretly involved in the smuggling [of narcotics]," while also including the names of two Cuban expats, Luis Valdez and Caesar Vega.36 Eventually being able to infiltrate the Puerto Rican underworld and meet with Valdez and Vega, Vizzini bought $750.00 USD for an ounce of cocaine. While the eventual arrests of those involved failed to capture both Valdez and Vega, the San Juan Police Department's Narcotics Squad seemed to believe the two had already fled back to Cuba.37 While the FBN seemingly was never able to confirm their suspicions about Valdez and Vega's relationships to the Castro government, it is worth pointing out that, in early Summer 1959, a Cuban Major similarly named Cesar Vega was in charge of a Castro sanctioned operation to overthrow the Panamanian government.38 Vizzini it seems held that, "there was reason to believe the operation was being carried on with the knowledge of Fidel Castro, that his supporters were running it, and that the profits were getting back to shore up the dictator's shaky 35 Sal Vizzini, letter to Morley Safer, 27 February 1978. 36 Sal Vizzini, Vizzini: The Secret Lives of America's Most Successful Undercover Agent (New York, NY: Pinnacle Books, 1972), p. 284. 37 Vizzini, Vizzini, p. 309. 38 Robert L. Scheina, Latin America's Wars: The Age of the Professional Soldier Vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2003), p. 56. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha1m0 government".39 In an extension of remarks placed in the Congressional Record in May of 1965, the CIA's view of these allegations and claims comes through. DeWitt S. Copp, a CIA analyst, detailed additional evidence concerning Castro and the Cuban government's culpability in the drug trade in a paper titled, "Castro's Subversion in the United States". Copp writes, "In December 1964, three Castro agents were arrested at Miami Airport – one of them a Cuban, Marlo Carabeo Nerey…On January 15, 1965, Oscar H. Reguera and Elidoro Martinéz were taken into custody in a New York motel with $3 million worth of cocaine in their luggage. Martinéz is believed to be a Cuban agent," while also making the claim that Cuba was engaging in narcotics trafficking in order "to finance an insurrection in Puerto Rico".40 The CIA, while any comment on the arrests of Juvenito Guerra's cell or the other arrests listed was unable to be found, certainly seemed to investigating that Cuba was, on some level, involved in the trafficking of narcotics to better support their own desires and machinations. This would also not be the last time that a group of drug traffickers would be alleged to be aligned with Cuba in the 1960s as well. In September of 1967, it was reported that, following an investigation conducted by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and Queens District Attorney's Office, six persons were arrested for their involvement in a drug ring which brought in, "$2.88 million [of cocaine]…from Cuba to Montego Bay, Jamaica and then to New Orleans for the flight to New York".41 According to law enforcement officers, Cuban governmental officials knew about this drug trafficking ring yet, "did not interfere in the 39 Vizzini, Vizzini, p. 282. 40 Representative Craig Hosmer, Extension of Remarks, on 25 May 1965, "Castro's Subversion in the United States – Part I," 89th Cong., Congressional Record, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP75-00149R000400100003-7.pdf. 41 "6 Are Seized Here With Cocaine Worth Nearly $3-Million," The New York Times, The New York Times Company, published 10 September 1967, https://www.nytimes.com/1967/09/10/archives/6-are-seized-here-with-cocaine-worth-nearly-3million-cuban-did-not.html?searchResultPosition=156. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha1m1 narcotics ring's activities and, in return, ring members supplied the Cuban government with information about anti-Castro elements in the United States," with members posing, "as fundraisers for anti-Castro elements," and then transmitting the contributor's information back to Cuba.42 Attempts to access the NYPD's files or interview detectives with relevant knowledge of the case were unsuccessful. In the late 1960s as well, it appears that some measure of involvement by the Cuban military in the drug trade was occurring within South Florida. Around 1969, two agents from the FBN/BNDD's Miami Field Office (FO) went undercover as local drug dealers to meet with a Cuban contact at a dock behind the Playboy Club in Miami at 7701 Biscayne Boulevard. According to former DEA Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge (ASAC) Pierre Charette, "the two agents did meet with a Cuban general and had discussed using Cuba as an entry point [for drugs]".43 Charette, who was not himself involved in the meeting but was close with one of the agents who was present, also confirmed that the Cuban general was an "active-duty [officer] with Castro's forces" and that the conversation was audio recorded by one of the agents.44 What one can see here is Cuba utilizing drug trafficking, not as a way of gaining an upper hand against the United States or to gain a better financial standing, but rather as a form of information gathering and intelligence collection on potential political and national security threats. By aligning themselves with a non-state actor able to work abroad in foreign land without arising suspicion from counterintelligence organizations, the Cuban government was able to better defend from foreign threats by Batista supporters and anti-Castro groups. In the form of gaining the upper hand on adversaries and gathering intelligence, this is an ingenious 42 Ibid. 43 Pierre "Pete" Charette (retired Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge with DEA) in discussion with the author, 16 March 2021. 44 Ibid. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha1m2 tactic. In the late-1960s, a defector alleged that "Raúl Castro and/or his associates within the Cuban Defense Ministry actively discussed the issue of drug trafficking as an ideological weapon to be used against the United States [and that] Czech intelligence operatives trained Cuban agents to produce and distribute drugs and narcotics into the United States".45 This claim was made by Major General Jan Sejna, a military officer in the Czechoslovak People's Army and, "chief of the political wing of the Czech Defense Ministry and…member of the Communist Party's General Staff and the National Assembly, the country's legislative body".46 Sejna defected in 1968 following the "Prague Spring" under allegations of embezzlement by reformist Communists led by Alexander Dubček, a political opponent of Sejna's "patron, Antonin Novotny".47 Following Sejna's defection, both the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) kept Sejna on their payroll as a counterintelligence analyst and consultant.48 Throughout the 1960s, it is apparent that Cuba was, at the least, a way station for drug traffickers to resupply before heading on into the United States (as the island nation had served since the mid-1500s)49 or, at the most, was officially sanctioning the trafficking of narcotics into the U.S. for profit. Given the fact that Cuba was a newly created country and was in dire need of economic stability, it makes sense that Castro's regime would engage in some form of drug 45 Emilio T. González, "The Cuban Connection: Drug Trafficking and the Castro Regime," CSA Occasional Paper Series Vol. 02. No. 06 (1997), p. 01-02, https://scholarship.miami.edu/discovery/delivery?vid=01UOML_INST:ResearchRepository&repId=12355424610002976#13355471490002976. 46 Louie Estrada, "Gen. Jan Sejna, Czech Defector, Dies," The Washington Post, The Washington Post Company, published 27 August 1997, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1997/08/27/gen-jan-sejna-czech-defector-dies/0aa7916b-1005-4595-9a2e-5dc51012dbf5/. 47 David Stout, "Jan Sejna, 70, Ex-Czech General and Defector," The New York Times, The New York Times Company, published 30 August 1997, https://www.nytimes.com/1997/08/30/world/jan-sejna-70-ex-czech-general-and-defector.html. 48 "Gen. Jan Sejna, Czech defector, dead at 70," Associated Press, Associated Press, published 26 August 1997, https://apnews.com/article/395f04eda00526846fb4d3cfff44f726. 49 T.J. English, The Corporation: An Epic Story of the Cuban American Underworld (New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 2018), p. 04, https://norwich.on.worldcat.org/oclc/990850150. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha1m3 production and trafficking to provide a certain level of income. Additionally, it also would allow the new nation to craft strong foreign ties to non-state actors and individual governmental officials abroad who could prove valuable in other, more legitimate matters. After the Bay of Pigs fiasco in April of 1961, in which the United States and the Cuban governments became more antagonistic towards one another, one can see (based upon U.S. documents and defector testimony) that Cuba began taking further actions of trafficking narcotics into the U.S. as a method of covert action, "those activities carried out by national governments or other organizations…to secretly influence and manipulate events abroad".50 Sejna's allegations, if true, corroborate a great deal of what the FBN/BNDD and FBI found during the course of their criminal investigations, that the Cuban government was involved in the creating of narcotics and the trafficking of drugs throughout the Latin America region. Given the abundance of evidence surrounding Cuba and the drug trade in the 1960s, it would be logical to believe that some elements of the Cuban government (either individual ministers, agency heads, etc.) or Fidel and Raul Castro themselves, were involved in the trafficking or shipping of narcotics to the United States from Cuba. While the amount of evidence conclusively linking the Castros to the drug trade in the 1960s is minimal (with perhaps the most concrete evidence being the undercover agent's testimony during the Guerra trial), given the fact that Castro exerted a tight grasp upon the daily functions of the government and was heavily involved in minute details of military operations, foreign policy endeavors, and domestic matters, it is hard to envision that Castro was not aware of these operations or was completely oblivious to them. These operations to traffic drugs, throughout the 1960s, do not appear to be a large scale 50 Loch K. Johnson & James J. Wirtz, "Part IV: Covert Action," in Intelligence: The Secret World of Spies: An Anthology, ed. Loch K. Johnson & James J. Wirtz (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2015), p. 237. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha1m4 policy stance. It did not appear to be organized nor a prominent feature of the Cuban government's foreign policy or income. The usage of drug trafficking by governmental entities and the allowing of drug traffickers to ply their trade within the island nation indicates this was done in an effort to garner additional currency, gather intelligence on threatening groups, or temporarily assist foreign allies. These operations do not seem to be large scale or integral to the overall conduct of the Cuban government, but are instead minor and almost done in a tentative way, perhaps out of fear of reprisal from the U.S. or the Soviet Union had their activities been uncovered. A Change in Policy: Cuba and Drugs in the 1970s Throughout the 1970s, the solidifying of the relationship between the Cuban state and non-state actors became more apparent. It was at this time that the Cuban government began making more long-lasting and profitable strides into the global drug trade while also greatly increasing their alignment with non-state actors and strengthening their foreign policy goals. At this time in Cuban history, Cuba was involved in a variety of foreign policy endeavors and military conflicts. Having failed in the 1960s to become self-sufficient economically, the island, "turned to the Soviet Union for support…[increasing] its subsidies for the Cuban economy through running trade deficits with the island and paying above-market prices for its sugar", further cementing the Soviets' presence in the nation-state.51 Given the fact that Cuba was in need of hard currency and did not desire to be too reliant upon the Soviets, Cuba can be seen as somewhat increasing their drug trafficking and security operations significantly in the mid to late-1970s. Evidence of Cuban involvement in the 1970's drug trade came through in the early-mid 51 Becker, Twentieth-Century Latin American Revolutions, p. 127. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha1m5 1980s and onward, with multiple defectors and arrested drug traffickers from Cuban military/intelligence organizations and Latin American cartels respectively offering this information to the U.S. government. Cuban defectors and drug cartel associates arrested in the 1980s indicated "in late 1975, some of Colombia's best-known and biggest cocaine kingpins met secretly in Bogotá…with the Cuban ambassador Fernando Ravelo-Renendo…Havana not only was prepared to ignore drug-laden mother ships operating in its waters but also to provide fueling and repair services to its ports…Havana also offered to escort the narcotics boats upon leaving Cuban ports, as well as provide Cuban flags to disguise their origin all the way to feeder vessels stationed off the Florida Keys," in return for roughly "$800,000 per vessel".52 In her book Narco-Terrorism, Rachel Ehrenfeld, then a research scholar at New York University School of Law, claims that Ravelo-Renendo was a Cuban intelligence operative from the Departamento América53, a "parallel intelligence apparatus"54 headed by Manuel Piñeiro Losada. It does seem that Ravelo-Renendo was a Cuban intelligence operative of sorts as, upon his death in July of 2017, a former Cuban Army officer wrote a detailed obituary documenting Ravelo-Renendo's services to Cuba, mentioning his entry into Cuba's intelligence service and his tenure during the 1970s as Cuba's Ambassador to Colombia.55 According to Dirk Krujit, professor emeritus of development studies at Utrecht University, the Departamento América was a unit which, "conducted Cuba's secret foreign 52 Ehrenfeld, Narco-Terrorism, p. 29-30. 53 Ibid. 54 Nora Gámez Torres, "He now hunts Cuban human-rights abusers in the U.S. Was he one himself?" Miami Herald, The McClatchy Company, published and updated 12 July 2018, https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article214754450.html. 55 Alfredo García, "Cuban internationalist veteran Fernando Ravelo dies," Colarebo, Colarebo, published 04 July 2017, https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=https://colarebo.wordpress.com/2017/07/04/fallece-veterano-internacionalista-cubano-fernando-ravelo/&prev=search&pto=aue. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha1m6 relations under the direct supervision of, and access to, Fidel Castro"56 with these secret foreign relations techniques coming in the form of "[supplying] arms, money, intelligence, guidance, and a rear base to a variety of leftist guerilla movements in Latin America that wanted to duplicate the Cuban model".57 Manuel Piñeiro Losada too was a close friend of both Fidel and Raul Castro, having solidified his position as a loyal intelligence officer during the revolution.58 An interview with retired Resident Agent-in-Charge (RAC) of the DEA's Tampa office, Mike Powers, also was able to shed some light on how important Cuba was in the Colombian drug trade. He relayed an incident detailed to him by a smuggler arrested sometime in the 1980s who later became an informant. According to the smuggler, in the early 1970s, "he was flying a load of marijuana from Colombia to Florida…As he was almost across [Cuban airspace], a Cuban MiG came up, flew next to him and signaled to follow him and land. At that point, he [the smuggler] held up a bale of marijuana and the pilot laughed and signaled [him to] go ahead [through Cuban airspace]".59 While this incident does not indicate official government sanctioning of the drug trade nor some larger effort by the Cuban government to enter into the drug trade, this piece of information is indicative of how important Cuban airspace was in the drug trade and also how individual Cuban military officers or officials may have begun engaging in the drug trade to attain either larger foreign policy goals or as an extra source of income. This information is all quite interesting as this is the first time there is some form of evidence, albeit tangentially, in which Cuban officials and members of drug cartels met to 56 Dirk Krujit, Cuba and Revolutionary Latin America: An Oral History (London, UK: Zed Books, 2017), p. 05, https://norwich.on.worldcat.org/oclc/964892858. 57 Larry Rohter, "Manuel Pineiro, Spymaster For Cuba, Is Dead at 63," The New York Times, The New York Times Company, published 13 March 1998, https://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/13/world/manuel-pineiro-spymaster-for-castro-is-dead-at-63.html. 58 Dirk Krujit, "Cuba and the Latin American Left: 1959-Present," Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina Vol. 28, No. 02 (2017), p. 32, http://eial.tau.ac.il/index.php/eial/article/view/1519/1623. 59 Mike Powers (retired Resident Agent-in-Charge with DEA) in discussion with the author, 20 December 2020. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha1m7 discuss a potential relationship revolving around the drug trade. However, this information must be treated with care in that these come from the mouths of defectors who must be listened to warily and have their claims treated with suspicion given the facts they, on occasion, will say anything in order to be given a lesser sentence or protection. Attempts to try and access CIA or other IC members' files were largely unsuccessful. However, declassified files were able to shed some light on the area. According to a declassified November 1983 document from the CIA, the Agency documented a series of claims revolving around Cuba and the drug trade, including one which mentioned how "Cuban officials, including Fidel Castro, has considered a scheme in 1979 to deal with narcotics smugglers in order to obtain hard currency for Cuba and contribute to the deterioration of US society".60 The CIA did mention as well that "not all of [these reports] have been corroborated", though were comfortable enough with the totality of the reports that they did endorse the belief that Cuba was involved, in some measure, with drug traffickers.61 The American non-profit, Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba (FHRC), produced a historical work in 2019 documenting Cuba's involvement in Venezuela, including a section on Cuba's alleged involvement in the international drug trade. They allege that Cuba's official entry into the narcotics trade began in 1978, "with the creation of a department for [MININT] operations inside the Cuban corporation CIMEX [Corporación de Industrias Mixtas de Exportación], for money laundering and marijuana trafficking".62 The FHRC cites Norberto 60 U.S. Intelligence Community, Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, Drug Trafficking: The Role of Insurgents, Terrorists, and Sovereign States (Langley, November 1983), p. 05-06, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP85T00283R000300010008-6.pdf. 61 Ibid. 62 Juan Antonio Blanco, Rolando Cartaya, Luis Domínguez, & Casto Ocando, "Cubazuela: Chronicle of a Cuban Intervention," Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba, Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba, published April 2019, p. 87, https://www.fhrcuba.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/CUBAZUELA-CUBAN-INTERVENTION-English.pdf. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha1m8 Fuentes, an original member of the Cuban Revolution and Castro historian, as the source for the claims. While Fuentes' exact statements were unable to be accessed, it is known that a defector from Cuba's Ministry of the Interior, Major Jose Rodriguez Antonio Menier, too claimed that CIMEX was "linked to the drug trade" while even going a step further and stating that Castro had knowledge of general drug trafficking and CIMEX operations, using the profits to "support and opulent lifestyle [and fund] off-budget projects".63 Maria C. Werlau, an independent scholar and Cuban human rights activist, speaking to other anonymous defectors from the DGI, confirmed that CIMEX had a department entirely under the control of MININT in addition to making the allegation that, "100% of their revenue went into Fidel Castro's accounts".64 In testimony before Congressional subcommittees during the late-1980s, two convicted drug traffickers provided similar statements on Cuban involvement in the drug trade. One of them, Luis Garcia, testified that, in either "late-1979 or early-1980, Cuban officials offered him use of airstrips for refueling drug flights" and though he did not accept, "he was aware of other smugglers who did".65 Another trafficker named George Morales claimed that during a 1979 meeting in Cuba, he was sold planes which were seized by the Cuban government (presumably, Morales either stripped these planes for parts or would use them in his own drug trafficking endeavors) before eventually getting the Cubans to agree "to allow his pilots overflight rights through Cuban airspace".66 Senator John Kerry, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Terrorism, 63 Don Podesta, "Ex-Cuban Officer Says Castro Profited from Drug Trafficking," The Washington Post, The Washington Post Company, published 26 August 1989, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1989/08/26/ex-cuban-officer-says-castro-profited-from-drug-trafficking/5f7a23ba-b4ad-4bc6-b8ec-fbea4470bac5/. 64 Maria C. Werlau, "Fidel Castro, Inc. A Global Conglomerate," Cuba in Transition Vol. 15 (2005), p. 379, https://ascecuba.org//c/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/v15-werlau.pdf. 65 U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations, Drugs, Law Enforcement, and Foreign Policy: A Report, 100th Cong., 2nd sess., December 1988, p. 64. 66 Ibid. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha1m9 Narcotics, and International Operations, did however call Morales' statements "obviously incomplete", indicating that Morales' assertions required additional substantiation either through federal investigations, informants, or defectors.67 Attempts to find further evidence of Cuban involvement in the Western Hemispheric drug trade during the 1970s was minimal. It does appear that a top-secret, interagency, criminal investigation, initially codenamed "Operation Delta", was being conducted by the FBI, DEA, NYPD, and Chicago Police Department with the stated goal of "[digging] into the burgeoning Cuba-to-Florida narcotics trade and the distribution of drugs out of Miami".68 The details of this operation, however, are incredibly marginal, with attempts to access the records of this operation failing, despite multiple FOIA requests to the relevant agencies. It is possible that Cuba was not as active in the drug trade during this time due to the other foreign policy endeavors the nation-state was undertaking at that time (extensive military operations in Angola, South Africa, and Ethiopia). Due to the immense pressures going on with the nation, it is highly possible and logical even that Cuba toned down any drug trafficking activities that may have been going on. However, with the Soviet Union's death becoming more imminent and Cuba's foreign policy becoming more Latin American focused in the 1980s, Cuba seems to have significantly increased their ability at trafficking and providing security for drugs shipments as the crack epidemic swept into the U.S. during that time. The Cocaine Boom: Cuban and Drugs in the 1980s The 1980s saw a boom of drug trafficking and use throughout the Western Hemisphere. During the late 1970s, cocaine "[surged] in popularity…[being] associated with celebrities, high 67 Joan Mower, "Witness Claims Contra Drug Smuggling, Payoffs To Cuban, Bahamian Officials With," Associated Press, Associated Press, published 15 July 1987, https://apnews.com/article/5f5dd485a6d6825e88496281a2b1711c. 68 "Drugs gangs here, terrorist linked," Chicago Sun-Times, Sun-Times Media Group, published 16 April 1979, http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/drugs/faln-drugs.htm. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha2m0 rollers and glamorous parties" with this continuing into the 1980s before peaking in 1985 and being declared a nationwide epidemic.69 Throughout this time period, cocaine (and the even more popular derivative crack cocaine) was trafficked into the United States predominantly by organized criminal elements utilizing "a distribution system that imported cocaine from South America into the U.S. market using sea and air routes via the Caribbean and the South Florida coast" in addition to trafficking drugs through Mexico.70 While these trafficking routes are now largely managed and controlled by Mexican cartels like the Gulf Cartel or the Los Zetas, in the 1980s, the Colombians were the largest drug traffickers in the Western Hemisphere. The Medellín and Cali Cartels were the two largest players in the drug trade, with the Medellín Cartel being the dominant organized criminal element until 1993 with the death of Pablo Escobar.71 While both the Medellín and Cali Cartels are now extinct, they were incredibly powerful at the time, with the Medellín Cartel raking "up to $60 million daily in drug profits"72 and the Cali Cartel, by 1992, being "responsible for seventy percent of the cocaine sold in the United States, as well as for the extraordinary growth of the cocaine market in Europe".73 Because of the massive influence these organizations had and their wide area of operations throughout Central and North America, these cartels, mainly the Medellín, also joined forces with legitimate state enterprises such as Manuel Noriega's Panama to drastically increase their 69 Jason Ferris, Barbara Wood, & Stephanie Cook, "Weekly Dose: cocaine, the glamour drug of '70s, is making a comeback," The Conversation, The Conversation, published 08 March 2018, updated 12 March 2018, https://theconversation.com/weekly-dose-cocaine-the-glamour-drug-of-the-70s-is-making-a-comeback-88639. 70 Deonna S. Turner, "Crack epidemic," Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., published 08 July 2016, updated 04 September 2017, https://www.britannica.com/topic/crack-epidemic. 71 U.S. Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Administration, Strategic Intelligence Section, The Cocaine Threat to the United States (Springfield, VA, 19 July 1995), p. 04, https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/154678NCJRS.pdf. 72 Sara Miller Llana, "Medellín, once epicenter of Colombia's drug war, fights to keep peace," The Christian Science Monitor, Christian Science Publishing Society, published 25 October 2010, https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2010/1025/Medellin-once-epicenter-of-Colombia-s-drug-war-fights-to-keep-the-peace. 73 Juan E. Méndez, Political Murder and Reform in Colombia: The Violence Continues (New York, NY: Human Rights Watch, April 1992), p. 82. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha2m1 drug trafficking abilities.74 During the 1980s, many organized elements utilized the Caribbean to traffic narcotics either into Europe or into North America. It is without question that Cuba was one of these locations in which both air and sea craft landed to refuel and resupply before continuing on their way with payloads of narcotics.75 The first instance of Cuban involvement in the drug trade came in 1982 and 1983, with the apprehension and subsequent investigation of three persons with firsthand knowledge of these operations. These persons were Mario Estebes Gonzalez, an associate of Cuban intelligence, Jaime Guillot Lara, a Colombian weapons and drug smuggler, and Johnny Crump, a Colombian lawyer and drug smuggler. Mario Estebes' story was first reported on in the New York Times in April of 1983. According to Selwyn Raab, Estebes "was arrested by the Coast Guard on Nov. 29, 1981, while he was transporting 2,500 pounds of marijuana in a speedboat off the Florida coast. He was indicted on a charge of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute and faced a maximum prison term of 15 years".76 Facing many years in prison, Estebes decided to turn state's evidence and inform, in returning for immunity from some criminal charges, delivering rather explosive testimony. Estebes' testified that his mission priorities included, "disrupting Cuban exile groups and performing economic espionage, but that his principal mission was the distribution of cocaine, marijuana, and methaqualone[sic] tablets in New York, northern New Jersey, and 74 Mimi Yagoub, "How Panama's Criminal Landscape Has Changed Since the Days of Narco-Dictator Noriega," InSight Crime, InSight Crime, published 30 May 2017, https://insightcrime.org/news/analysis/how-panama-criminal-landscape-changed-since-narco-dictator-noriega/#. 75 Robert Filippone, "The Medellin Cartel: Why We Can't Win the Drug War," Studies in Conflict and Terrorism Vol. 17, Iss. 04 (1994), p. 332, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10576109408435960. 76 Selwyn Raab, "A Defector Tells of Drug Dealing by Cuban Agents," The New York Times, The New York Times Company, published 04 April 1983, https://www.nytimes.com/1983/04/04/nyregion/a-defector-tells-of-drug-dealing-by-cuba-agents.html. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha2m2 Florida" and returned multiple millions of dollars back to Cuba.77 He also testified that "heroin and other narcotics were shipped to the New York area inside vans with concealed compartments to hide the drugs" in addition to claiming "he saw Vice Admiral [Aldo] Santmaria give orders permitting the unloading of narcotics at Paredon Grande [a small island off the Northern Coast of Cuba] brought in by a reputed international narcotics trafficker, Jaime Guillot Lara".78 In May of that same year, Estebes spoke before the United States Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control in a joint hearing, testifying that the Cuban government, "used the 1980 Mariel boatlift to send as many as 7,000 spies to the United States, some of whom were ordered to help drug smugglers ''flood'' this country with illegal narcotics [and that] some agents were in this country for propaganda purposes and others were to create ''chaos'' in the event of war".79 Estebes expanded upon his earlier allegations and stated, "one scheme [involved] 23,000 pounds of marijuana and 10 million methaqualone tablets [being] shipped from Cuba to Florida," the profits of which were to be split between Cuban officials and the smugglers themselves.80 Jaime Guillot Lara is perhaps the most important of the three. Guillot Lara was a well-known drug/arms smuggler in Colombia who also happened to be "a close personal friend of the leader of the M-19 guerilla group, Jaime Bateman".81 As far as his smuggling habits, Guillot Lara, according to the DEA who had been keeping tabs on him as far back at 1975, "he was delivering over 400,000 pounds of marijuana, more than 20 million illicit methaqualone pills and 77 Alex Larzelere, Castro's Ploy-America's Dilemma: The 1980 Cuban Boatlift (Fort. Lesley J. McNair: National Defense University, 1988), p. 229-230, https://media.defense.gov/2020/Apr/23/2002287258/-1/-1/0/LARZELERE_MARIEL_BOATLIFT.PDF. 78 Raab, "A Defector Tells of Drug Dealing by Cuban Agents," The New York Times. 79 "Cuban Ties Boatlift To Drug Trade," Associated Press, Associated Press, published 01 May 1983, https://www.nytimes.com/1983/05/01/us/cuban-ties-boatlift-to-drug-trade.html. 80 Ibid. 81 LT. Timothy J. Doorey, "The Cuban Interventionary Forces: The Growing Strategic and Regional Threat to the United States and NATO" (master's thesis, Naval Postgraduate School, December 1986), p. 115, https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a180123.pdf. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha2m3 thousands of pounds of cocaine to U.S. markets each year" while also acquiring an impressive fleet of ships for trafficking purposes.82 Guillot Lara first became introduced to the Cuban ambassador to Colombia, Ravelo-Renendo, through their mutual friend, Johnny Crump, during a meeting (conducted at Gonzalo Bassols' apartment, the number two at the Cuban Embassy in Colombia) which resulted in a profitable relationship between Guillot Lara and the Cubans. While Crump would also corroborate this meeting between the following members, Guillot Lara's girlfriend, who was there when the meetings took place, corroborated many aspects, while also testifying that Bassols "told Mr. Guillot-Lara that the drug scheme had been cleared by a high Cuban official" which Bassols then identified was Fidel Castro.83 Either during or immediately after this introduction, according to Congressional testimony from Francis M. Mullen, Jr., the Administrator of the DEA in the early 1980s, Guillot Lara "began to receive official Cuban protection for the movement of his drug-ladened[sic] vessels to the United States…[in addition to transporting and delivering] arms which were ultimately destined for the Colombian terrorist group, M-19" on Cuban behalf.84 Not only did Guillot Lara traffic weapons to Cuban aligned rebels and allow the Cubans in on his drug trafficking endeavors, it appears he "also transferred funds to the guerillas through an employee of a Panamanian bank" acting as something of a go-between.85 From 1980 to 1981, Guillot Lara 82 Nathan M. Adams, "Havana's Drug-Smuggling Connection, Reader's Digest, Reader's Digest Association, Inc., published July 1982, http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/cuba/drugs.htm. 83 Extensions of Remarks, Cuba's Active Role in Drug Trafficking to the United States, 98th Cong., 1st sess., Congressional Record 130, pt. 24B: 10400, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CRECB-1984-pt8/pdf/GPO-CRECB-1984-pt8-2-3.pdf. 84 Leslie Maitland Werner, "U.S. Officials Link Castro and Drugs," The New York Times, The New York Times Company, published 10 November 1983, https://www.nytimes.com/1983/11/10/us/us-officials-link-castro-and-drugs.html. 85 U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs, Office of Public Communication. Cuban Support for Terrorism and Insurgency in the Western Hemisphere, edited by Colleen Sussman, (Washington, D.C., 12 March 1982), p. 02, https://books.googleusercontent.com/books/content?req=AKW5QafYFT9344IVwbKAk5KG_OJydGlr3Q7oZPpK8WHGSx3JeWsUS431ZZwaW55TaMUk3UvHW4jiCHRb9Utgv1_TsoAFZD6FOi8njL3jjxp8gSVFo2zCTKSLLP0KOTaXLPl9ZdycsUgqn7e8ud91hnk09ZPGbYZ0QYrbwbNypMoakmWoqtvZNPGG0e9cQ33AwwDL7jITmBXQF CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha2m4 and the Cubans entered into a cozy relationship, though one that quickly became fraught with complications. In March of 1981, Colombian authorities found a "cache of M-19 weapons" and, with captured M-19 fighters implicating Cuban involvement, the Colombian government "[broke] off diplomatic relations with Havana and [expelled Ambassador Ravelo] and his staff".86 From midsummer to November of 1981, two Guillot Lara operated boats and one aircraft (the aircraft and one of the boats carried weapons for M-19) were apprehended by both the Colombian Coast Guard and United States Coast Guard; the capture of three M-19 rebels by the Colombian military also resulted in smuggling operations being significantly damaged.87 Guillot Lara fled Colombia, facing criminal charges, before being arrested by Mexican authorities.88 Awaiting extradition by the Mexicans to either the United States or Colombia, Guillot Lara revealed to both Mexican and U.S. investigators that he had "been involved in trafficking operations to Colombia for the M-19 on behalf of the government of Cuba. The latter provided the funds for the purchase of the arms".89 Following his revelations, however, Guillot Lara was released from Mexican custody and disappeared; according to the Colombian daily newspaper El Tiempo, Guillot Lara died in early April 1991 in Cuba of a myocardial infarction having "been detained on the island for twelve years".90 xujwOix6ni7j0-eT0RVti430wKPH9bicd8LdzulTZPXR8JDPGMTsyF2guKz20_HFjQkKlW8r6xpBfdR4TEC5SqWHYuetwHCl4rS7YWkCl0. 86 Adams, "Havana's Drug-Smuggling Connection, Reader's Digest. 87 John Dorschner & Jim McGee, "Did the Castro Regime Run Drugs to Florida?," Tropic Magazine, The Miami Herald, KnightRidder, published 20 November 1983, http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/cuba/crump.htm. 88 Edna Buchanan, "Miami drug smuggler ran drugs for Castro to guerillas, agents say," Miami Herald, Knight Ridder, published 24 January 1982, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP90-00552R000303490005-9.pdf. 89 Dorschner & McGee, "Did the Castro Regime Run Drugs to Florida?," Tropic Magazine. 90 "Guillot Died of a Infarction," El Tiempo, Casa Editorial El Tiempo S.A., published 13 April 1991, https://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/MAM-61284. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha2m5 Johnny Crump is where the public first became aware of a Cuban connection to the drug trade, though the last defector to be arrested by U.S. authorities. Crump, according to investigative reporter Ernest Volkman, was a Colombian lawyer of American descent who "went into the narcotics racket, running a large-scale cocaine and marijuana-smuggling operation" following the failing of his family's ranch in the late-1970s.91 Being politically well-connected, he was asked to serve as a guide for the newly appointed Cuban Ambassador to Colombia, the aforementioned Fernando Ravelo-Renendo, in 1975, the two quickly becoming friends.92 The two became so close that Crump even asked Ravelo to be his newborn daughter's godfather.93 At one point in 1979, in both federal testimony and statements made to Miami Herald journalists John Dorschner & Jim McGee, Crump detailed a meeting he had between Ravelo in which the ambassador detailed, "was dealing with some Chileans who needed help…seeking American weapons, not traceable back to Cuba, to use in the fight to overthrow Augusto Pinochet," to which Crump agreed and offered assistance.94 Following this, Crump tried to arrange a deal in which a plane would transport marijuana into the country, however, few pilots were willing to enter Cuba's Camaguey airport where Ravelo had arranged for refueling.95 In a previously mentioned meeting between Ravelo, Crump, 91 Ernest Volkman, "The Odd Couple: Castro and Vesco: The Cocaine Alliance," The Gadsden Times, Edward Marsh, published 29 April 1984, https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1891&dat=19840428&id=jKkfAAAAIBAJ&sjid=etYEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5242,6122535. 92 Dorschner & McGee, "Did the Castro Regime Run Drugs to Florida?," Tropic Magazine. 93 NBC Nightly News, "The Cuban Connection," featuring Roger Mudd, Brian Moss, Johnny Crump, and George H.W. Bush, aired 29 September 1982, transcript, NBC Network, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP88-01070R000100380010-3.pdf. 94 Dorschner & McGee, "Did the Castro Regime Run Drugs to Florida?," Tropic Magazine. 95 PBS Frontline, season 09, episode 10, "Cuba and Cocaine," directed and written by Stephanie Tepper & William Cran, aired 05 February 1991, transcript, Public Broadcasting System, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/archive/cubaandcocaine.html. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha2m6 and Guillot Lara, the four agreed to transport the drugs via boat to Cuba with protection from Cuban Navy and Coast Guard forces.96 In a 1991 interview with PBS Frontline, Crump detailed the finalization of the first watercraft drug shipment to Cuba, discussing how he disembarked from "the plane to a Cuban government car that was waiting for us in the airport. I mean, there's no way that you can go to any country with no passport, with nothing like that, landing from another country in an international airport and have a car waiting for you right there in the field. It has to be with the OK of that government, that country… Everything was paid by the Cuban government. The hotel, you had to sign, like, you are a guest from the Cuban government because they don't let me pay for the hotel"; while Crump left the country before he personally could see any drugs entering the country, he was reassured by Ravelo that the drugs indeed touched down on Cuban soil.97 From that point onward, Crump became very involved in trafficking narcotics and arms with the Cubans, doing so via air and seacraft and aiding the Cubans larger foreign policy goals in aiding left-wing insurgent groups through Central and South America. In January of 1982, however, Crump was arrested in a joint Customs-DEA operation "at the Omni Hotel in Miami…on drug trafficking charges".98 At the time, Crump was acquiring arms and other weaponry "to be sent to an unspecified group in Bolivia" via his friend Jaime Guillot Lara.99 Much like Estebes, Crump was facing heavy prison time and began cooperating with federal 96 Dorschner & McGee, "Did the Castro Regime Run Drugs to Florida?," Tropic Magazine. 97 PBS Frontline, season 09, episode 10, "Cuba and Cocaine," directed and written by Stephanie Tepper & William Cran, aired 05 February 1991, accessed through vault, Public Broadcasting System, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/cuba-and-cocaine/. 98 Buchanan, "Miami drug smuggler ran drugs for Castro to guerillas, agents say," Miami Herald. 99 U.S. Department of State. Cuban Support for Terrorism and Insurgency in the Western Hemisphere, edited by Colleen Sussman, p. 02. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha2m7 authorities, providing them "with details of his meetings and alleged drug dealings with Cuban government officials in Bogota and Havana".100 Much of Estebes, Guillot Lara, and Crump's claims are astounding, however, it must be kept in mind that these persons are convicted drug traffickers and defectors from Colombian drug cartels or are in some way associated with Cuba's military respectively. Despite this, many prosecutors and U.S. government agencies found some, if not a sizeable portion of their claims, credible. In Estebes' case, Richard Gregorie commented at the time on Estebes' validity as a witness describing how his comments were "very credible" and had been "independently corroborated".101 In an interview with Gregorie, the former attorney stressed he "found him credible because of that [outside and additional] corroboration".102 The Senate Chair of one committee also stated that Estebes' credibility was "checked out…with the Justice Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration".103 As far as Guillot Lara's credibility goes, the CIA's opinion of him seems to be rather high. According to a CIA Special National Intelligence Estimate from 1983, "[t]he Guillot Lara case…is proof that Cuba has used Colombian drug smuggling networks move arms to Colombian insurgents. In this case, Cuban officials and Colombian drug traffickers were clearly associated in facilitating narcotics shipments to the United States. Guillot paid the Cubans in hard currency and used his vessels and smuggling networks to move arms to Colombia for the insurgents. On the other hand, Cuba rather routinely searches some drug-smuggling ships found 100 NBC Nightly News, "The Cuban Connection," featuring Roger Mudd, Brian Moss, Johnny Crump, and George H.W. Bush, aired 29 September 1982, transcript. 101 Raab, "A Defector Tells of Drug Dealing by Cuban Agents," The New York Times. 102 Richard "Dick" Gregorie (former Chief of Narcotics for the USAO-SDFL) in discussion with the author, 08 April 2021. 103 Raab, "A Defector Tells of Drug Dealing by Cuban Agents," The New York Times. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha2m8 in Cuban waters, confiscates drugs found and often imprisons the crew".104 Through this excerpt, the CIA seems to endorse the view that the overall claims about drug traffickers smuggling weaponry and drugs in collusion with Cuban figures and through Cuban waters is true and based in fact. While the CIA did seem to treat the accounts and his entire involvement with legitimacy, the agency was careful to note they were unsure of "the extent to which Cuba has continued to facilitate drug trafficking, either for money or arms".105 While the following document is not exactly an intelligence estimate or official analysis, an August 1982 conference report conducted by the CIA and the National Intelligence Council (NIC) stated, "Given the involvement of senior Cuban officials and at least two Cuban embassies, we believe this activity was approved at the highest levels of the Cuban Government. It almost certainly was not a case of corruption by mid- or low-level Cuban officials…Given the level of Guillot's Cuban contacts and the political implications of the arrangements, the operation was almost certainly approved at the highest levels of the Havana government" though the document was clear in stating that the U.S. government was uncertain as to who was behind the operation.106 These three witnesses were able to corroborate a great deal of information that the U.S. federal government, mainly the DEA and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), had been investigating since the late 1970s. With this testimony from defectors and arrested drug traffickers who were seemingly vetted and verified, the U.S. government finally was able to bring forth official charges against certain members of the Cuban government and military. 104 U.S. Intelligence Community, Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, Implications for the United States of the Colombian Drug Trade Vol. II (Langley, 28 June 1983), p. 02, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP86T00302R000600990002-9.pdf. 105 Ibid. 106 U.S. Intelligence Community, National Intelligence Council and Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Operations, Cuban Involvement in Narcotics and Terrorism (Langley, August 1982), p. iii, 3, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP83B00851R000100160008-1.pdf. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha2m9 On 05 November, 1982, an indictment brought by the USAO-SDFL in Miami, Florida charged that certain drug traffickers and members of the Cuban government did "knowingly, willfully and unlawfully combine, conspire, confederate and agree, together with each other, and with diverse other persons who are both known and unknown to the Grand Jury, to commit certain offenses against the United States" in the importation and possession of methaqualone tablets and marijuana and "used and caused to be used facilities in interstate and foreign commerce, including the telephone, and traveled and caused others to travel in interstate and foreign commerce between the Southern District of Florida, Colombia, Cuba and elsewhere, with the intent to promote, manage, establish, carry on and facilitate the promotion, management, establishment and carrying on of an unlawful activity, said unlawful activity being a business enterprise involving controlled substances".107 The persons charged in this indictment brought forth by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida included Jaime Guillot Lara, Fernando Ravelo-Renendo, Gonzalo Bassols-Suarez, Aldo Santamaria-Cuadrado, Rene Rodriguez-Cruz, and David Lorenzo Perez, Jr. alongside multiple other, predominantly, Miami-based drug traffickers.108 Neither Crump or Estebes were charged as both had testified for the prosecution and received either partial or full immunity in addition to new identities and federal protection. The Cuban Interests Section in Washington, Cuba's foreign policy arm operating as an independent section of the Czechoslovakian Embassy, commented that the charges against Ravelo, Bassols, Santamaria, and Rodriguez-Cruz were "all lies"109; a January 1982 letter from 107 United States v. Jaime Guillot Lara et al., No. 82-643-Cr-JE (S.D. Fla., 05 November 1982), http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/drugs/indictment-82.htm. 108 Ibid. 109 George Volsky, "U.S. Drug Charges Cite 4 Cuban Aides," The New York Times, The New York Times Company, published 06 November 1982, https://www.nytimes.com/1982/11/06/us/us-drug-charges-cite-4-cuban-aides.html. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha3m0 Cuba's Ministry of Foreign Relations (MINREX) denied Cuba ever utilized drug traffickers to transport arms to rebels in Latin America, never gave arms to guerillas in Colombia, and denied that Guillot Lara had ever set foot in Cuba or received any monies from the Republic of Cuba.110 The denial by Cuba of having never gave arms to Colombian guerillas was roundly criticized, most notably in a 1990 interview with former U.S. Ambassador to Colombia Thomas Boyatt.111 Among those charged were high level Cuban officials, some of whom have already been discussed including the Cuban Ambassador to Colombia Ravelo-Renendo and his "minister-counsel" at the Cuban Embassy in Colombia Bassols-Suarez.112 In addition to these figures, the indictment also charged Vice Admiral (VADM) of the Cuban Navy Aldo Santamaria-Cuadrado and Rene Rodriguez-Cruz a "member of the Cuban Community Party Central Committee and president of the Cuban Institute of Friendship With The Peoples [ICAP]" with the same charges.113 It is worth noting that the ICAP was described by the CIA in a 1984 brief as being an organization which, in addition to bringing in foreign youths interested in Communism, Socialism, or Cuba also "provided Cuban intelligence services with a registry of aliens who might prove useful for intelligence collection efforts and operations in their homelands".114 110 "Foreign Ministry Issues Statement on Drugs," Minister of Foreign Affairs Isidoro Malmierca Peoli (28 January 1982), Translation by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Latin America Report, Cuba, JPRS L/10334, 18 February 1982, p. 03-04, heading: Foreign Ministry Issues Statement on Drugs, Republic of Cuba, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Latin America Report, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP82-00850R000500030043-6.pdf. 111 Ambassador Thomas D. Boyatt (Ret.), interviewed by Charles Stuart Kennedy, Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, 08 March 1990, p. 48, https://www.adst.org/OH%20TOCs/Boyatt,%20Thomas%20D.toc.pdf?_ga=2.264396167.981542772.1592939617-1066174783.1588020094&_gac=1.137161348.1589401103.EAIaIQobChMIgqnAwtSx6QIVSx-tBh2tGgsJEAAYASAAEgKALvD_BwE. 112 U.S. Intelligence Community, Central Intelligence Agency, National Foreign Assessment Center, Directory of Officials of the Republic of Cuba (Langley, October 1979), p. 224, https://ufdcimages.uflib.ufl.edu/AA/00/07/66/14/00003/AA00076614_00003.pdf. 113 Mary Thornton, "Four Cuban Officials Indicted in Drug Smuggling," The Washington Post, The Washington Post Company, published 06 November 1982, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1982/11/06/four-cuban-officials-indicted-in-drug-smuggling/d70ed042-0adc-42d2-971b-23475f7adc83/. 114 U.S. Intelligence Community, Central Intelligence Agency, Cuba: Castro's Propaganda Apparatus and Foreign Policy (Langley, November 1984), p. 13, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000972183.pdf. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha3m1 David Lorenzo Perez, Jr. is an interesting figure within this legal case as he, in December of 1982, pled guilty to the first count of the criminal indictment.115 In his plea, Lorenzo Perez indicated culpability on Guillot Lara's part to "purchase, receive, store, and possess with intent to distribute approximately eight and one-half million methaqualone tablets" while indicating "that Jaime Guillot-Lara would provide ships to transport methaqualone tablets from Columbia[sic] with the knowledge of the Cuban governmental officials".116 Lorenzo Perez admitted he assisted Guillot Lara in all of these actions while also admitting he "traveled by private vessel from the Southern District of Florida to Paredon Grande, Cuba [and] met with Cuban government officials" including Santamaria and Rodriguez-Cruz.117 In Congressional testimony, Lorenzo Perez also testified that that "Cuban government was also to receive one-third of the profit of the marihuana[sic] sale" yet this did not go through as it appears Guillot Lara kept the profits [just under half a million USD] to himself.118 This case was the most significant development in the long standing allegations against Cuba on the area of narcotics trafficking. However, it is incredibly important to note that there was no evidence linking the Castros to the drug trade. The lead attorney who personally handled the case for the DOJ, Richard Gregorie, stated "Was Fidel Castro involved? At this point, no…[I] can't honestly say I saw that open Cuban involvement [and] did not come up with anyone who spoke directly to Fidel in those early cases".119 115 United States v. David Lorenzo Perez, Jr., et al., No. 82-643-Cr-JE (S.D. Fla., 09 December 1982), p. 01, http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/cuba/perez-jr.htm. 116 United States v. David Lorenzo Perez, Jr., et al., No. 82-643-Cr-JE, p. 02, http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/cuba/perez-jr-1.htm. 117 Ibid. 118 U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism, Foreign Relations Committee, Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs, The Cuban Government's Involvement in Facilitating International Drug Traffic, 98th Cong., 1st Sess., 30 April 1983, p. 33. 119 Richard "Dick" Gregorie (former Chief of Narcotics for the USAO-SDFL) in discussion with the author, 08 April 2021. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha3m2 Also around this time, many officials from the DOJ and U.S. Department of State (DOS) changed their previously emphasized opinions on the extent of Cuban involvement in the drug trade. In an October 1983 hearing before the Senate Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism, DEA Administrator Mullen stated, "I moved very cautiously at first wanting to have evidence before publicly stating I was convinced that the Cuban Government was involved in drug trafficking. I am now convinced, as I have stated in prior sessions, that there is Cuban Government involvement in drug trafficking", bringing forth the above indictments and other "[classified and confidential] information" to support his reasoning.120 The Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, James H. Michel, stated before Congress also in May of 1983 "the evidence clearly indicates more than a case of corruption by local or mid-level security officials in Cuba…Narcotics trafficking has apparently been sanctioned by Cuba as a means to finance subversion in Latin America".121 These comments were found by the Washington Post to, "fit in with a Reagan administration campaign to rally public and congressional support for its Central American policies, including more aid for El Salvador's army".122 Michel was not the only State Department official to make this claim either. The Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Lawrence S. Eagleburger stated in May of 1983 that he "would find it very difficult to believe that the Cuban Government itself is not 120 U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism, Impact of the South Florida Task Force on Drug Interdiction In The Gulf Coast Area, 98th Cong., 1st Sess., 28 October 1983, p. 16, https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/97516NCJRS.pdf. 121 U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs, Office of Public Communication, Cuban Involvement in Narcotics Trafficking, edited by Colleen Sussman, (Washington, D.C., 30 April 1983), p. 02, https://www.google.com/books/edition/Cuban_Involvement_in_Narcotics_Trafficki/NItKAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0. 122 Edward Cody, "Castro Ties To Drugs Suggested," The Washington Post, The Washington Post Company, published 01 May 1983, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1983/05/01/castro-ties-to-drugs-suggested/242170fe-a930-4bc4-b30c-18016f794497/. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha3m3 involved… [The evidence is] really quite clear that there is major Cuban involvement in the drug traffic in this country", while also accusing the Castro government of playing a role in this.123 However, this appears to be more Eagleburger's own personal opinion as a more senior State Department official stated later that no agency had been able to prove "personal involvement by Fidel Castro".124 A spokesman for the Cuban Interests Section responded to the comments by Mullen and Michel by stating, "[This is] propaganda against the Cubans…We [the Cuban government] are refusing this accusation. We have consistent fighting against drug traffic. There are many American people who are put in Cuban jails for drug trafficking".125 At this stage, in relation to the Guillot Lara/Crump case, these definitive comments that Castro or the Cuban government officially was involved seemed to an extreme jump and other officials protested against this characterization. Stanley Marcus, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida and the attorney whose office brought forth the indictments against the four Cuban officials, stated before Congress "I think it is a fair and accurate statement to say some of the major organs and institutions of the Cuban state and some high-ranking officials of those organs and institutions of the state are involved in drug-running to the United States".126 William H. Webster, then Director of the FBI, also spoke about this in a television interview, stating the majority of the evidence currently being used by some officials to make judgements "[came] from one set of 123 Kenneth B. Noble, "Official Ties Cuba to U.S. Drug Traffic," The New York Times, The New York Times Company, published 02 May 1983, https://www.nytimes.com/1983/05/02/world/official-ties-cuba-to-us-drug-traffic.html. 124 Ibid. 125 Werner, "U.S. Officials Link Castro and Drugs," The New York Times. 126 U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Terrorism and Security, The Cuban Government's Involvement in Facilitating International Drug Traffic, 98th Cong., 1st sess., 30 April 1983, p. 15. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha3m4 sources and should be viewed with care".127 At this juncture, there was a great deal of conflicting views upon the established evidence, some most likely based upon political and individual biases based upon preconceived notions on both the nature of Communism and Latin America in general. While the evidence linking Castro or the Cuban government as a whole is very minimal (mostly relegated to evidence that would be considered hearsay in a U.S. court of law), it is undeniable that sections of the Cuban government, including areas of Cuba's diplomatic and intelligence services, were utilizing drug traffickers to achieve larger foreign policy goals within the Latin American region. As the 1980s progressed, additional evidence of Cuban involvement in the drug trade became even more apparent with defectors from Noriega's Panama, Cuba's DGI, and the arrests of multiple drug traffickers all speaking to U.S. officials. During this time as well, many criminal investigators of the U.S. federal government found or came across evidence of drug trafficking on Cuba's part along with the U.S. IC coming to a more solid conclusion on the matter. Prior to these November 1982 indictments, an FBI investigation into Cuban involvement in the drug trade was underway. In October of 1982, a U.S. Customs plane near Corpus Christi, Texas intercepted a Cessna aircraft that was having a mechanical malfunction and tracked it to Cleburne, Texas. The pilot, an American, "was arrested with 877 pounds of marijuana onboard" with "Chemical analysis [showing the marijuana] almost certainly was grown in Cuba".128 Following the pilot's conviction in April of 1983, federal investigators detailed "the ring operated for two years in violation of government embargoes on trade with Cuba by shipping computers and other equipment. Some of the return flights carried high-grade Cuban 127 Ibid. 128 "Did Cuba get computers in return for marijuana?" The Miami Herald, KnightRidder, published 02 April 1983, http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/cuba/computers.htm. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha3m5 marijuana".129 The evidence necessary to make the claim that this ring was operating with the explicit approval of Cuban government officials or the Castros themselves is very lacking, however, what this does indicate is that there were individual smugglers beyond large metropolitan centers who were found to have ties to Cuba and that Cuba seemingly was involved in producing drugs in some quantity. In December of 1984, the CIA released an interagency intelligence memorandum stating outright, "Cuba is currently supporting drug trafficking…We judge that Fidel Castro is fully cognizant of and condones the drug-related activity that is taking place with the support of Cuban officials…The key Cuban participants are officers of the Interior Ministry or America Department of the Cuban Communist Party's Central Committee…Their participation strongly indicates a sanctioned government policy, rather than an arrangement for personal gain".130 While a good portion of this document is redacted, this is the first time in which an intelligence agency, or the CIA at least, has openly accused the upper echelon of the Cuban government and Castro himself of playing some role or in some way supporting the activities occurring. During this period, many criminal investigations uncovered more information on Cuban involvement in the drug trade, with additional evidence of Castro involvement becoming more apparent. In addition to this, many Congressional hearings and panels were convened with the goal of exploring the Latin American drug trade, during which many witnesses were called. Among these witnesses was Diego Viafara Salinas, an M-19 physician who infiltrated an armed civilian group with ties to members of the Medellín Cartel.131 Salinas held the belief he would be 129 Ibid. 130 U.S. Intelligence Community, Central Intelligence Agency, Cuban Government Involvement in Drug Trafficking (Langley, December 1984), p. 03, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP87T00217R000700140002-5.pdf. 131 U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Governmental Affairs, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Structure of International Drug Trafficking Organizations, 101st Cong., 1st Sess., 12-13 September 1989, p. 70, https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/146771NCJRS.pdf. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha3m6 killed due to his past association with M19 and began providing evidence to the Colombian government, which eventually resulted in the deaths of many prominent Medellín Cartel leaders.132 In testimony before the U.S. Congress, Salinas recalled that, "[on November 22, 1988] two pilots flying a Commander 1000 aircraft were planning to stop and refuel in Cuba. They were leaving from an estate [in the Department of Cordoba] …When the seats of the plane were removed to load the cocaine, I saw the navigation charts, which indicated they were flying over the southern coast of Cuba. These pilots commented that they had to be sure to carry some amount of U.S. dollars with them to leave in Cuba as prearranged payment for the stopover".133 While the pilots Salinas spoke with never identified who gave them clearance to fly over Cuba with drugs, Salinas did testify "that it [the drug trafficking operation] was all the way up to Fidel Castro" with this information apparently coming from Fidel's spokesman.134 It is worth noting that this piece of testimony would effectively qualify as hearsay in a U.S. court of law. Many informants also came forward with information that would prove to be incriminatory to many persons with ties to the drug trade, including certain high-ranking Cuban leaders. On such source, a confidential informant for the DEA, who, after being arrested in 1985 on conspiracy charges, provided information on much of the Medellín's drug trafficking activities to the U.S. government.135 In a request for payment from the DEA's Asuncion Country Office, the agency noted the source's decades of service to the United States, describing him as having led "successful 132 U.S. Congress, Senate, Structure of International Drug Trafficking Organizations, p. 73. 133 U.S. Congress, Senate, Structure of International Drug Trafficking Organizations, p. 71-72. 134 Ibid. 135 U.S. Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Administration, Asuncion Country Office, REQUEST for PAYMENT under 28 U.S.C. 524 (C)(1)(B) for CONFIDENTIAL SOURCE (CS #####) (Asuncion, post-2009), p. 01. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha3m7 negotiations for landing rights and refueling operations in [among other countries] Cuba…[the source] purchased a birthday surprise (an airplane bought in the U.S.) for Fidel CASTRO's[sic] birthday, which he personally handed over to Castro's brother Raúl (then Cuba's Minister of Defense) during lunch".136 This information is quite damning to the Castro regime and, if true, would prove that, at the least, Raúl Castro did have knowledge of Cuban involvement in the drug trade and condoned those operations. While it cannot be emphasized enough that this confidential source pled "nolo contendere to the conspiracy charges in 1986", it does speak volumes that the DEA found him an essential and trustworthy source to continue using well into the 21st century.137 At this same time, another development implicated an American fugitive with close ties to the Castro regime in the drug trade. In April of 1985, appearing "before the Senate subcommittee on children, family, and drugs" (which was investigating Nicaraguan governmental involvement in the drug trade) were two convicted smugglers who provided further information on Cuban involvement in the drug trade.138 One of them was smuggler James A. Herring, Jr. who, while insisting he never transported drugs for the Cubans or Nicaraguans, detailed his smuggling activities with the Cubans in an interview with PBS Frontline, saying, "When I would go into Varadero with boatloads of equipment, we would be received by marked vessels that the Cuban navy, so to speak, utilized, their military gunboats. They would escort us into the gunboat dockage there at Varadero. From there they would offload. We would stay as long as we felt necessary to refuel us, wined and dined us. And when we were ready to return to 136 Ibid. 137 Ibid. 138 "Witnesses Testify on Vesco Link to Drug trafficking in Nicaragua, Cuba," Associated Press, Associated Press, published 19 April 1985, https://apnews.com/article/09e42836a8f58d76da155fa155da7847. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha3m8 the Keys, they would take and escort us out".139 In addition to this, Herring also claimed that the DGI, "would even offer drugs in lieu of the cash. [They] had the availability of enormous amounts of drugs that they had warehoused through seizures that they had made in their country on drug operations that weren't paying protection for their air space or their waterways. So they had a readily available amount of drugs in the form of cocaine, Qualudes[sic] and marijuana".140 Herring also testified that "he worked with Cuban Government officials and [Robert Vesco] to help the Nicaraguan government build a cocaine-processing laboratory near Managua".141 Vesco had been a successful businessman in the United States, creating a hundred-million-dollar manufacturing empire by 1970 before being twice indicted on federal charges for "defrauding thousands of investors [of $224 million USD]" and "for making illegal contributions totaling $250,000" to Richard Nixon's re-election campaign in 1972 and 1976 respectively.142 Following this, Vesco fled to numerous Latin American countries (including Nicaragua) before settling in Cuba around 1984.143 In a March 1996 profile for Vanity Fair, Vesco's immediate family indicates a friendly relationship to Fidel and Raul Castro in addition to a partnership to traffic narcotics with Col. Antonio De La Guardia, a high-ranking figure in the DGI and an important part of Cuba's overall foray into the drug trade.144 Eventually, however, Vesco attracted the eye of U.S. federal law enforcement for his 139 PBS Frontline, season 09, episode 10, "Cuba and Cocaine," directed and written by Stephanie Tepper & William Cran, aired 05 February 1991. 140 Ibid. 141 Joel Brinkley, "Panel Hears Details Linking Managua and Drugs," The New York Times, The New York Times Company, published 20 April 1985, https://www.nytimes.com/1985/04/20/world/panel- hears-details-linking-managua-and-drugs.html. 142 Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica, "Robert L. Vesco," Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., published 20 July 1998, updated 30 November 2020, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Robert-L-Vesco. 143 Ibid. 144 Ann Louise Bardach, "Vesco's Last Gamble," Vanity Fair, Condé Nast, published March 1996, https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/1996/3/vescos-last-gamble. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha3m9 alleged participation in drug trafficking and, though some convicted drug traffickers and Cuban intelligence defectors implicated him in criminal acts, the "FBI and [DEA] denied he had any role" in certain elements of the drug trade, disproving these traffickers and defectors' claims.145 Ultimately, Vesco was arrested and sentenced to prison in Cuba in 1996 "for economic crimes against the government of Fidel Castro".146 Since at least April of 1987, the DEA's Miami Office was actively pursuing an investigation against Cuban government and military officials. Harry Sommers, a newly minted DEA agent to the Miami FO and later Special Agent-in-Charge (SAC) of the Atlanta FO, was the lead investigator on the case and detailed his investigation in an April 1990 academic work for Florida International University. According to Sommers, in April of 1987, "two pilots [an American and Cuban national] flew approximately 480 pounds of cocaine from Colombia to [Varadero Military Base, Cuba]…where the cocaine was transferred to Cuban military officers".147 According to Sommers, the pilots were both questioned by U.S. officials and, in this interview, both pilots claimed they had stopped in Cuba to make "emergency repairs" and "presented documentation from the Cuban government confirming their story".148 The drugs were then placed upon a boat named the "Flerida" and, while attempting to enter Florida waters that April, was intercepted by the DEA. In the ensuing interviews with the boat's operators (all Cubans who were "residing in 145 Jim McGee, Pierre Thomas, Guy Gugliotta, & Jerry Knight "Vesco Held In Cuba," The Washington Post, The Washington Post Company, published 09 June 1995, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1995/06/09/vesco-held-in-cuba/874c16d3-81a5-4700-84ce- 6a4e8300fdab/. 146 Douglas Farah, "Vesco Gets 13-Year Sentence in Cuba," The Washington Post, The Washington Post Company, published 27 August 1996, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1996/08/27/vesco-gets-13-year-sentence-in-cuba/77271414- 9219-4efe-b68c-5d30b0f9b11b/. 147 Harry Sommers "Untitled Graduate Studies Paper," (graduate paper, Florida International University, 23 April 1990), p. 07. 148 Sommers "Untitled Graduate Studies Paper," p. 08. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha4m0 Miami"), the DEA found the boat was "[initially] met at sea by a Cuban Coast Guard vessel and escorted to the military base in Varadero [where the] crew members were housed and fed until the cocaine was loaded onto the vessel" upon which the boat was escorted out of Cuban waters by a Coast Guard ship.149 Additional evidence showing U.S.-based drug traffickers of Cuban descent docking and landing at Varadero and interacting heavily with Cuban military officers was uncovered through further investigations in May and November of 1987.150 This investigation led to the federal indictments of various figures in late 1988, including Reinaldo and Rueben Ruiz, a Cuban father and son drug trafficking team operating out of the South Florida.151 Reinaldo Ruiz, facing a sentence of life imprisonment, agreed to make a deal with the government in return for a lighter sentence.152 In a television interview with PBS Frontline before his death, Ruiz detailed his involvement in the drug trade and his associations with the Cuban government. According to Ruiz, he would transport a boat from Florida to Varadero where "everything had been arranged in advance [by Colonel Pardo, Chief of Command of Naval Operations in Varadero]" while his son, Rueben, would fly the cocaine from Colombia to Varadero which, upon landing, would be transferred to Ruiz's boat by members of the Cuban military and MININT.153 In this interview, Ruiz also stated "Every time that I went over there, I was completely sure that I was a 100 percent backing[sic], all the way to the top, otherwise I never, ever touch a thing out there". 154 149 Ibid. 150 Sommers "Untitled Graduate Studies Paper," p. 08-10. 151 Buddy Nivens, "Jury Links Cuba To Drug Smuggling," South Florida Sun Sentinel, Tribune Publishing, published 27 February 1988, https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-1988-02-27-8801120759-story.html. 152 Richard Cole, "Prosecutors: Trafficker Implicated More Top Cuban Officials," Associated Press, Associated Press, published 21 August 1989, https://apnews.com/article/348da22ca41fd9a7e77c7ab9226c504e. 153 PBS Frontline, season 09, episode 10, "Cuba and Cocaine," directed and written by Stephanie Tepper & William Cran, aired 05 February 1991. 154 Ibid. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha4m1 Despite Ruiz's comment, he never once indicated to federal investigators he met Fidel or Raul Castro; the closest Ruiz got to implicating either senior leader was a secret recording made by a DEA informant in which Ruiz claimed "The [payoff] money went in Fidel's drawer".155 Again, Ruiz never identified this person as being Fidel Castro and, if he did, the information would have come from someone who had heard this information from someone else, effectively being inadmissible evidence. What is quite serious about Ruiz's allegations and testimony however are his connections to Cuban intelligence. According to Harry Sommers and confirmed by other federal investigations, Ruiz was a "cousin of Miguel Ruiz-Poo…a Cuban captain in the Ministry of the Interior" who was working in Panama when he met Reinaldo Ruiz.156 While they initially began transporting U.S. goods and products to circumvent the embargo, Reinaldo Ruiz eventually floated the idea of trafficking cocaine through Cuba which resulted in Ruiz-Poo informing his superior Major Amado Padrón Trujillo and Colonel Antonio "Tony" de la Guardia, both members of the Moneda Convertible (MC) Department, a division meant to "circumvent the United States embargo and earn Cuba hard currency".157 This is where Ruiz's involvement in shipping boats and aircraft filled with cocaine and other narcotics to Cuba and then on to Florida began. According to esteemed journalist Andres Oppenheimer, shortly after de la Guardia and Ruiz initially met, Ruiz asked de la Guardia if Fidel Castro was aware of their arrangement to traffic narcotics to which de la Guardia replied in the affirmative. Oppenheimer writes however 155 "Secret Drug Case Tape Talks of 'Fidel' Payoffs" Associated Press, Associated Press, published 09 March 1988, https://apnews.com/article/0800e600293914df73901e1fe452316b. 156 Sommers "Untitled Graduate Studies Paper," p. 11. 157 González, "The Cuban Connection: Drug Trafficking and the Castro Regime," CSA Occasional Paper Series Vol. 02. No. 06 (1997), p. 10. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha4m2 "It is unclear whether Tony de la Guardia had personally discussed his cocaine-trafficking plans with Castro. The Commandante, with his instinctive revulsion for money matters, seldom got involved in dirty business deals. That was Interior Minister Abrantes's job…De La Guardia's statement to Reinaldo Ruiz may have reflected the colonel's assumption that Abrantes never would have okayed something as hot as a drug operation without Fidel's blessing".158 Also around this time was the federal indictment against Manuel Noriega, the dictator of Panama who had become an increasing annoyance to the U.S. government. Despite having initially been friendly to the U.S., providing information to the CIA and DEA159, his involvement in substantial drug trafficking and racketeering efforts (in addition to the significant corruption and general abuses of his regime) had made him a liability.160 Among the witnesses who provided information against Noriega was Jose Blandón Castillo, a former key member of Noriega's intelligence service and a "consul general in New York".161 Blandón provided first-hand knowledge of incidences, confirming some of what was already suspected by American officials and investigators on Noriega's activities, but also claimed Fidel Castro mediated a dispute between Noriega and the Medellín Cartel in the Darién Province of Panama. According to Blandón, he "met with Castro in Havana on June 21 or 22, 1984 [and] Castro recommended that Noriega return the $5 million in protection money and return the plant, personnel, and equipment to the Cartel" and on either June 27th or 28th, "Noriega and Castro met 158 Andres Oppenheimer, Castro's Final Hour: The Secret Story Behind the Coming Downfall of Communist Cuba (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1992), p. 29. 159 Robert L. Jackson, "Noriega Gave DEA Limited Aid for 5 Years, Officials Say," Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Company, published 16 December 1991, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-12-16-mn-517-story.html. 160 Philip Shenon, "Noriega Indicted by U.S. For Links to Illegal Drugs," The New York Times, The New York Times Company, published 06 February 1988, https://www.nytimes.com/1988/02/06/world/noriega-indicted-by-us-for-links-to-illegal-drugs.html. 161 Stephen Engelberg with Elaine Sciolino, "A U.S. Frame-Up of Nicaragua Charged," The New York Times, The New York Times Company, published 04 February 1988, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP90M00005R001100160023-3.pdf. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha4m3 directly" and Noriega agreed to go forward with Castro's suggestions, resulting in the release of numerous prisoners.162 While this information was used in indictments against senior Cuban officials and Manuel Noriega, some have found reason to doubt Blandón's claims. John Dinges, a noted investigative journalist and current Professor Emeritus of International Journalism at Columbia University, documented Blandón's claims in his 1991 book Our Man in Panama, stating, "There was no independent corroboration for the story…No other witnesses, including [Floyd Carlton Caceres, Noriega's personal pilot], had any knowledge of the Cuban meeting. If investigators had checked flight records and even press clips in Panama, they might have discovered that Blandón had gotten some basic facts of the Darién incident wrong: the dates for the trip to Cuba were wrong, and the prisoners supposedly released at Castro's urging had been freed more than one month before Blandón and Noriega went to Cuba".163 Richard Gregorie, who met with Blandón, disagrees with Dinges' assertions, saying, "Blandón provided the US government with valid evidence that was corroborated, but Blandón volunteered his cooperation and no one knew his true motivation. He was caught, prior to trial, recording his interviews by agents… The photos and information he provided were valid, but whether this was a lure by some foreign intelligence service or an attempt to sell his story for personal gain made him untrustworthy as a witness".164 Castro was interviewed around this time by Maria Shriver of NBC News and wholeheartedly rejected "José Blandón's charge" while also "[inviting] the Congressional committee [which heard Blandón's claims] to visit Cuba to receive evidence that Blandón was 162 U.S. Congress, Senate, Drugs, Law Enforcement, and Foreign Policy: A Report, p. 66. 163 John Dinges, Our Man in Panama: The Shrewd Rise and Brutal Fall of Manuel Noriega (New York, NY: Random House, 1991), p. 292, https://norwich.on.worldcat.org/oclc/232993288. 164 Richard "Dick" Gregorie (former Chief of Narcotics for the USAO-SDFL) in discussion with the author, 08 April 2021. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha4m4 lying to Congress".165 In this interview, he also "[denied] that the Medellín drug cartel has ever trafficked drugs through Cuba to the United States".166 Despite Castro's invitation to the committee, subcommittee chairman Senator John Kerry approached the Cuban Interests Section in D.C. and requested to visit Cuba on the conditions that "staff [be] permitted to advance the trip and…the Cubans agreed to discuss the drug trafficking problem in general" along with being able to meet Robert Vesco; the trip never materialized as "The Cubans never replied to any of these requests and never made any further arrangements for the visit".167 The concentrated U.S. criminal investigations, Congressional hearings, and federal indictments, the intense media speculation and reporting, along with seeming pressure from the Soviet Union168 forced the Cuban government's hand. On 12 June, 1989, multiple high-ranking members of Cuba's military and intelligence services were arrested. These members included General Arnaldo T. Ochoa Sanchez,169 Brigadier General Patricio de la Guardia, Colonel Antonio "Tony" de la Guardia (twin brother to Patricio), Colonel Antonio Rodriguez Estupinan, Captain Jorge Martinez Valdes, Lieutenant Colonel Alexis Lago Archoa, and Major Amado Padrón Trujillo.170 Also charged were Captain Leonel Estevez-Soto, Captain Antonio Sanchez-Lima, First Lieutenant Jose Luis Pineda-Bermudez, Captain Miguel Ruiz-Poo, Captain Rosa Maria Abierno-Gobin, and Captain Eduardo Diaz-Izquierdo.171 165 Jane Franklin, Cuba and the United States: A Chronological History (New York, NY: Ocean Press, 1992), p. 239, https://norwich.on.worldcat.org/oclc/944186211. 166 Ibid. 167 U.S. Congress, Senate, Drugs, Law Enforcement, and Foreign Policy: A Report, p. 66-67. 168 U.S. Intelligence Community, Central Intelligence Agency, International Narcotics Situation Report (Langley, VA: May 1989), p. 13, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP91M01043R002200150004-9.pdf. 169 Robert Pear, "Cuba Arrests Top General on Corruption Charges," The New York Times, The New York Times Company, published 16 June 1989, https://www.nytimes.com/1989/06/16/world/cuba-arrests-top-general-on-corruption-charges.html?searchResultPosition=8. 170 Robert Pear, "Cuba Seizes 6 More Officers Amid Signs of Big Shakeup," The New York Times, The New York Times Company, published 17 June 1989, https://www.nytimes.com/1989/06/17/world/cuba-seizes-6-more-officers-amid-signs-of-big-shakeup.html. 171 Sommers "Untitled Graduate Studies Paper," p. 14. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha4m5 The majority of these persons were members of Cuba's Ministry of the Interior and intelligence services, though Estupinan and Martinez were both former aides-de-camp to General Ochoa.172 Save for Archoa and Trujillo, who were not charged with any crime, the other persons were charged with a variety of public corruption crimes, including money laundering, drug trafficking, and treason. As well, though all were arrested rather simultaneously, there were two separate cases going on which involved the drug trade in Cuba. The first involved, "[Antonio "Tony"] de la Guardia, Major Padrón, and six other officers who worked at [the MC Department] … The Cuban government charged that de la Guardia's group arranged for six tons of cocaine to be sent from Colombia through Cuba to the United States in the two years after April 1987, and that they were paid $3.4 million for doing so".173 The second case involved primary Ochoa and his aide-de-camp Martinez (in addition to "several others") in which the Cuban government charged that "[Ochoa] enriched himself in black-market trading, using army resources, when he was stationed in Angola in 1988, and to have neglected his military duties…[stole] $161,000 from Nicaragua's Sandinista army through a failed weapons deal…[and] was said to have conceived of a scheme to send major cocaine shipments to the United States, and for that purpose to have sent Martínez secretly to Medellín, Colombia, in 1988 to meet with Pablo Escobar Gaviria, a magnate of the drug cartel".174 The charges against Ochoa did not allege he was involved in de la Guardia's operations nor ever took part in a drug deal, alleging only he engaged in treason and efforts to gain private funds for either independent military operations or for personal use. 172 Ibid. 173 Julia Preston, "The Trial that Shook Cuba," The New York Review of Books, NYREV, Inc., published 07 December 1989, https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1989/12/07/the-trial-that-shook-cuba/. 174 Ibid. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha4m6 The trial (which aired on public television throughout Cuba) began on 25 June, 1989, thirteen days after Ochoa had initially been arrested, with the first hearing beginning on the 26th of June.175 Throughout the course of the trial, numerous witnesses were called who testified in regards to the charges, in some cases admitting culpability and accepting responsibility for individual actions which were illegal while also implicating others such as Ochoa and the de la Guardia brothers in the illegal activities they had been charged with. Both Patricio and Tony de la Guardia and Arnaldo Ochoa admitted their involvements in drug trafficking and treasonous activities, respectively, before the trial had commenced.176 At the trial's conclusion, the prosecutor for the government recommended to the Honor Tribunal, a board of 47 high-ranking Cuban military officers (one of whom was Aldo Santamaria-Cuadrado, who had been charged with drug trafficking by the U.S. in 1982)177, that "Arnaldo Ochoa Sanchez, Antonio de la Guardia Font, Jorge Martinez Valdez, Amado Bruno Padron Trujillo, Antonio Sanchez Lima, Alexis Lago Arocha, and Eduardo Diaz Izquierdo [receive] the death penalty…[for] the most serious crimes in this indictment, which are drug trafficking and treason against the fatherland".178 The prosecutor also recommended "30 years imprisonment for defendants Patricio de la Guardia Font and Rosa Maria Abierno Gobin, 25 years imprisonment for defendants Gabriel Prendes Gomez, Leonel Estevez Soto, Miguel Ruiz 175 "Cuban Government Proceedings Against Arnaldo Ochoa-Sanchez and Other Officials," Government of Cuba (June-July 1989), Translation by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service. FBIS Daily Report, Latin America, JPRS-LAM-89-003, 25 July 1989, p. 03, https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a347578.pdf. 176 "Cuban Government Proceedings Against Arnaldo Ochoa-Sanchez and Other Officials," Government of Cuba (June-July 1989), Translation by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service. FBIS Daily Report, Latin America, JPRS-LAM-89-003, 25 July 1989, p. 07, 154, 164. 177 "Cuban Government Proceedings Against Arnaldo Ochoa-Sanchez and Other Officials," Government of Cuba (June-July 1989), Translation by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service. FBIS Daily Report, Latin America, JPRS-LAM-89-003, 25 July 1989, p. 44. 178 "Cuban Government Proceedings Against Arnaldo Ochoa-Sanchez and Other Officials," Government of Cuba (June-July 1989), Translation by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service. FBIS Daily Report, Latin America, JPRS-LAM-89-003, 25 July 1989, p. 187. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha4m7 Poo, and Luis M. Pineda Bermudez, and 15 years imprisonment for defendant Antonio Rodriguez Estupinan".179 The Honor Tribunal agreed unanimously on 11 July 1989, with the stripping of ranks coming later on 12 July 1989.180 On 13 July 1989, Ochoa, Tony de la Guardia, Valdez, and Trujillo were all executed by way of firing squad.181 During and following the trial, Cuba's Ministry of the Interior and the Cuban government as a whole was revamped; Diocles Torralba Gonzalez, Cuba's Minister of Transportation "was dismissed [on 14 June 1989] for "improper conduct" – suggesting he may have been engaged in corruption"182 while Cuba's Minister of the Interior, Brigadier General Jose Abrantes Fernandez, "was dismissed [on] June 26" and then arrested on 31 July 1989 alongside "Brig. Gen. Roberto Gonzalez Caso, a former head of immigration; Oscar Carreno Gomez, former customs chief; Lt. Col. Rolando Castaneda Izquiero, and Hector Carbonell Mendez, director of a state-owned company that dealt in foreign currency".183 Five more Brigadier Generals of the Cuban military, presumably aligned with the Ministry of the Interior, were also "demoted to colonel and retired".184 Both Abrantes and Torralba would later receive twenty year prison sentences, with Abrantes dying in 1991 of a heart attack.185 Replacing Abrantes in the MININT was "trusted four-star general Abelardo Colomé Ibarra" who quickly revamped much of MININT's capabilities.186 179 Ibid. 180 "Cuban Government Proceedings Against Arnaldo Ochoa-Sanchez and Other Officials," Government of Cuba (June-July 1989), Translation by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service. FBIS Daily Report, Latin America, JPRS-LAM-89-003, 25 July 1989, p. 208-209. 181 Oppenheimer, Castro's Final Hour, p. 01-03. 182 Jim Anderson, "U.S.: High-level shakeup may be under way in Cuba," United Press International, United Press International, published 14 June 1989, https://www.upi.com/Archives/1989/06/14/US-High-level-shakeup-may-be-under-way-in-Cuba/4954613800000/. 183 Isaac A. Levi, "Five Senior Cuban Officers Arrested in Drug Scandal," Associated Press, Associated Press, published 31 July 1989, https://apnews.com/article/0782d185225919535cf3aa518ed550a9. 184 Ibid. 185 Richard Gott, Cuba: A New History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004), p. 285. 186 Krujit, Cuba and Revolutionary Latin America, p. 183. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha4m8 During and after the trial, the charges and convictions were heavily criticized. Some cast doubt on the trial's veracity in regards to having a military officer who had allegations of drug trafficking leveled against him187, while others (Cuban human rights activities, American journalists, and international human rights advocacy and monitoring groups) took offense to the lack of questions asked by the defendants' military appointed prosecutors (in addition to the rather loaded way in which some questions were asked).188 Jaqueline Tillman, a member of the National Security Council, was quoted as saying, "The evidence of Cuban involvement in narcotics trafficking was becoming so abundant that the regime moved to protect Fidel Castro by dissociating him from those activities" while Frank Calzon, a member of the human rights group Freedom House stated that either of the Castros, either Fidel or Raul, "had to approve of this activity, or at least [look] the other way".189 Even civilians of the island nation, according to former diplomat Wayne Smith, were "questioning the official explanation and arguing that there has to be a lot more to this than what is contained in the official announcement".190 Following the trials and into the 1990s, however, Cuba seemingly became more committed to halting drug traffic in Cuba. Fulton Armstrong, a former NIO for Latin America and two-time Director for Inter-American Affairs for the NSC, has stated that "Since Ochoa, collaboration has been good" mentioning that, since 1997, a formal relationship between the United States and Cuba exists, with both the U.S. and Cuba "[identifying] this as a matter of 187 Richard Cole, "Admiral's Role Calls Cuba Drug Crackdown Into Question," Associated Press, Associated Press, published 29 June 1989, https://apnews.com/article/9ef279d0c5de07e958d53e9c1a7bea5b. 188 Preston, "The Trial that Shook Cuba," The New York Review of Books. 189 Robert Pear, "Cuba Discloses A Drug Network Of Top Officials," The New York Times, The New York Times Company, published 24 June 1989, https://www.nytimes.com/1989/06/24/world/cuba-discloses-a-drug-network-of-top-officials.html. 190 Larry Rohter, "Castro Is Anxious About His Military," The New York Times, The New York Times Company, published 25 June 1989, https://www.nytimes.com/1989/06/25/weekinreview/the-world-castro-is-anxious-about-his-military.html?searchResultPosition=10. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha4m9 national interest".191 Pierre Charette, the ASAC for the DEA's Caribbean division during the late-1980s, identified that into the early-1990s, cooperation with the Cuban government has been "fantastic [with] drug trafficking through go-fast boats dropping significantly" and that this productive relationship remains in place today.192 In 1991, the U.S. Customs Service detailed to Frontline that "[drug, arms, and other illicit] trafficking had declined since the trial, but…not stopped".193 The DEA's Administrator194 and Chief of International Operations195, in 1996 and 1999 respectively, both testified before Congress that, despite large profile cases in the media, the Cuban government itself nor senior officials were not involved in drug trafficking. Also in 1996, the State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs "recognized cuban[sic] counter-drugs efforts, stating that the cuban[sic] government was giving anti-narcotics policies higher public profile in the face of growing narcotics transshipments and consumption".196 General Barry McCaffrey, who served as Commander of U.S. Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) and was President Clinton's Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ODNCP) from 1994 to 2001, recalled in 2015 "Cuba's a police state, and I don't believe the Cuban government wants to be a hub for drug smugglers. They saw it as a 191 Fulton Armstrong (retired National Intelligence Officer for Latin America with NSC) in discussion with the author, 13 January 2021. 192 Pierre "Pete" Charette (retired Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge with DEA) in discussion with the author, 16 March 2021. 193 PBS Frontline, season 09, episode 10, "Cuba and Cocaine," directed and written by Stephanie Tepper & William Cran, aired 05 February 1991. 194 U.S. Congress, House, Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, Statement by: Thomas A. Constantine, Administrator, Drug Enforcement Administration, 104th Cong., 06 June 1996, https://fas.org/irp/congress/1996_hr/h960606c.htm. 195 U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Government Reform, Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources, Statement by: William E. Ledwith, Chief of International Operations, Drug Enforcement Administration, 106th Cong., 17 November 1999, https://fas.org/irp/congress/1999_hr/ct111799.htm. 196 Isabella Bellezza-Smull, "Will Cuba Update its Drug Policy for the Twenty First Century?," Igarapé Institute, Igarapé Institute, published 29 December 2017, https://igarape.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/08-11-2017-NE-29-Cuba-Drog-Policy.pdf. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha5m0 threat to their children, the workforce, their economy, their government" while noting that though cooperation was imperfect, there was constant communication with the Cubans throughout his time in terms of combating drug trafficking.197 The Question of Culpability on the Part of the Castros The involvement on the part of Fidel and Raul Castro in the drug trade is something that has long been debated and speculated. Since the 1960s, individual criminal investigations, U.S. federal government memorandums, Cuban intelligence defectors, convicted criminals, and congressional hearings have included testimony that has tried to implicate Fidel, Raul, or both Castros in the drug trade. With the 1989 trials, these speculations have increased and, in some cases, due to the handling of the trials, been given more credence. At least two U.S. Congressional hearings have been conducted since 1989, both of which focused on continuing drug traffic in Cuba.198 199 Into the 1990s, more evidence of possible involvement by the Castro regime was revealed. First were the allegations of Carlos Ledher, an experienced drug trafficker and pilot and co-founder of the Medellín Cartel.200 Ledher, upon his arrest and extradition in 1987, was "convicted…on charges of conspiracy and running a criminal enterprise as well as other charges related to the importation and sale of cocaine" in May of 1988.201 Due to this, Ledher began 197 Joshua Partlow & Nick Miroff, "In fight against drugs, Cuba and U.S. on same team," The Washington Post, Nash Holdings, LLC., published 05 January 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/in-fight-against-drugs-cuba-and-us-on-same-team/2015/01/05/6416305a-90fc-11e4-a66f-0ca5037a597d_story.html. 198 U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Government Reform, Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources, Cuba's Link to Drug Trafficking, 106th Cong., 1st Sess., 17 November 1999, https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=2027. 199 U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Government Reform, Drug Trafficking in the Caribbean: Do Traffickers Use Cuba and Puerto Rico As Major Transit Locations For State-Bound Narcotics?, 106th Cong., 2nd Sess., 3-4 January 2000, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-106hhrg69521/pdf/CHRG-106hhrg69521.pdf. 200 Mark Bowden, Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2001), p. 45, https://norwich.on.worldcat.org/oclc/45086854. 201 Patricia Bauer, "Carlos Ledher," Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., published 18 June 2018, updated 03 September 2020, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Carlos-Lehder. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha5m1 cooperating with the U.S. government for a lesser sentence. In federal testimony during the Noriega trial, Ledher claimed "that Castro mediated a bitter 1984 dispute between Noriega and Colombia's Medellin cartel that saved Panama's strongman from probable assassination…and bribed Cuban government officials to ship tons of cocaine into the United States".202 Lieutenant Colonel Luis del Cid, a close aide to Manuel Noriega, alleged during Noriega's trial that he "accompanied Noriega on a flight to Cuba and met Castro following the raid [in which Panamanian troops raided a cocaine lab in Darién province Colombia]" though specified he did not attend the meeting in question.203 While both Ledher and del Cid's testimonies seem to corroborate what Blandón had previously testified in regards to Castro's connections to Noriega and the Medellín Cartel, it must be noted that both del Cid and Ledher testified in exchange for reductions in their sentences (which numbered into the hundreds of years for each of them) and also could easily have become aware of Blandón's testimony in any of the three years prior to their providing evidence to the U.S. government. Two former officials who defected from Cuba two years before the trials, Oscar Valdes from the Ministry of Trade and Manuel de Beunza from the Ministry of the Interior, offered their insights on the trial, claiming the trials were for "show" and were more politically motivated as Castro desired to remove opponents whom he saw as a threat to his power.204 This allegation that the drug trials were a show trial meant to snub out political opponents of Castro's hold on Cuba has become a very prominent. 202 Robert L. Jackson, "Cartel Leader Reveals Secrets of Drug World," The Los Angeles Times, Time Mirror Company, published 21 November 1991, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-11-21-mn-404-story.html. 203 Richard Cole, "Former Aide Tells of Drug Cash, Castro, and Prostitutes," Associated Press, Associated Press, published 24 September 1991, https://apnews.com/article/0b7fcac1c0842630af2d1cc758ab1acd. 204 Jim Anderson, "Defectors: Cuba trials about politics, not drugs," United Press International, United Press International, published 27 July 1989, https://www.upi.com/Archives/1989/07/27/Defectors-Cuba-trial-about-politics-not-drugs/2648617515200/?spt=su. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha5m2 Other defectors, including those from the DGI who defected, also voiced their views on the trial. Jorge Masetti, a DGI officer and Tony de la Guardia's son-in-law who defected from Cuba in 1990, claimed in an interview, "If this operation really existed, it could only have existed if Fidel and Raúl Castro knew about it. They made these accusations, which were supposed to make the case against Ochoa. Arnaldo Ochoa was never proven to have smuggled drugs. The direct evidence does not exist, but they accused Ochoa, and why? Because Fidel wanted to send a message to all the officials with high authority".205 Juan Reinaldo Sánchez, a seemingly credible defector206 from Cuba's MININT who was the personal bodyguard to Castro for seventeen years, wrote in his book The Double Life of Fidel Castro that Castro had knowledge of subordinates' involvement in the drug trade and sanctioned it. Sánchez recalls overhearing a conversation in 1988 between Minister of the Interior Jose Abrantes and Castro in "centered on a Cuban [drug trafficker] living in the United States" who wanted to travel to Cuba to visit his parents; Castro approved the trip along with allowing the trafficker to, as a cover, say he was a Cuban intelligence operative while also requesting that Tony de la Guardia handle "the logistics of the trip".207 This conversation, while innocuous, seems to indicate that Castro did maintain a friendly relationship with some drug traffickers, yet reveals no legitimate information of Castro's involvement in the drug trade. Into the 1990s, working off the indictments against the Ruiz Family in 1988 and the 1992 Noriega trial, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida began investigating senior level members of the Cuban government. In 1993, the USAO-SDFL "drafted a [proposed 205 The Cuba Libre Story, season 1, episode 7, "Secrets and Sacrifices," directed by Emmanuel Amara, Kai Christiansen, & Florian Dedio, aired 11 December 2015, https://www.netflix.com/title/80109535. 206 Edward A. Lynch, "All Socialists Are Equal, but Some Are More Equal Than Others," Military Review (November-December 2019), p. 124, https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/military-review/Archives/English/ND-19/ND-19-Book-B.pdf. 207 Juan Reinaldo Sánchez with Axel Gyldén, The Double Life of Fidel Castro: My 17 Years as Personal Bodyguard to El Líder Máximo (New York, NY: St. Martin's Griffin, 2015), p. 230. CUBAN DRUG TRAFFICKING AS A FOREIGN POLICY Cunningha5m3 indictment that] would have charged Raul Castro and 14 other top Cuban officials [including Manuel Piñeiro, head of the Departamento América] with conspiracy and racketeering for allegedly providing safe passage for Medellin cartel cocaine loads, including permission to fly over Cuba and use its waters".208 Among others allegedly involved in this large enterprise was Abelardo Colomé Ibarra, the Minister of the Interior who replaced Jose

Issue 63.1 of the Review for Religious, 2004. This was the first issue of the Review as a quarterly publication. ; Education Objectives Human Development Eucharistic Ce~nteri~ng Saintly Models Spiritual Growth QUARTERLY 63.1 2004 Review for Religious helps people, respond and be faithful to God's universal call to holiness by making available to them the spiritual legacies that flow from the charisms of Catholic consecrated life. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published quarterly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 Telephone: 314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: review@slu.edu ¯ Web site: www.reviewforreligious.org Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393 Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP Mount St. Mary's Seminary; Emmitsburg, Maryland 21727 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©2004 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 LIVING OUR CATHOLIC LEGACIES Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Clare Boehmer ASC Philip C. Fischer SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm 'Judy Sharp Sr. Raymond Marie Gerard FSP Eugene Hensell OSB Ernest E. Larkin OCarm Louis and Angela Menard Bishop Carlos A. Sevilla SJ Miriam D. Ukeritis CSJ QUARTERLY 63.1 2004 6 Secularism, Justice, and J~suit Higher Education-- Are They All the Same? Martin R. Tripole sJ questions the adequacy'of the justice agenda in Jesuit education and proposes to spell out the task for educators in establishing "the justice of God's kingdom" among students. 21 32 The Spiritual Development of Individuals Stanislaw Glaz SJ points out that spiritual development can proceed correctly only on the condition that we discard the illusions that we have created about our lives and likewise discard vain expectatio~ns for the future. Breaking Stereotypes Ignatius Jesudasan sJ writes about stereotypes from his Indian and Jesuit experience and calls us to reflect on our efforts to move beyond such prejudice. 40 53 A Charism Illumined: Eucharistic Anamnesis and "Viva Memoria" Hildegard Magdalen Pleva OSSR develops the crucial feature of both anamnesis and "living memory" as the ability to make past events and the person of Jesus present and active in our time. Eucharistic Devotion in the Rising Generation Randall S. Rosenberg reflects upon the desire of young people to spend time in loving contemplation and adoration of the Eucharist as a sign of growth in an integral faith life. Review for Religious 58 Teresa of Avila and Friendship Susan B. Cordsen reflects on Teresa of Avila's struggle with friendship. Teresa has much to say to us today as we struggle with what it is to be friends of Christ and friends of one another. 66 Five Faces of Rosalie Rendu Robert P. Maloney CM reflects many of the numerous new blesseds and saints of Pope John Paul's pontificate are not well known. This article attempts to acquaint readers with one of them. Growth in Faith, Hope, and Love Normandie Gaitley SSJ discovered through the setback of apparent failure and rejection God's voice in the midst of the storm calling to a deeper faith, hope, and love. 84 Mountain Caves Carolyn Humphreys OCDS describes our growth in intimacy with God through the imagery of our exeriences in entering the darkness of spiritual caves. 4 Prisms 91 Canonical Counsel: Papal Enclosure: Further Considerations 99 Book Reviews 63.1 2004 R first things first. As we begin a new year, it may be helpful to observe what is first in our lives. For example, we believe that the Eucharist is central to our living the paschal mystery. Yet we might look at whether or how it is first in our religious practice. Jesus provides us with two helps--the first, a word, and the second, an action. During the Last Supper events recorded in the synoptic Gospels, Jesus makes reference to the covenant: "This is the new covenant in my blood." Covenant, a specific agreement practice among the Middle-Eastern peoples, took on a new depth of meaning when the Israelite people understood that God had made a covenant with them] To celebrate this new relationship between God and a people he calls "peculiarly his own," the biblical covenant is sealed with the blood of a sacrificed animal. Blood--just as in out'modern-day blood transfusions--means life, not death. When the priest sprinkled blood first on the altar representing God and then on the people, this blood ritual symbolized the sharing of life between God and God's people. When Jesus says the word "This is the new covenant in my blood," he is taking the symbolic covenant of the Jewish faith and providing an undreamt-of reality to his word. In Eucharistic communion, we find ourselves given the food and drink of everlasting life. Our veins, our very bodies, our very beings are coursing with the "blood" of this new covenant of shared life, the Review for Religious Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of Mary, the new Paschal Lamb. The action Jesus performs as key to our understanding is recorded only in John's Gospel account of the Last Supper. The action is Jesus' washing of the disciples' feet. When Peter objects, Jesus replies that, if he does not wash his feet, then Peter will have no relationship with him. In the face of such a harsh consequence, Peter immediately reverses his position and desires to be washed totally clean as a guest made'welcome from the travel of dusty roads--not just his feet, but his hands and face as well. For the Johannine community and for the church in her Holy Thursday celebration, this washing of the feet dramatizes the central mystery of the Eucharist, a sharing of life, giving it away, a life-in-service--"I have given you an example," Jesus says. Eucharist, meaning celebration of holy Mass, and Eucharist, meaning the sacrament of holy communion, include both word and action. God in Jesus is speaking a word of love in sharing divine life with us, bringing us from being just God's creatures to being truly sons and daughters, members of God's family. But in Eucharist God is also involving us in his very action of sharing, and so we find ourselves moved not only, to share our life with God but also, like God, to share life with all those whom our life touches--all of them our brothers and sisters! Eucharist is key to Jesus on the cross--to pay whatever price love costs--to give over his life to God and to give over his life to us. Easter, too, finds its key in Eucharist--Jesus sharing resurrected life, his Father's gift to him, with all of us so that we too might continue to rejoice in and share this life forever. Entering into Eucharist, then, we participate in the paschal mystery, the mystery of the dying and rising of Jesus, the pattern of living the divine cost of sharing life given in love. . .David L. Fleming SJ 63.1 2004 MARTIN R. TRIPOLE ,,Secularism, Justice,. and Jesuit Higher Educationm Are They All the Same? Whether or not justice is present in Jesuit higher education seems recently to have become a mat-ter of high priority. In 2000 every Jesuit college or university in the nation was pressed to send representatives to a special conference in Santa Clara, California, to examine the extent to which justice was being promoted in the policies and curricula of Jesuit institutions, with a view to implementing stronger justice agendas. More than three hundred delegates attended. In October 2002 a follow-up gathering was held in Chicago. Conversations on Jesuit Higher Education recently devoted its entire spring 2000 issue to social justice.1 In July 2002 in Philadelphia, the fifth annual meeting of Col-leagues in Jesuit Business Education focused on "The Paradox of Globalization and Economic Justice." And an international conference on justice and globalization for. leaders in Jesuit Martin R. Tripole SJ last wrote for us in September-October 2000. His address is St. Josepl'i's University; 5600 City Avenue; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19131. Review for Religi.ous higher education was held in November 2002 at Santa Clara University. The perception seems to be that Jesuit higher edu-cation is not adequately committing itself to the pursuit of justice and something must be done about it. The pressure has grown to make the promotion of justice-- in an institution's mission statement and curricular offer-ings-- the litmus test for qualifying as a Jesuit institution. So much has this conjunction of justice with Jesuit edu-cation become the standard parlaffce at Jesuit institu-tions today that, when lay administrators, faculty members, and students refer to Jesuit education, they immediately identify it with the promotion of justice. In short, if your institution is not promoting justice, it is not Jesuit. Many educators question this symbiosis.of justice and Jesuit education. Is the purpose of Jesuit education to promote justice? Is it possible to fashion Jesuit edu-cation according to a justice model? Doesn't a liberal education in the Jesuit tradition have dimensions far deeper and more important? This article questions the adequacy of the justice agenda in Jesuit education, arguing from (1) the under-standing of the Jesuit mission as approved by the 34th General Congregation (GC34) of the Society of Jesus in 1995, (2) the inherent inability of the iustice agenda to .maintain the Catholic and Jesuit character of Jesuit higher education, and (3) the compelling challenges cre-ated in the world since 11 September 2001, in relation to which the justice mission falls seriously short. Justice and the Jesuit Mission at GC34 The identification of Jesuit education with the pro-motion of justice stems from the 32nd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus (GC32) in Rome in 1975. It decreed that the Jesuit mission is "the service of7 63.1 2004 Tripole * Secularism, Justice, and Jesuit Higher Ed faith, of which the promotion of justice is an absolute requirement.''2 Though the congregation never defined what it meant by justice, most commentators noted the 1960s and 1970s political- and social-activist thinking reflected in the decrees and have rightly concluded that the congregation was referring to social justice. In effect, the congregation asserted in the key for-mulation cited above that every branch of the Jesuit mis-sion had somehow to justify its existence by how it promoted justice. That was the way things stood until 1995, when GC34 was convened. One would never guess, from the continuing emphasis placed upon jus-tice today, that GC34 broadened and deepened the for-mulation of the Jesuit mission so that it now includes much more that is explicitly Christian. Though GC34's thinking included social justice,3 the justice that is linked to the service of faith is now under-stood to be the scriptural and theological understand-ing of justice as "the justice of God's kingdom,':4 The aim of our mission received from Christ. is the service of faith. The integrating principle of our mission is the inseparable link between faith and the promotion of the justice of the Kingdom. In this pre-sent congregation we want to deepen and extend, in a more explicit way, the Society's awareness of those integral dimensions of our mission to which [GC32's] Decree 4 drew attention and which are now reaching maturity in our experience and in our present min-istries. (2:14) Central'to GC34's understanding of faith and the "justice of God's kingdom" is that faith entails sharing in the church's mission of evangelization and therefore pro-claiming the gospel and bringing its teaching into every culture and society (2:15). United with Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit, and operating "within the total evangelizing mission of the church" (2:3), Jesuits are called "to promote the kingdom in all its aspects," Review for Religious including destroying the "structures of sin" and fulfilling the universal "desire to find God" and to "live by his gospel in all its implications" (2:11). The congregation, recognizing that the roots of injus-tice are to be found not only in "economic structures" but also in "cultural attitudes," explicitly states that jus-tice will "flourish" in society only when a deeper cultural transformation is achieved (2:17). Social justice is in a sense a by-product of the transforming power of "Christ's explicitly liberating presence" within history (4:8). Through inculturation, the "liberating power of the gospel" (4:3) be-comes present in every soci-ety by touching its "structural, cultural, and religious aspects with its light" (2:18). Clearly, by shifting its focus to the need to transform cultures, and integrating that effort into the church's total evan-gelizing mission, GC34 has found a deeper and mtre sat-isfying way to correct social problems than by focusing on the promotion of justice alone. Few would deny that promoting social justice is a work "integral". to the church's life. But it is another thing to assert, as GC32 seemed to do, that promoting social justice is an "absolute requirement" of every effort to serve-the gospel. Jesus seems repeatedly to have dis-tinguished the service of faith from the promotion of justice. At the beginning of his ministry, he made faith in his teaching and repentance for sin the appropriate response to the coming of tlie kingdom (Mk 1:15). He stressed the saving power of faith (Mr 9:22, Jn 3:16) and of baptism (Mk 16:14, Jn 3:5) and taught the parable of the talents (Mt 25:14-30), all without alluding to justice. And is it not fitting to proclaim the need for dis- Few would deny that promoting social justice is a work "integral" to the church's life. 9 63.1 2004 Tripole ¯ Secularism, 3~ustice, and yesuit Higher Ed cipleship of Christ (Mk 1:16-20), or the soteriological sig-nificance of Jesus' healing actions (see Mk 2:1-12; 3:7- 12), as well as the redemptive significance of his death and resurrection (1 Co 15), without mentioning justice? Jesus calls his disciples to a life of service of God and others. But the service Jesus intended is broader than promoting justice and does not call for such promotion unless just relations are lacking. Service, however, always calls for love. The quintessence of Christian living is found in our expression of love for one another modeled on Jesus' life of love (Jn 15:12). This love is manifested most of all in laying down one's life for another, as Jesus did On 15:13). It is promoting love, therefore, that would be the more adequate hallmark of the Jesuit mission. Jesuit and Catholic Presence in Jesuit Higher Education Understanding the Jesuit mission as inculturating the gospel has greater implications for Jesuit education than promoting justice does. According to GC34, a Jesuit university "must be out-standing in its human, social, spiritual, and moral for-mation" of student~ (17:11). Borrowing from Pedro Arrupe, superior ger~e.ral\of the Society of Jesus from 1965 to 1983, the congregation ranks, as a priority apos-tolate of the Society of Jesus, "theological reflection" upon "humanism, freedom,~ m~ss culture, economic development, and violence" (16:7). The congregation~ recalls that the early Jesuits "linked Christian catechesis to an education in classical humanism, art,and theater, to make their students versed both in faith and in cul-ture" (4:10), and specifically affirms that in the educa-tional apostolate Jesuits "have a special role to play in linking Christian faith" to contemporary movements in culture (4:28). The justice mission is not broad enough to handle these goals. Review for Religious In the light of GC34's understanding of the Jesuit mission, we would do well to examine the findings of "Jesuit Education 21," the last major conference on Jesuit higher education in the United States. Held at St. Joseph's University in June 1999, the conference brought together over three hundred laypersons and Jesuits from around the world, with more than eighty presentations made by prominent educators. A close examination of the conference proceedings5 indicates much of what is troubling Jesuit higher education today. They show that more is needed to restore the Jesuit and Catholic char-acter of Jesuit institutions than promoting justice can provide. Though their concerns were distinctly pro-Jesuit and pro-Catholic, the participants never came to a consensus on what being Jesuit and Catholic means or how Jesuit and Catholic values, whatever they might be, can be pre-served. A reviewer of the published proceedings called them "fascinating" and "indisl~ensabl~e' readin_g, yet admitted he could not conclude fro---~-~hem_ what Jesuit education stood for.6 This inability to state with clarity what it means to be Jesuit and Cath_olic_may reflect an erosion of identity already underway in Jesui_~t and Catholic colleges and universities. The proceedings provide good grounds tofear that the secularization that oc~ in many Pro___testant schools in the early 20th-century is well under___way at Jesuit and other Catholic institutions as_w__ell.____A basis for this view may be found, for exa--m-~le, in ~he distinction admissions recruiters.have frequency_ drawn-between Jesuit values and Catholic ide~-~ity. Many_ said they emphasize the former and do.wnpla._y or ignore the latter as a matter of policy. But why?-The distinction, they said, enabled them to iden6fy Jesuit schools to potential applicants as institutions promoting humanistic values, rather than as schools fostering Catholic identity. The 11 63.1 2004 Tripole ¯ Secularism, Justice, and Jesuit Higher Ed effect was to make being Jesuit distinguishable from belonging to the Catholic Church. That recruiters make such a distinction as part of their effort to appeal to potential students may indicate how ingrained among students as well as among recruiters secularization has already become. The erosion of Catholic identity may be even more evident in the hiring of new faculty members increas-ingly for their professional competence and their sup-port of humanistic values rather than for an interest in fostering a Catholic culture on the campus. One admin-istrator at the conference, bluntly admitted without com-ment or apology that Jesuit institutions will no longer accept support for the Catholic mission as a factor to be considered in the hiring of new faculty. He argued that Jesuit distinctiveness is now identified with humanistic values such as seeing the world, as sacramental, showing love by deeds, and searching for ultimate meaning, and that, when the Jesuit character is understood that way, "Jesuit education can and will thrive independently of the fortunes of the institutional Catholic Church." He went on to say that, "if you were to tell faculty tomorrow to 'hire for mission' with an emphasis on Catholic rather than, or over and above, Jesuit, I know what will hap-pen . The present faculty simply will. not do it" (Francis Fennell, Proceedings, p. 446). The peremptory nature of these remarks indicates how difficult it would be to reverse the trend toward secular humanism, for the faculty are the primary decision makers for hiring in their departments. Deeper theological roots of secular humanism may be found in the increasing acceptance of a principle never accepted by the Catholic Church, that faith is a private matter. This perspective includes relegating faith matters to the theology department and campus.ministry, rather than considering a Catholic culture something all Uni- Review for Religious versity personnel can share in. Theology departments, however, eager to be accepted as legitimately academic and hospitable to pluralistic thinking, are increasingly reluctant to identify themselves with matters of faith, thereby adding to the alienation of faith from the life of the institution (Avery Dulles, Proceedings, pp. 168-169). Does Promoting Justice Foster Secularism? Jesuits may themselves have much to do with this incursion of secularism into Jesuit universities, for an identification of Jesuit values with secular humanism has been widely accepted in Jesuit circles. The favored jar-gon for what Jesuit products should be--"men and women for others"--would be an acceptable character-ization of ideal products of any secular university. Are there any institutions in favor of self-centered graduates who want to promote injustice? The common phrase makes it difficult to distinguish a good secular humanist from a good graduate of any Jesuit institution. Jesuit spirituality promotes "finding God in all things." The principle, admirable in itself and valuable for people who wish to implement their faith, is problematic when put into the hands of secular humanists, since it allows not only faith in any god whatsoever, but also the marginal-ization of the true God over against a quasi-sacral aura that envelops all things. Support for secularization has unwittingly come from equating the Jesuit mission with the promotion of justice, an equation that can be made even when faith is absent~ Such an equation allows the reduction of the Christian faith to secularly acceptable standards and makes what is specific to being Catholic optional: belief in the triune God, commitment to Jesus Christ, and fidelity to the church and its teachings. When, therefore, Jesuit edu-cation understands its mission as promoting justice, someone must ask: Is such a mission capable of preserv- 13 63.1 2004 Tripole ¯ Secularism, 3°~stice, and Jesuit Higher Ed ing the Catholic character of our institutions? It would seem not. The promotion of justice is put on a par with other advocacy movements-- not life-altering efforts, but efforts that fit into the little compartment in our lives that supports Charitable causes. Catholic Identity and the Lives of Our Students The justice-advocacy movement has the weakness of being normally integrated into the larger framework of self-identity, even when it is most effective. The promotion of justice is put on a par with other advocacy movements-- not life-altering efforts, but efforts that fit into the little compartment in our lives that supports charitable causes. We contribute to the muscular dystrophy program on Labor Day, our hearts go out to Michael J. Fox and his cam-paign for curing Parkinson's disease, the more youthful among us dance the night away to seek financial contri-butions for the fight against AIDS--but afterwards we return to the secular aims and purposes that motivate our humdrum daily lives. Self-chosen secular aims and agendas are not likely to be altered much by participation in special advocacy movements, for many students take it for granted that in any case the measure of success is the worldly standard of money, power, and reputation. Against such a back-drop, advocacy causes fulfill the contribution to human-ity that political correctness and secularized Christianity deem necessary for those who would be model citizens and good Christians, but they do not call for renouncing worldly values in the ways that Christ proposed in his Sermon on the Mount. Review for Religious Reducing Jesuit education to a justice syndrome, then, is inadequate. In order to work, such a syndrome would need to be integrated into a life-altering motivating prin-ciple. In seeking to make our students eager simply to pursue social justice, we fail to provide them with the Christian rationale for being committed to such activity. The rationale that the older generation of Catholics accepts as a Christian truism--that sharing a common humanity should make human beings concerned for the welfare of others--cannot be taken for granted in our students. Many of them operate on a sense of worth the root of which is their aggressive pursuit of self-interest. For them, being a "person for others" is a sop for the weak and sentimental. Many people thought that 1960s altruism would of itself promote everywhere an array of humanistic values consistent with the goals of Chris-tianity. We now know that this did not happen. Only faith in Jesus Christ can bring in its train the life-altering principles dynamic enough for consistent and truly humanistic, humane, human activity. Reducing Christianity to a sort of social justice makes faith appear redundant and irrelevant (when in fact full Christian faith is central). Identifying Jesuit education with pro-moting .justice caters to this seeming redundancy and calls into question any need for any sort of Catholic edu-cation and any Christianity that demands a faith com-mitrnent to Jesus Christ. It is not accidental that, as years pass, our students are less and less inclined to call them-selves Catholic or practice a Christian way of life. In effect, they have been programmed by a system that has made Christian commitment and Catholic living mar-ginal or obsolete. Justice and Ignatius's Educational Goals ls an education geared to the promotion of justice consistent with St. Ignatius's goals? Many do not think so. 63. I 2004 Tripole * Secularism, Justice, and yesuit Higher Ed Surely no one disputes that Ignatius supported the integration of the virtue of justice into the lives of stu-dents at Jesuit institutions. In a letter written to his nephew Antonio de Araoz in 1551, Ignatius indicates that education in Jesuit sch'ools should lead to positions of influence for the good of society--either in specifically Christian activity, such as being a priest, or in govern-mental and other administrative positions of~authority. He specifically mentions that persons educated in Jesuit schools may benefit society by taking on roles in "the administration of justice." But Ignatius never saw such activity as intrinsically self-motivating. Whatever field of endeavor graduates might enter, they were to be moti-vated by the desire for "God's greater service" and that of "Christ, our eternal salvation." 7 George E. Ganss shows, in his classic study Saint Ignatius' Idea of a Jesuit University,s that Ignatius under-stood his goals for the education of non-Jesuft students as part and parcel of the Christian life envisioned in his Spiritual Exercises. There Ignatius indicates that human beings are "created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by means of doing this to save their souls," and that everything else is created for them for these purposes.9 That same outlook on life is °brought to bear upon Part Four of Ignatius's Constitutions, which treats of the goals of his colleges (high schools) and universi-ties: "The end of the Society [of Jesus] and of its stud-ies is to aid our fellowmen to the knowledge and love of God and to the salvation of their souls." Since Ignatius saw the study of theology as "the means most suitable to this end," he declared that "principal emphasis ought to be put upon it.''l° Ganss argues, however, that the inculcation of Christian values was not left simply to the work of the-ology professors, but was integral to the life of the entire university.~l For Ignatius, all of life is brought into focus Review for Religio us through a personal encounter with Jesus Christ and a commitment to Christ's mission by sharing in the paschal mystery of his death and resurrection. It would have been unthinkable~ for Ignatius to set up educational insti-tutions without orienting them and their students toward this same encounter and mission. Jesuit Education after 11 September 2001 Perhaps the most serious question to be asked of advocates of justice education is whether their agenda, in the light of the events of 9/11 and the gravity of the priest sex-abuse scandal, meets the chal-lenge of our time. The roots of the horrendous actions of the Middle East terrorists on that September day may be found on many different levels--economic, social, cultural, and religious. Surely an enlightened awareness of the inadequacy of the attempts of the United States to promote justice throughout the world needs to be brought to bear upon the kind of response we make. But, whether one is Palestinian or Israeli, European or American, Democrat or Republican, the issue is not whether to promote justice (who is in favor of being unjust?), but how to discern and implement practical methods that will satisfy people's yearnings for justice and peace. Faith does not endow Christian educators with the ability to discern what such methods might be--they continue to elude the best of political-scientists of whatever faith-- The issue is not whether to promote justice (who is in favor of being unjust ?), but how to discern and implement practical methods that will satisfy people's yearnings for justice and peace. 17 63.1 2004 Tripole ¯ Secularism, Justice, and Jesuit Higher Ed but it does provide a motive for see,king the best of meth-ods and choosing honestly the most,prudent moral action. The issues on the table since the'attacks of 9/11 are fundamental. The very survival of humanity seems to be at stake. It would be naive and platitudinous for Christian educators to think they have made their specific contri-bution merely by calling for the promotion of justice. The stakes are far too high, the dimensions of the prob-lem too great, for talk on that level to be adequate. The world has a right to expect more from people of faith. The sex scandal among the clergy also calls for a major rethinking of what it means to be a disciple of Christ. If those who have been singled out by the church to be model artisans of a new humanity have instead become instruments of dehumanization, more is de-manded to correct .the situation than a call for justice. To respond to the demands of our day, Christians are being called to a thorough reformation of their lives--abandoning self-interest and recentering their lives in the Christ who renounced himself on the cross for the salvation of the world. Christians must become persons who are themselves transformed and are at work revamping the human psyche so that it is motivated no longer by secular and material drives alone. The goal is a transformation of culture so that the person of Christ and the pattern of his life will willingly be accepted as the ideal of what it means to be human. What other efforts could Christians be expected to make? The mission for Catholic and Jesuit educators today is to go all the way or not go at all. What we need to promote is not simply justice, but a new visiofi of humanity where God's Spirit is recognized as the power driving generous and beneficial human action, rather than as optional or marginal to it, Our goal cannot merely be social justice, but the justice that destroys the Review for Religious demonic forces of the world, restores community between the human race and God, and ennobles human dignity by seeing it as a sharing in divine life. Our goal must be to spread the fire that Jesus came to earth to ignite, brightening people's minds and warming their hearts (Lk 12:49). This is what our students need to receive in our schools. The task for educators in Jesuit universities is to establish "the justide of God's kingdom" among our stu-dents. Instead of equating the Lucan principle "Blessed are the poor" with a call for economic and political jus-tice, we need to hear the Matthean principle "Blessed are the poor in spirit," which calls us to walk humbly with the Lord so that in the Spirit we can create even on earth the life of his kingdom. Doing that, we may even succeed in showing terrorists that Christ is the redeemer of the world and that faith in him is the very way to God and to wholeness and peace in human relationships. Notes ~ Conversations on Jesuit Higher Education 19 (Spring 2001), "After Justice." 2 Decree 4, "Our Mission Today: The Service of Faith and the Promotion of Justice," §2, in Documents of the 31st and 32rid General Congregations of the Society of Jesus, ed. John W. Padberg SJ (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1977). 3 Indeed, GC34 devotes an entire document to the social-justice agenda: Decree 3, "Our Mission and Justice," in Documents of the Thirty-Fourth General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, ed. John L. McCarthy SJ (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1995). 4 Decree 2, "Servants of Christ's Mission," §11, of GC34. Hereafter references to the documents of this congregation are noted in the text thus: (2:11). 5 Jesuit Education 21: Conference Proceedings on the Future of Jesuit Higher Education, ed. Martin R. Tripole SJ (Philadelphia: St. Joseph's University, 2000). References are noted in the text. 6 Dennis O'Brien, "How to Be Loyal to Loyola," Commonweal 128, no. 8 (20 April 2001): 26. 19 63. I 2004 Tripole ¯ Secularism, Justice, and yesuit Higher Ed 7 To Antonio de Araoz, On the ministry of Christian education, I December 1551, in George E. Ganss SJ, Ignatius of Loyola: The Spiritual Exercises and Selected Works (New York: Paulist Press, 1991), pp. 361-365 at 362 and 365 (letter selected and translated by Martin E. Palmer SJ). 8 George E. Ganss sJ, Saint Ignatius' ldea of a Jesuit University (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1956). 9 The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, trans, and ed. George E. Ganss SJ (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1992), §23. ~0 St. Ignatius of Loyola, The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, trans, and ed. George E. Ganss gJ (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1970), Part 4, chap. 12, no. 1 (§446; emphasis added). The nature of the university was different in Ignatius's day, to be sure, yet there is no reason to think that Ignatius would alter the content of this statement, even if it were directed to the Jesui~ university of today. 11 Ganss, Saint lgnatius'Idea, pp. 176-178. Song of the Thistle You brought me forth on the parched prairie where Russian thistles rolled and were caught against fences. And I like a thistle am still on a roll fencing with frustrations, but you don't leave me stuck to the wires now as you didn't then. I am still a tumbling weed that survived the dirty "thirties rolled fast by the Wind this day. Somewhere along the Way I am scattering seeds that may yet become shrubs or trees, something more than thistles and tumbling weeds. Mary Alban Bouchard CSJ Review for Religious STANISLAW GLAZ The Spiritual Development of Individuals Psychology shows us that, in the spiritual life of Christians who strive to keep the command-ments, much falsehood and aggression may go unnoticed. Sins we are not conscious of may be hidden in our soul. For sin is not only breaking a few specific commandments an&admitting some of the peccadilloes on a catechism list. There is sin when 'people neglect their own growth and ignore their life's purpose as deter-mined by God and by nature's laws of develop-ment. Anger and theft, are often the result of a sin, the sin of being immature, of not growing apace with one's years. If we want to grow, we have to be in contact with ourselves and with God. A lack of personal development leads to inner compulsions to hurt ourselves and others, as a way of believing in our own strength and showing it: We feel weak and humiliated, and then we choose to do harm in order to feel our own vitality. Stanislaw Glaz SJ is professor of psychology at the University "Ignatianum," where the address is: ul. Kopernika 26; 31-501 Krakow; Poland. 21 63.1 2004 Glaz ¯ The Spiritual Development of lndividuals Members of the clergy, psychologists, and theologians often ask what should be done to foster people's spiritual growth and thereby foster their personality development as well. What are the essential conditions for proper development and growth? As answers to questions like this one, I plan to share some of my pastoral experience of the last few years. I will point out several factors, often unconscious ones, that influence people's spiritual development in either constructive or destructive ways. One cannot name everything thht can benefit spiritual development. Many psychologists and theologians have tried to show elements helping such development, but those they have mentioned concern mainly the ascetic and theological aspects. Today the psychology of spirituality~ offers more such factors than earlier theology could offer. Reconciliation with Oneself and with Others Many psychologists believe that, before people can love their enemy, they have to learn to love the enemy in themselves. They have to effect a reconciliation between hostile elements in themselves. To the end of their lives, people retain certain personal imperfections. They need to admit their aggressive and murderous tendencies, their inclinations towards iealousy, fear, sadness, loneliness, and other emotions. It is often more difficult for us to love the enemy in ourselves than the external enemy. We must allow the sun of God's love and benevolence to shine on and into our entire being, including all that is dark and threatening and everything that is odd, awkward, or inept. Then the light of love will transform the evil (Powell 1978). A sense of guilt is often caused by a lack of rec-onciliation with oneself, a failure to face one's own truth. Psychologists say that the sense of guilt is often necessary. In providing a chance to learn the truth about one's self, it Review for Religious can be a blessing or a curse. People with a negative attitude towards their sense of guilt are not able to accept the history of their life. They rebel at the fact that they were brought up in this or that way, were born .at this or that moment of history, were not in a position to realize their dream--that they experienced deep wounds. They blame their parents and society for not giving them the opportunity for normal development. They choose to see themselves as victims, rather than accept their situation, their wounds, their limited range of experience. They must understand that their parents and neighbors did not set these limits (perceived wrongly as constraints) intentionally, but only as the unavoidable result of similar limits and perceptions in their' own lives. Thus it is necessary that people evaluate the world by new principles (Sovernigo 1990, pp. 221-223). Reconciliation with oneself plays an important role in the spiritual development of human beings. We need to accept the person we became, to accept--along with our talents---our handicaps and weaknesses, our vulnerability, our fears, and our dallying perseverance. We must look at all that we do not Jike in ourselves, at everything we would rather not see, at our low esteem. This is ~a lifelong process. We endlessly discover in ourselves things ~that are new to us. We have to accept it all, including our own incompleteness. We must account for everything in .our lives that we excluded or rejected because it did not fit in our favorite image of ourselves, an idealized and untrue picture. We must admit that, besides the love and friendliness in our souls, there also are such feelings as hatred, anger, A sense ofguilt is often caused by a lack of reconciliation with oneself, a failure to face one's own truth. 23 63.1 2004 Glaz ¯ Tbe Spiritual Development of Individuals depression, and fear; not only brave and unselfish yearnings, but also godless spheres that want to remain undisturbed and unchanged. If we do not face the full truth about our patterns of emotion and thought and behavior, we project them unconsciously on others. Facing the full truth of our life till now means more than glancing at it superficially. It requires great courage. It requires giving up our ideal image of ourself (Laing 1969). Life in Accordance with Love Happy people are~not those who can either solve their own problems or ignore them. Happy people are people aware of their value as persons living their own unique lives, being themselves, loving others and letting others love them in their limitedness. Love assumes the need of self-control, which starts with awareness of our own feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. Love is both the skill and the wish to allow the loved ones to be who they want to be, without any insisting that they meet our own expectations. How much love we can offer to others depends on the love we have for ourselves. We are all unique. We should love our own selves, and our self-esteem should not be directly affected by our limitations and faults. Neither our current behavior, nor the behavior of others towards us, nor our feelings are the gauge of our own value, which is constant. People often evaluate themselves by .the definition of beauty and by role models put forward by the surrounding culture. Such self-evaluations are the origin of false selves that commandeer the true selves that people are given once and forever (Griin 1999, Mellody 1992). People have their genuine selves, which are the core of who they are, their essence, their spiritual entity. It is there that God is present, where their fears and sufferings do not penetrate. People who allow their own true self, their spiritual self, to direct their actions make of their Review for Religious soul a secure citadel where God lives and freedom reigns. This inner sphere is invulnerable. One can never be deprived of this intrinsic dignity. But one needs to discover it and to experience God as the foundation of all existence, of all human lives. God gives me life, and God sustains me in it. My value does not depend on passing an exam, nor on the judgment of others. It depends on my being who I am. God wants me to be myself. My value comes from no one but God. My value is my privilege (Powell 1978). The Way of Experiencing Faith Faith is not only the teaching of the church, it is not only the spiritual dimension, but it is also the proper perception of reality, the proper perception of God, of other people, and of myself. It is the art of a sane life, the art of trustful judgment of myself, of handling myself appropriately. Faith is the way to freedom. It is trust in God. It is conviction that God touches tenderly each sphere of my being, that his grace reaches all of the human soul in order to bring the light of his life there. Faith allows me to share with God all my mysteries. Faith is conviction that through Christ and in Christ human beings gained participation in God's life and that all of creation is permeated by God (Grfin 1980). True love depends not only on being free from an external sovereign, from the power of this world, and from the authority of another person, but also on being free from internal compulsions. Some ~limitations of our freedom may be occasioned by inherited behavioral tendencies. My freedom is limited when I do not know God, when I lower my self-esteem, when I create a false image of another person, when I follow slavishly the role models given to me by my parents, when I let myself be controlled by fear of loneliness, or when my perception of life and the world, is false. 63.1 2004 Glaz * The Spiritnal Development of Individuals Destructive Elements Spiritual development proceeds step by step. Many people, even when considerably along on their° spiritual iourney, may do things that impede their progress. Psychologists have tried to discover these hindrances and evaluate their consequences in both sociological and developmental terms. In their religious and social lives, numbers of people have a rigorous attitude towards themselves. The roots of such an attitude may be numerous and deep in people's unconscious. These roots may form when children do not experience unconditional love or when their parents do not treat them seriously in terms of their own self. Then the children are likely to be deeply wounded and fail to experience themselves as distinct and unique beings. According to many psychologists, their primal sense of security is injured; in other words, the children feel fundamentally unloved. Their self, their sense of the "me, who I am" is hurt, damaged, rejected by the very persons they needed to accept them unconditionally. After being treated in this way, children may react violendy against the people around them or against themselves. Such behavior is likely to bring some kind of punishment on them. Later, growing up, they may similarly punish themselves. This injustice and violence is likely to be .at the root of future violence and cruelty in the world (Gri.in 1997a). Upbringing becomes destructive when it fosters one side only, for example, only male aspects of personality like toughness and audacity, and depreciates sensitive feelings. Such treatment convinces a boy that his own and others' feelings are not important. Aggression towards the external world always corresponds with resentment towards oneself. The lack of love causes children to be fearful. They fear rejection, loneliness, and life itself. They desperately try not to disappoint their parents. They see exaggerated rigidity as a way of gaining their Review for Religious parents' love. Having no support from their inner self (for it is not developed yet), the children try to create support by imposing clear and sharp demands on themselves. Such severe attitudes towards themselves are efforts to overcome the deeply rooted fear resulting from the absence of parental warmth and acceptance. Such children do not trust themselves or others because they do not feel the support of a stable and clear relationship with their parents, nor the support of good pedagogical rules and guidelines. They are filled with suspicion and doubt, and so they perceive other people as untrustworthy and threatening. Feeling a similar vague mistrust of themselves, they seek to overcome it by sticking strictly to their own clear norms (Powell 1969). They feel well. only on the condition that they fulfill certain ideals. Their sense of their own value depends on whether people describe them as perfect children or not. They identify with "model" children so strongly that they cannot tolerate any deviation from that ideal.VV-henever they learn .that something they did was a mistake, they make their self-imposed rules and rituals more severe and uncompromising, But if persons force themselves to fit their ideals, they only torture themselves. They think that God expects them to be ideal constantly, that they should always be kind and open to others, forgetting self always. But that is not God's will; it is their own self-imposed "ideal," which often serves solely to gratify themselves, their own expectations and ambitions (Griin 1997). Lack of Love of Oneself Such an "ideal" appears mosdy in our ideal image of ourselves. We cannot accept that God created us to be who we are. We think that our imaginary idea of ourselves is more important than God's will. We do not try to develop all that God gave us; we do not accomplish numerous real possibilities in our lives. In our minds we27 63.1 2004 Glaz * The Spiritual Development of Individuals have ready pictures of ourselves deriving either from our parents and official and unofficial teachers or from own ambitions, our dreams of being some kind of hero or heroine. We may think, then, that we can do almost everything without any help from anybody. We may believe we can form the world as we wish and that we have no need to take into account the order given to the world by God. Many of us assume that we can achieve our hopes and ambitions by some kind of force. Before God this may indicate both a lack of humility and a failure to give God due respect. ~ People who push themselves higher than they are supposed to go land finally in their own prison. Resisting God is resisting life. It does damage to oneself. The egoism in people's drive towards self-actualization often leads away from love of their neighbor. It is in their work that they look for their identity and value, because they have failed to find value in themselves as God's beloved creation[ Such people have trouble admitting that they can. and do make mistakes. They look for ways to gloss over the evidences of their errors. They may push a miscalculated plan to a regrettable conclusion (provided they :do not appear responsible for it) rather than admit the wrongness of their initial decision. Their fear of anyone's negative opinion of them is stronger than their fear of doing damage: What will happen if others know how weak and fallible I am? And so they create and take on problems for other people, overestimating their own ability to control the damage. Such people lack balance. Their thought is all-or-nothing: If I do not achieve greatly at all costs, I am empty and dull, a nothing (Sovernigo 1990, pp. 228-229). Misunderstood Asceticism ~. A sound asceticism is characterized by a positive attitude towards ourselves. Its role is giving support to Review for Religious us--although people often think of it as rejecting pleasure and inhibiting our drives. The idea is the affirmation and development of life, not its negation. Unhealthy asceticism often includes a deficient image of God, which in turn may cause insensitivity and destructive desires, aspects of perfectionism. Perfectionists try to be like God. They create a system of compulsions, of detailed principles and commands. Adhering to that system and enlarging it becomes their goal in life. They deprive themselves of any pleasure; they live solely to sacrifice. They do not let themselves have any happiness because it will not last and then they will feel all the worse. They want, on their own, to get rid of anything negative in themselves. They do not trust God. They do not believe that somehow everything will make sense, that God can positively transform even what is negative in their lives. All they have to do is let God into their lives, their souls. The religious attitude of those people contains a lot of disbelief in the goodness of humanity. It assumes that people are good only when they are doing things, such as saying as many prayers as possible. Only fi solid faith in the true God brings the kind of trust that people need in order to live heaolthy and constructive lives without fearfulness. People who do not put trust in God's unconditional love for them have trouble in coping with guilt, which is present even in people who strive always to be good. People without trust in God do not understand what Jesus' carrying our cross and our carrying some of it with him are all about. They live stubbornly according to their own ideals, and their lives become rigid. Their suppressed and unmet needs attack them and appear as neurotic behavior. Perfectionists A sound asceticism is characterized by a positive attitude towards ourselves. 29 63.1 2004 Glaz ¯ The Spiritual Development of Individuals demand of themselves that their lives be altogether free of shallow or untrue motives. Such asceticism becomes a process of self-destruction (Sovernigo 1990, pp. 233-237). It seems, then, that spiritual development can proceed correctly only on the condition that we discard the illusions that we have created about our lives and likewise discard vain expectations for the future. One of those illusions is that we can create our own justice, love, and truth. And yet we have been transformed by Christ, we are called to a new life, called to a full development. To live that new life means to live in accordance with our innermost calling, not surrendering to expectations and demands that we ourselves or other people mistakenly impose on us. It means allowing God to create us and form us. Living by the Spirit's guidance and power means freedom from compulsion to prove our own value. It means life based on gratitude for all that we have been given by God. The aim of life is acceptance of that inner, spiritual reality which God gave us, which he gave us with love and in truth. The aim of life is being and living that reality and discovering the beauty of being, each of us, our individual selves, discovering and showing our original faces, faces given to us by God. Bibliography Albisetti, Valerio. 1991. Per esserefelici. Milano: Edizioni Paoline. Griin, Anselm. 1980. Lebensmitte als Geistlicbe Aufgabe. Benediktinerabtei Mfinsterschwarzach. Griin, Anselm. 1996. Glauben als Umdeuten glauben--lieben--loben. Benediktinerabtei Miinsterschwarzach. Griin, Anselm. 1997. Gut mit sicb selbst umgeben. Mainz: Matthias- Griinewald-Verlag. Griin, Anselm. 1997a. Tu dir docb nicbt selber web. Mainz: Matthias- Griinewald-Verlag. Griin, Anselm. 1999. lm Haus der Liebe wobnen. Stuttgart: Kreuz Verlag. Laing, Ronald D. 1998. L'lo diviso. Turin: Einaudi. Review for Religious Mellody, Pia. 1992. Facing Love Addiction: Giving Yourself the Power to Change the Way You Love. HarperSanFrancisco. Powell, John. 1969. Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am? Mien, Texas: Thomas More Association. Powell, John. 1978. Unconditional Love. Chicago: Thomas More Publishers. Sovernigo, Giuseppe. 1990. Religione e persona: psicologia dell' esperienza religiosa. Bologna: EDB. Nothing Is Lost That's what the fossils teach, leaves pressed to carbon traces, footprints cast in pudding stone, a dinosaur with feet smaller than my hand. Nothing is lost, not even what we cannot find a trace of. Firm under our feet, those old lives live on, in new forms, rock and root, awareness of what we are and have come from. Once a mind opens, thelight is there; it cannot close. Knowledge grows and we see what we could not, learn what needed light to be clear, like seeds long still in sand till the rain softens the dark, and green horns seep through the grains toward the sun. Nothing is lost. Everything feeds on, is formed from the past. And so shall we be, someday: seed and loam for what will come. Doretta Cornell RDC 31 63.1 2004 IGNATIUS JESUDASAM Breaking Stereotypes Reality is changing constantly. Stereotypes do not. Therefore they are unreal, products of the emo-tion and imagination of individuals and groups that have a vested interest in maintaining and perpetuating illu-sions. Stereotypes are born of fear or perception of threat. They go with and generate the negative attitudes of closed minds and hearts, keeping people stuck in their prejudice. Every group has experience of stereotypes. India abounds in them--a reason why we do not progress as much as we could. Our stereotypes make us our own worst enemies. The great national task in this context is to break the stereotypes in our minds by seeing and recognizing reality, which changes and has changed from the last time that we took a look at it. What follows is an example set by a minority group, without a conscious design to break stereotypes, nor claiming to be nor setting itself up as a model of stereotype breaking. This group just did something natural. Spontaneity is the natural way to break stereotypes, which are unnatural and antinatural. One has only to watch that stereotypes do not become second nature. Ignatius Jesudasan SJ wrote this from Loyola School; Uthiramerur; 603 406 India. Review for Religious Jesuits are a worldwide and well-known male religious order and organizational network in the Roman Catholic Church. Although they are generally known by the quality of their educational institutions, they are involved in and committed to many other endeavors too. They are a missionary order; they are always to be in a state of mission, of being sent. It is in this sense that the church itself is missionary. It understands itself as being sent into the whole world by Jesus Christ, who himself was sent here by God, whom .he called Father. In other words, Christ is not for himself, but for others. The church is not supposed to be for itself, but for the world. Christians is not supposed to be for themselves, but for others. Gandhi's vision of India was something similar. His self-image and life and action manifested the same spirit. Is this something wrong? Is it not the way that everyone is supposed to be? Where then is the problem? It is in this sense of mission and being missionary--in this stereotypemthat Christians and Christian organizations have caught the attention of the Indian majority mind and consciousness. As an avant-garde organization in the Catholic Church, the Jesuits and their diverse works are not free from the stereotype. Even Gandhi was not free from it. Regarding the church and its missionaries, is the stereotype well founded? Stereotype as Prejudice. Stereotyping is people's habit of assuming that they know what in fact they do not know. It is pretending to know. If my etymology is correct, "pretend," from the Latin roots prae and tendere, means to hold out in front, to stretch forth, to put forzvard a falsehood, a mask, an empty faqade. It means to assert as real what reality denies. In life we are often involved in such contradictions, or koans as Zen masters name them. We hold what we do not hold, and know what we do not know. We do not know 63.1 2004 Jesudasam * Breaking Stereotypes Since stereotypes are founded on people's ignorance and on bigots" exploitation of that ignorance, the first and best remedy is to get to know those about whom stereotypes exist. that we do not know. In other words, we lie to and deceive others or ourselves; or else we may not know enough to be able and willing to admit and correct our ignorance. And this is what bias or prejudice is. It is judgment before knowing or hearing the case. We indulge in it because we are cocksure of our rightness. And this sense of rightness is not all wrong. Prejudices have their roots in positive or negative emotions like love and hatred, or attraction and repulsion. Behind love and hatred, and attraction and repulsion, there may be many layers of knowledge and experience. What knowledge and experience do large numbers of Indian people have of Christians that cause them to dislike or feel uneasy about them? They "know" that the church and Christians are missionary, and they take it to mean converting others to their faith and worldview. They see such conversion as a loss to Hinduism and a gain to Christianity. This is why ethnoreligiously conscious Hindus, which secular Hindus are not, perpetuate the stereotype about Christian education, Christian social work, Christian medical work, and what have you. No one asks whether the schools and colleges do it, or the other good works do it. No factual statistics substantiate the prejudice against Christians. People take no surveys among Christians or even non- Christians about conversion facts, efforts, or even conscious intentions before adopting or retaining or rejecting these stereotypes. Review for Religious Stereotypes and prejudices are not good for any group or nation, and are positively harmful to them, for they divide, scatter, and waste their precious emotional energy resources and capacities for constructive development. India's emotional unity is affected by the prejudice directed from any community towards any other community on whatever basis, be it language, religion, caste, state, or locality. It is therefore in the national interest to remove every bias, prejudice, and stereotype that any individual or community has about any other individual or community. Since stereotypes are founded on people's ignorance and on bigots' exploitation of that ignorance, arousing mass phobia regarding the ethnically different, the first and best remedy is to get .to know those about whom stereotypes exist. It is probably with this in mind that Jesus spoke with authority to his fellow Jews: "I tell you: Love your enemies, do good to them, and pray for those who persecute you." This is good advice for any nation, and certainly not bad for India. Bias-breaking Spirituality Breaking stereotypes is therefore a social, psychological, national, and spiritual service. One may engage in it consciously or not. I see an example of unconscious stereotype breaking in a small document published recently by the Indian Jesuits, containing a summary of a week-long meeting of South Asian Jesuits held recently at Mumbai to plan a course of action for the coming years. The document is called "Action Statement of the Jesuits for Living and Sharing the Good News in South Asia." The title might strengthen the suspicion already present in the minds of the prejudiced, but the actual document will show how far it is from being sectarian propaganda material. The document was not produced 6"3.1 2004 yesudasam ¯ Breaking Stereotypes for public consumption or propaganda. It is meant solely to inspire, enlighten, and direct Jesuits in their various endeavors. The Vatican and the bishops might not appreciate it, but it was not written with them in view either. Christianity as Humanism It reads pretty much like a religiously secular document. Religious faith and social commitment are nowhere camouflaged. Faith, what the meeting's delegates believe in, is the source of their motivation. Sharing this faith is the purpose of all their activity and involvement. But neither that faith nor their activity is sectarian or divisive in purpose or practice. Christian terminology is used, which is unavoidable. But it is neither propaganda, nor propagandist in intent. It is inspirational for the group, and is not directed against any other group or the common good. Denominational religious conversion does not figure in it at all, not even as a hidden agendum. All the same, personal and cultural transformation, respect for every individual and group, and human dignity, equality, and fellowship stand out as serious social concerns. The document deplores absence or shadowy presence in the culture of the land. But, instead of accusing and finding fault with the culture, it calls for struggle and sacrifice to bring about desirable change in social patterns, The realities of globalization, religious fundamen-talism, and ethnic nationalism are recognized as aggravating the social conflicts in South Asia. The confusion of values in the fast-changing society (youth falling prey to alcohol, drugs, cults, sects, violence, and sexual exploitation), gender discrimination, and the commoditization of women and of labor are clearly focused upon. Civil liberties, human rights, environ-mental concerns, community-building techniques, and Review for Religious human solidarity are seen as signs of hope even amid the conflicts and tensions. Church as National Social Service Several areas of Jesuit involvement in South Asia are reviewed and planned for. They are education, parish ministry, interreligious dialogue, youth formation, social action for empowerment of women, Dalits, and tribals, and finally Jesuits' accountability to themselves and one another. Jesuit education is open to all, but especially to the poor, the Dalits, tribals, and women. Basics of all religions and problems regarding social justice, the environment, and human rights are to find a place in Jesuit curricula. Jesuit education is to serve the full human development of the weak and the marginalized and thereby help bring about social equality. There is to be remedial education in the schools and socially relevant research at higher levels. Even the formation of Christians is given a more social than religious thrust and direction. Basic Christian communities are to blossom into basic human communities imbued with the gospel values. In a male-dominant patriarchal church and society, the document asserts the need to discover the feminine in every person and in this way change one's own mindset and enhance one's way of relating to God, the world, humankind, and all creation. It asserts the need to include women in church decisions and priestly formation, and to take up women's issues in social action. The document calls for focus on the liberative dimension of cultural symbols, language, myths, and festivals. It calls for addressing religious fundamentalism, including Christian funda-mentalism. On the side of tribals, they support traditional rights to forestland, water, and habitat, and unity in tribal diversity. On behalf of the much-fractured Dalits, the document propounds standing up for their dignity as 63.1 2004 ~esudasam ¯ Breaking Stereotypes God's children, opposing caste discriminations, working for equal respect for each man and woman, and working preferentially with and for the most marginalized of the Dalits, irrespective of their religion. In social action the meeting's delegates want to share the struggles of the poor for a fuller life, to educate the illiterate, to organize domestic and displaced laborers and help them get skilled training. For greater effectiveness and coordination, they propose greater all-India administrative linkage and democratically transparent accountability. Sharing the gospel means working for equality, for the human dignity of those to whom it is denied. Social Activism People's participation is the essence of the democratic process. In actuality, social structures exclude many from the process. Sharing the gospel in this context means working for equality, for the human dignity of those to whom it is denied. This is the philosophy behind the action plan described above. One recognizes echoes of political language, but the composers of the document are not a political party. They are churchmen to the core. They do not speak a distinctively churchy language either, but one of social activists. The plans might be high-sounding and idealistic. Everything might not be realized as desired or planned. But the goodwill is obvious, and it is unlikely to be wholly in vain or go unfulfilled. Does this mission pose a danger or threat to Hinduism? No reasonable Hindus would take it so. Denominational conversion could indeed be perceived as a sociopolitical and cultural threat, especially if it took place on a massive scale. But conversion in the values of a Review for Religious culture does not pose such a threat. The nation and its people can be the better for it. (Will the Indian people then come off the various stereotypes about church, mission, and Christians?) Reflection Individuals can challenge and be challenged by others in dialogue into greater confidence and indifference. Then they will speak without fear their critical as well as creative ideas. Then they will feel accepted with their strengths and weaknesses and will participate with joy and confidence in their own and the common works. They will come up with initiatives that could be discussed, decided, and acted upon. This might be a way of rediscovering Ignatian indifference--through structural changes more in tune with our times. This might be a way of refounding St. Ignatius's Society as our Society. No institute or nation is founded once and for all. It stands always in need of reappropriation and reidentification by new and would-be members or citizens. It is when they are happy with the country or institute that they proudly identify with it and want to strengthen it further. Such a feeling is not an individual's to produce all by oneself. Every member has a personal responsibility to it. The government or the leaders have a major structural and personal responsibility. Friends, I am passing these thoughts on to you in the hope that they may evoke some critical reflections for our common good. 63.1 2004 HILDEGARD MAGDALEN PLEVA A Charism Illumined: Eucharistic Anamnesis and "Viva Memoria" ¯ he Second Vatican Council gave the church an energizing impulse. One of its most generative instructions directedreligious orders and con-gregations to go back into their history, examine early texts and archival material for guidance in reappropriating their founders' inspiration and charism, and thus begin their own rejuvenation. The still burning embers of the Spirit's work were to be fanned into flame and illumine the path ahead in new times and new circumstances. The Order of the Most Holy Redeemer pur-sued this directive in company with their Redemptorist brothers, whose efforts brought its founder, the Venerable Maria Celeste Crostarosa (1696-1755), into the light. Renewed knowledge of her vivacious spirit and mystical ¯ experience was a rediscovery of the institute's charism, the life force to be reappropriated by her sisters, the call to be a living memory of the 40 Hildegard Magdalen Pleva OSSR is newly professed among the Redemptoristine Nuns; P.O. Box 220; Esopus, New York 12429. Review for Religious paschal mystery of Jesus. Our formula of profession says, "You have called me to relive in myself the Mystery of Jesus. and to be a living memorial of it." During my ten years of association with the order and two years within the community, in conversations with friends, lay associates, religious of other congrega-tions, and visitors to our monastery, I have often attempted to explain our charism, to be a "living mem-ory" of Christ (Crostarosa, Dialogues, §104). It does not mean mere imitation; it goes beyond that. My effort to expand on the "beyond" kept falling short. From this sense of inadequacy came a search for a way of defining "living memory" that would be appropriately substan-tial yet comprehensible. The Eucharistic Connection With time and within the misty atmosphere of men-tal conjecture, "living memory" began to merge with Jesus' words in the Liturgy: "Do this in memory (anam-nesis) of me." Suddenly the overlap was not just a coin-cidence of vocabulary. It included a concept of Eucharistic theology explored in graduate school. That first appreciation of Eucharistic anamnesis seemed like a bright star exploding before my eyes, initially blinding in its brightness but then illuminating everything. At the consecration of the Mass, not only is the Body and Blood of Jesus made present under the appearance of bread and wine, but the entire paschal mystery is made present, and not only present but also active among us here and now. We are not merely remembering Jesus' life and sacrifice on the cross. Those events are actively redeeming the world at this m'oment. That explanation of the Eucharistic Liturgy's meaning and power emerged from the past in response to my "living memory" question of the present. It suggested that the concept of liturgical anamnesis could clarify our Redemptoristine concept of "living memory4."1 63.1 2004 Pleva ¯ A Charism Illumined The form and features of this concept emerged from careful reading of Maria Celeste's Dialogues and Autobiography, which provide a rich vein of evidence of her post-Communion meditation experiences. One morning after Holy Communion I heard in the very center of my soul these words of the Credo pro-nounced: "consubstantialem Patri per quem omnia facta sunt" [one in being with the Father, through whom all things were made] so that, filled to over-flowing with divine gifts, it seemed to me that the divine essence was in me . My Lord Jesus Christ. gave me his divine heart, which he enclosed in my breast in place of my own . I seemed to enter into a new life of Love, a life in God. (Autobiography, capi-tolo 18) This morning., my whole soul was transformed into your very substance. (Dialogues, §30) Since your soul is the figure of My substance, what ~ really are you within your spirit, in your very being, if not a living image, a living copy of Me? (Dialogues, §47) After I received Holy Communion . . . I saw You within me and myself changed into You . I felt that just one word was being spoken to me, namely, "sub-stance of the Father" [consubstantialem Patri] . This transformation, O Lord of my heart, of my being into Yours, You deigned to make so many times! (Dialogues, §125) This morning I went to Holy Communion and You transformed me into Yourself so that I entered into the humanity of Your divine Word and began to sacrifice myself to the Father for all people. (Dialogues, §147) You do this precisely by the spirit of observance in terms of your Rule, which was given to Me so that you might be a viva memoria [a dynamic memory] of My life. (Dialogues, §104) These passages speak of a transformation that is not merely an imitative overlay but a participation in the substance, the very essence, of Jesus, in which he in turn is consubstantial with the Father. Nor is it a static par-ticipation, but a highly animated one that propels Maria Review for Religious Celeste "into a new life of Love, a life in God." By such participation and animation, Jesus, his paschal mystery, his work of redemption, is made present and active in our time. For Maria Celeste the incarnation of Jesus was the opening of new territory in the relationship between God and humanity, a territory into which she entered with abandon. By taking part in the Eucharist, the essen-tial act of remembering Jesus, she became substantially one with him, not merely an imitation of him. Gradually these mystical experiences revealed to her the necessity of remembering always, of living a life of remembering, a life of "oneness" with Jesus Christ. Eucharistic Anamnesis The phenomena of Eucharistic anamnesis and "liv-ing memory" each reflect the other. Yet their depth, their power to inform sacramental and spiritual appreciation, was lost over time. While the anamnetic character of the Eucharist was buried under weighty layers of theo-logical argumentation, Maria Celeste's mystical experi-ence of "living memory" was lost to obscurity for more than two hundred years. In the 20th century each became the object of a kind of archaeological dig, a treasure to be unearthed by tectonic shifts brought about by the Second Vatican Council. The crucial feature of both anarnnesis and "living memory" is the ability to make past events and the per-son of Jesus present and active in our time. This idea, however, this connection, is not enough. One must ask where this astounding concept of anamnesis comes from. The answers will more fully illuminate the Redemptoristine charism, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church gives inquirers a start: The Eucharist is the memorial of Christ's Passover, the making present and the sacramental offering of his unique sacrifice . In all the Eucharist Prayers we 63. I 2004 --44 Pleva ¯ A Charism Illumined find after the words .of institution a prayer called the anamnesis or memorial ["Father, we celebrate the mem-ory of Christ . We. recall his passion" etc. / "In memory of his death and resurrection" etc. / "Father, calling to mind the death your Son endured . . . his glorious resurrection" etc. / "Father, we now celebrate this memorial of our redemption. We recall Christ's death, his descent among the dead" etc.]. In the sense of Sacred Scripture, the memorial is not merely the recollection of past events but the proclamation of the mighty works wrought by God for men . They become in a certain way present and real. This is how Israel understands its liberation from Egypt: every time Passover is celebrated, the Exodus events are made present to the memory of believers so that they may conform their lives to them. ¯ . . When the church celebrates the Eucharist, she commemorates Christ's Passover, and it is made pre-sent . "As often as the sacrifice of the cross . is celebrated on the altar, the work of our redemption is carried out." (§§1362-1364) Rooted in Jewish Liturgical Practice The memorial or anamnetic character of the Eucharistic banquet is not a conceptualization newly minted by post-Vatican II sacramental theology. Rather, it is a theological concept found in the oldest Eucharistic Prayers, which reflect how the practices of the early church were deeply rooted in ancient Hebrew liturgical tradition. "The primitive Eucharist was a commemora-tion. Not a commemoration of the Last Supper, but a commemoration of Christ, and of his saving mysteries. The idea . of a 'mere' commemoration (nuda com-memoratio) would have been meaningless to the Jewish mind" (Lash, p. 44). In 1969 Rabbi Marc Tannenbaum, then director of national intex:religious affairs for the American Jewish Committee and an observer at the Second Vatican Council, wrote: "To commemorate and to remember is in the Jewish tradition never a mere Review for Religious memory, but always implies a look toward the future and a making present again" (Breaking of Bread, p. 148). The Jewish Passover Seder is the penultimate expression of the Hebrew commemorative meal, making present in real time the mystery of the Passover of the Lord God. Based upon the work of scholars in Eucharistic the-ology, among them Louis Bouyer, Louis Ligier, Joachim Jeremias, Jean-Paul Audet, and Gregory Dix, an even greater understanding .of the origins of the earliest Eucharistic Prayers or anaphoras is emerging. The most ancient anaphoras conform in structure to the Jewish prayers said at a fellowship meal, espe-cially the birkat-ha-mazon, which was typically anamnetic in char-acter and featured three move-ments: blessing, thanksgiving, and supplication (Audet in Klein, p. 410). Beyond appreciating the stylistic resemblance of early Eucharistic Prayers, it was Gregory Dix who had the insight to consider the Sitz-im-Leben, that is, the insti-tutional setting in actual Hebraic practice which gave specific meaning to these liturgical meal prayers (Klein, p. 413). Dix's insights answered a basic question: What did Jesus, as a Jew of his time, have in mind; what did he mean when he said, "Do this in memory of me" (1 Co 11:24)? "The command of Jesus did not refer to the rep-etition of a sacral fellowship meal. This could be pre-sumed as fundamental to Jewish religious practice. In other words, Jesus did not have to institute a meal, because the meal was already there. What Jesus did was to invest this meal with a new anamnetic character" (Klein, p. 414). For the Hebrew of Jesus' time, the Passover meal was not merely "a subjective, human psy- What Jesus did was to invest this meal with a new anamnetic character. 63.1 2004 Pleva ¯ A Charism Illumined chological act of returning to the past, but an objective reality" undertaken to make the Passover of the Lord perpetually present before God (Bouyer, p. 103). "By the power of the Lord of history, those events are in a sense made present in the liturgy, so that the worshipers are living them ag.ain in their own lives. A Jewish ritual memorial, therefore, is no mere thinking of the past; it is a memorial filled with the reality of that which it com-memorates" (Maloney, p. 265). This was the anamnetic character of the meal. When Jesus said "Do this in mem-ory of me," he invested the meal with a new anamnetic object, that is, the paschal mystery, which is the saving acts of his own life, death, and resurrection. The Implications of Anamnesis for Our Practice Celebrations of the Eucharist in which we share today are the occasions in which we call to mind the person and events of our salvation--Jesus Christ and his paschal mystery--in such a way that we render them liv-ing and active in our own time. The plural pronoun we is operative here. The priest, although acting in persona Christi, is not acting alone. The gathered community is not merely present or participating by observation. The community gathered for the memorial meal is integral to anamnesis, to recalling and thereby making actively pre-sent the person and saving action of the~Redeemer. The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (Sacrosanctum con-cilium) of the Second Vatican Council declares that God's people gathered for Eucharist "offer the immaculate vic-tim through the hands of the priest, but also together with him" (§48). The Eucharistic Prayer emphasizes this integral func-tion by repeated use of the pronoun we. "We thank you for counting us worthy to stand in your presence and serve you" (EP II). "We offer you in thanksgiving this holy and living .sacrifice" (EP III). "We, your people and Review for Religious your ministers, recall his passion, his resurrection from the dead, and his ascension into glory" (EP 2). Indeed, the level of participation penetrates more deeply if the community offer themselves along with the gifts of bread and wine: "Father, we bring you these gifts. We ask you to make them holy by the power of your Spirit, that they may become the body and blood of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ." In the consecration Jesus becomes uniquely present under the appearances of bread and wine, but also, through the Eucharistic anamnesis and the congregation's living memory, actively present within and among those gathered. This answers the question of the way Jesus Christ becomes actively present at each Eucharistic celebration. According to people's receptive memories, Jesus the redeeming Christ becomes present in those who are united with him in this memorial. In remembering, we become what we remember. Just as the anamnetic character of our Eucharist is rooted in an ancient religious ritual, appreci-ation of the effect of anamnesis is imbedded in our history. St. Fulgentius (467-533), bishop of Ruspe, speaking of the obligation of the faithful to fulfill the words of the Savior at the Last Supper, wrote: "Thus they drink the Lord's cup by preserving the holy bond of love; without it, even if a man should deliver his body to be burned, he gains nothing. But the gift of love enables us to become in real-ity what we celebrate as mystery in the sacrifice." Alexander Schmemann, the late Russian Orthodox scholar of liturgy, wrote about the power of anamnetic memory in his work The Eucharist. His words are so elo-quently reminiscent of the Constitutions of the Order of the Most Holy Redeemer that they" must be quoted at length: In Christ . memory comes to reign and is restored as a life-creating power, and, in remembering, man par-takes not of the experience of the fall., but of the 47 63.1 2004 Pleva ¯ A Charism Illumined overcoming of this fall through "life everlasting." For Christ himself is the incarnation and the gift to mankind of God's memory in all its fullness . The essence of our faith and the new life granted in it consists in Christ's memory, realized in us through our memory of Christ. From the very first day of Chris-tianity, to believe in Christ meant to remember him and keep him always in mind . From the very begin-ning the faith of Christians was memory and remem-brance, but memory restored to its life-creating essence--for . this new memory is a joyous recog-nition of the one who was resurrected, who lives and therefore is present and abides . Faith eternally knows that the one who is remembered lives . The remembrance of Christ is the entry into his love, making us brothers and neighbors, "brethren" in his ministry. His life and presence in us and "among" us is certified only by our love for each other and for all whom God has sent into, has included in, our life, and this means above all in the remembrance of each other and in the commemoration of each other in Christ. Therefore, in bringing his sacrifice to the altar, we create the memory of each other, we identify each other as living in Christ and being united with each other in him. (Schmemann, pp. 128-130) The constitution and statutes of our order assert again and again this understanding of the Eucharistic Liturgy as the agent of "living memory":. The church continues to make present this memorial of the Passover of the Lord, a living bond of 16ve between Christians and a pledge of future glory. Our liturgical celebrations must give witness at one and the same time to the holiness of the Lord and to his loving presence among us . This silent con-templation, maintained in faith and love in the depth of the soul, allows us a personal experience of God and also permits us to enter fully into the plan of redemption . We allow Christ to relive his mys-tery in us by contemplating him in the whole of his life. (§§37-42) Review for Religious Participation by the Holy Spirit's Power The scope of this paper does not permit lengthy dis-cussion of the debate regarding consecratory elements of the Liturgy of the Eucharist. While the church in the West has long held to "This is my body . this is my blood" in the Gospels' Last Supper narrative as the con-secratory formula, the church of the East has always con-sidered the epidesis, the prayer of the invocation of the Holy Spirit, to be the essential mo-ment of consecration. Again it is Alexander Schmemann who calls the debate back to order. "Despite hundreds of treatises written in response to this question, neither aca-demic theological nor liturgi-cal studies have given, alas, a satisfactory answer . We cannot 'break through' to the genuine meaning, embed-ded in the very experience of the church, of the Eucharist as the sacrament of remembrance" (Schmemann, pp. 192- 193). Although today the Catechism of the Catholic Church (§§ 1352-1353) declares the Eucharistic Prayer "the heart and summit of the celebration," specifying the institution narrative as consecratory, the very existence of the old debate reminds us to renew our attentiveness to the work of the Spirit. This attentiveness is important for appreci-ating the anamnetic character of the Eucharistic Liturgy. Each of the four principal Eucharistic Prayers includes an epidesis invoking the power of the Holy Spirit as the agent of consecration: "Let your Spirit come upon these gifts to make them holy" (EP II). By these words we acknowledge that it is by the power of the Holy Spirit Attentiveness to the work of the Spirit is important for appreciating the anamnetic character of the Eucharistic Liturgy. 49 63.1 2004 Pleva ¯ A Charism Illumined - that the gifts are changed. In these words we ask that we too may become h01y, becoming "a living offering to God" (Catechism, §1105) in the mystery we celebrate, the sacrament of remembrance. For Redemptoristines the vocabulary of anamnesis (memory, remember, remembrance, recall, memorial) should be like music to the ears. The charism to be a "living memory" of Jesus was revealed to our foundress during post-Communion meditations in which she expe-rienced the transformative power of the Eucharist accomplished through the work of the Spirit. Her daugh-ters are to be transformed into the "living memory" by participation in the Eucharistic banquet, which was from the beginning a "memory." By remembering we partic-ipate in the change of the Eucharistic elements into the Body and Blood of Jesus and, in turn, we are changed into the very life we remember. The Jesus of Maria Celeste's mystical experiences said: "You shall take on a memory of my life in each hour [of the day]. I shall be the lamp of all your activities, and you shall eat the living food of eternal life which was contained in the works of my life while I was a pilgrim on earth. This is the spirit of the institute: viva memoria and imitation of me just as I lived among you" (Dialogues, §§104-105). Elsewhere this level of attentive remem-bering is referred to as a "fixed gaze." To the degree that Celeste's daughters' devout recollection approximates a fixed gaze, their very lives take on an anamnetic character. Then we make the paschal mystery more present and active in real time. We become the "living memory" of Jesus. Our acts of memory, insofar as they are produced by the Holy Spirit, render us not only spiritual people (pneumatikoi) but also bearers of the Spirit (pneu-matophoroO, a living epMesis (Bianchi, p. 162). By our lives we call down the power of the. Holy Spirit into every cor-ner of the world and the troubled hearts of humanity. Review for Religio,,s My original question concerned the deeper meaning of our charism, to be a "living memory" of Jesus Christ, to make the person of Jesus present in our world in a manner that goes beyond any mere imitation. Our Eucharistic Liturgies are "pregnant with reality" (Crichton, p. 14), a reality Jesus called for at the Last Supper: "Do this in memory of me." Jesus, the incarna-tion of the memory of God, is asking us to become, in turn, the incarnation of his memory in our world. The words of Maria Celeste express self-affirmation and encourage her community today: Now that Your sacred humanity, united to the Word of God, has been glorified . it gives me such a risen life in God that it transforms me into the eternal life of God, as I await the dawning of the new day that will make me blessed for all eternity. (Florilegium, p. 95) If we have it in our power to make present and active the saving work of Jesus by our remembering, the qual-ity of that remembering, our alert presence to it, becomes so much more vital. Seeing the relation between the anamnesis and Maria Celeste's "living memory" intensi-fies our call to be contemplatives. For Redemptoristines, for all contemplatives, or for all who would live their active lives in a more contemplative fashion, the Eucharistic anamnesis can reinforce our effort to live rec-ollected lives, to order our lives by continually remem-bering (and thus reactualizing) the person, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Almost fifty years ago Thoma~ Merton declared, "In the night of our technological barbarism, monks must be as trees which exist silently in the dark and by their vital presence purify the air" (Merton, p. 124). Just as the trees of the forest breathe transforming life into the world, our conscious and active "living memory" is, with the divine breath of the Spirit, cocreator of the saving presence of Jesus in our time. Appreciation of the anam- 63.1 2004 Pleva ¯ A Charism Illumined netic power of our "living memory" is impetus for the life and work of contemplation. Sources Bianchi, Enzo, OCSO. "The Holy Spirit in Monastic Life," trans. Brian Kerns. Cistercian Studies Quarterly 37, no. 2 (2002): 153- 166. Catechism of the Catholic Church. Liguori, Mo.: Liguori Publications, 1997. Crichton, J.D. "A Theology of Worship." In The Study of Liturgy, ed. Cheslyn Jones, Geoffrey Wainwright, and Edward Yarnold SJ. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. Or see Study, rev. ed., 1992, p. 15. Crostarosa, Maria Celeste. Dialogues, trans. Joseph W. Oppitz. Esopus, N.Y.: Mother of Perpetual Help Monastery, 1981. Dix, Dom Gregory. The Shape of the Liturgy. New York: Seabury Press, 1982. Florilegium: Texts from Mother Maria Celeste Crostarosa, ed. Sabatino Majorano. Liguori, Mo:: Liguori Publications, 1993. Klein, Terrance W. "Institution Narratives at the Crossroads." Worship 67, no. 5 (September 1993): 407-418. Lash, Nicholas. His Presence in the World: A Study of Eucharistic VVorship and Theology. Dayton, Ohio: Pflaum Press, 1968. Maloney, Raymond. "The Doctrine on the Eucharist." In Commentary on the Catechism of the Catholic Church, ed. Michael J. Walsh, pp. '259-269. Collegeville~ Liturgical Press, 1994. Merton, Thomas. Basic Principles of Monastic Spirituality. Springfield, Ill.: Templegate Publishers, 1996. Order of the Most Holy Redeemer (OSSR). Constitution and Statutes. Rome, 1985. Schmemann, Alexander. The Eucharist: Sacrament of the Kingdom. Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1988. Tannenbaum, Marc. "How Mode(n Jews Celebrate Their History." In The Breaking of Bread, ed. Pierre Benoit, Roland E. Murphy, and Bastiaan van Iersel. Concilium, vol. 40. New York: Paulist Press, 1969. Review for Religious RANDALL S. ROSENBERG Eucharistic Devotion in the Rising Generation _~ .~.aismseuse M oafr tAinm SeJ rdiicda a, nhiicgeh jloibg,h inti nthge t3h Me aprecrhs 2o0n0a3l reflections of contemporary Catholics on traditional devotions. In recent times we have witnessed in the United States a rise of the devotion of Eucharistic adoration. How ought this revival to be perceived? Is it merely an attempt to resurrect nostalgic memories of the "good old days"? Or is it the authentic recovery of a lost Eucharistic piety that has had an important place in our tradition? In this "bent" world, both of the afore-mentioned possibilities could be operative. In his April 2003 encyclical on the Eucharist, Ecclesia de Eucbaristia, John Paul II recognizes "positive signs" of an increase in "Eucharistic faith and love." But he also takes notice of what he calls "shadows" with regard to this devotion. He writes: "In some places the practice of Eucharistic adoration has been almost completely abandoned. In various parts of the church, abuses have occurred, leading to confusion about Catholic doctrine Randall S. Rosenberg has taught high school theology and is beginning work towards a Ph.D. in systematic theology at Boston College. His address is 14 Eddy Street; Newton, Massachusetts 02465. 63.1 2004 Rosenberg ¯ Eucbaristic Devotion and sound faith concerning this wonderful sacrament. At times one encounters an extremely meager understanding of the Eucharistic mystery" (§10). John Paul claims that the worship of the Eucharist outside of Mass, as linked to the celebration of the Eucharistic sacrifice, is of "inestimable value for the life of the church." He calls upon pastoral leaders to encourage this devotion which affords the opportunity to "spend time with him, to lie close to his breast like the Beloved Disciple (see Jn 13:25) and to feel the infinite love present in his heart." Surely this intimate language springs from the depths of the pope's personal experience of Christ in adoration: "How often, dear brothers and sisters, have I experienced this, and drawn from it strength, consolation, and support!" (§25). What are we to make of our pope's proclamation? As a faculty moderator on a recent high school retreat, I witnessed students spending some time in Eucharistic adoration. The adoration followed several days of small-group sharing and was linked with the opportunity for the sacrament of reconciliation. Without solicitation, one student remarked to me how powerful this experience was for him. This was not a student regularly involved with campus ministry, nor did he seem particularly interested in matters religious. The student asked me why this opportunity was not more available. It struck me that this generation (I am not very much older) does not carry around the baggage that many middle-aged and older American Catholics carry; that is, there is no liberal-conservative rift dividing them. I am all for healthy theological tension, but young people today are not likely to label those who spend time in Eucharistic adoration traditionalist conservatives, nor those who are concerned about social justice radical liberals. There seems to be a growing sense that the contemplative and active dimensions of the faith ought not to be pitted against each another, but rather are part of the rich and Review for Religious complex life of faith in the modern world. John E Kavanaugh SJ recendy suggested (America, 4 November 2002) that the old dichotomies of liberal and conservative simply do not work anymore. One such illuminating experience for him was an encounter with a prayer group of college students who invited him to speak on the topic of "Real Presence in the Eucharist and in Persons." Many in the church are righdy concerned about an emphasis on private Eucharistic devotion over against the communal dimensions of the faith. Influenced in part by the groundbreaking work of Henri de Lubac SJ, the church has rediscovered the social dimension of the Eucharist, namely, that this powerful sacrament is not only an encounter with the divine, but also a means of fostering unity in the church and among human beings generally. Rightly under-stood, Eucharistic contem-plation could deepen one's relationship with Christ made present under the appearance of bread and wine and also with the assembly of the faithful, the body of Christ. In the midst of our technological culture that fosters noise, clutter, information overload, and a quick fix, and in a world culture that is permeated with violence and war, I propose that we need Christic contemplation and silence. Since my conversation with the student, I have become more convinced than ever that our world not only needs silence, but also hungers for silence. One can commune silently with Holy Mystery in nature or in one's living room, but our sacramental tradition provides us with a special quiet encounter with Jesus. Many in the church are rightly concerned about an emphasis on private Eucharistic devotion over against the communal dimensions of the faith. 63.1 2004 Rosenberg ¯ Eucbaristic Devotion ! The great theologian Karl Rahner SJ--who respected the tradition deeply and engaged modern intellectual developments creatively, and who tried to convince ordinary people that they can be mystics in their everyday activities--warned against the loss of this devotion. In Mission and Grace: Essays in Pastoral Theology, Rahner suspects that those who oppose contemplation of the Eucharist are really uncomfortable with "private, prolonged, contemplative prayer in general; that the objections raised against visits as such are for the most part only a sort of ideological cover, supplied in retrospect, for a general withdrawal from the severe demands of meditation." In his final writings Rahner wrote that the worshiping of Jesus in the sacrament must not disappear. Its history may have started from unnoticeable beginnings. However, in salvation history and in the history of the church, something cannot disappear simply because it started almost without being noticed. No, as Catholics we wish, individually and together, to loo1~ to the sign of the presence of the one who has loved us and has offered himself up for us. It should not be unusual for us to kneel at times in private prayer before the Lord who has saved us. ("Eucharistic Worship," in Theological Investigations x aI0 Eucharistic adoration may also foster the contemplative dimension of a concern for social justice. A hallmark of the theology of Johannes Baptist Metz, famous for his spiritual classic Poverty of Spirit, is what he calls dangerous memories. According to him, what theology often ignores is the history of suffering. We must not do theology, he would say, with our backs turned to Auschwitz, but with a mysticism of eyes open to the dangerous memories, the me.mories of horrendous human suffering. Discourse about the war in Iraq, then, cannot be divorced from the dangerous memory of the Review for Religious young boy who lost his arms and was severely burned in a U.S. missile attack. Not only was he injured, but his pregnant mother was killed, along with his father and several of his siblings. One encounters dangerous memories in the Eucharist. As Pope John Paul has insisted, the Eucharist makes sacramentally present again the horrible sufferings of Jesus, himself a victim of injustice. In the light of the dangerous memory of the cross, Eucharistic adoration provides, if well understood, the opportunity to become conscious of and to lament the terrible sufferings of God's children in our present day. We are given a chance to commune with the one who gave us these haunting words: "Whatever you do to the least of my brothers you do to me." Christ-centered contemplation, then, may lead to Christ-centered action. Although we must avoid letting private devotion seem more important or more central than the Mass, it would be wise to listen to people, especially young people, who desire to spend time in loving contemplation and adoration of the Eucharist. Such devotion may actually build bridges across rifts in the church and in the world, actually make the church more Catholic and catholic. I am convinced that the rising generation is ready to discard divisive political labels and embrace both the prayer and the activity necessary for integral lives of faith. 63.1 2004 SUSAN B. CORDSEN Teresa of Avila and Friendship Teresa was a friend par excellence. She had tremendous natural relational gifts. These caused her great difficulty, but also became keys to her effectiveness as a reformer. Friendship is a central element in her writing as it was in how she lived her life. In her autobiography she writes, "As I grew older, when I began to know of the natural attractive qualities the Lord had bestowed on me (which others said were many), instead of thanking him for .them, I began to make use of them all to offend him.''1 The redemptive learning and teaching that flowered from her experience can be helpful for us today. In her early life, relationships were a con-stant struggle for her. In her autobiography Teresa says that a friendship of hers with a teenage relative "pained my father and my sis-ter" (2.4). She uses her own reflections to illus- Susan B. Cordsen, a lay Carmelite for twenty-one years, is doing graduate studies at Washington Theological Union; 6896 Laurel Street, N.W.; Washington, D.C. 20012. Review for Religious trate and teach "the harm a bad companion can do." Later she speaks of the personal influence of a nun in the convent school she was attending: "This good com-pany began to help me get rid of the habits that the bad company had caused" (2.4 and 3.1). Both the negative and the positive aspects of friendship frame her discussions. In 1536, at the age of twenty-one, she entered the Carmelite Convent of the Incarnation. There "the par-lor" and outside relationships became a major "harm and distraction" for her. In that early period she had a vision of Christ, who "desired to make me understand that those friendships were not proper for me" (7.6). Since she did not know that it was possible to see the Lord in such a personal, experiential way, and since "the vision was not to my liking," she tried to conceal it from her-self (7.7). Concerning these friendships, she ignored other external and internal warnings as well. In 1544 a Dominican confessor, Vicente Barron, iarged her to return to personal times of prayer. Here she reflects: "Spiritual friendship is. extremely impor-tant for souls not yet fortified in virtue--since they have so many opponents and friends to incite them to evil" (7.21). Now she begins to express prayer in friendship terms with her famous definition: "Mental prayer., is noth-ing else than an intimate sharing between friends; it means frequently taking time to be alone with Him who we know loves us." For friendship.to :endure, "the wills of the friends must be in accord" (8.5). Seeing Christ as "friend" who invites us into "friendship" becomes the key and model of her redeemed relationality. Yet her internal struggles remained intense. She says, "For more than eighteen years, I suffered this conflict between friendship with God and friendship with the world" (8.3). Finally, in 1554, she had her profound conversion before the statue of the wounded Christ. Yet, even here, though 63.1 2004 Cordsen ¯ Teresa of Avila and Friendship Though she was deeply reoriented toward friendship with Jesus, she was not fully freed from personal attachments. she was deeply reoriented toward friendship with Jesus, she was not fully freed from personal attachments. This came about two years later. She writes of her new Jesuit confessor, Juan de Pradanos, who led her with skill and gentleness because she was still fragile, "espe-cially with regard to giving up some friendships I had." She was not offending God, but was attached, feeling she would be ungrateful to aban-don them. This would seem to be a rather common state of affairs in people's friend-ships. The friendship is not sinful or "destructive," and to simply discard the rela-tionship would seem disloyal to the friend, and yet the attachment is the very thing that keeps us unfree and interferes with both our friendship with God and our friendship with the person. Turning to God in prayer,. Teresa was for the first time granted a rapture; she heard, "No longer do I want you to converse with men but with angels" (24.5). She com-ments, "These words have been fulfilled." How? By her withdrawing into silent prayer, ending all human friend-ships to speak only with angels and God? No. "For I have never again been able to tie myself to any friendship or to find consolation in or bear particular love for any other persons than those I understand love [God] and strive to serve him; nor is it in my power do to so, nor does it matter whether they are friends or relatives" (24.6). This freed her to become more of a friend rather than drawing her from friendship. This is because her friendship with others now flowed from her friendship with Christ. It is astonishing Review for Religious how deeply and richly she draws on the concept of friendship to express her relationship with Jesus. She notes, again and again that he is a "true" friend. This is a term she uses just before writing about the importance of the sacred humanity of Christ and how we must never seek to go beyond this. "We are not angels but we have a body" (22.6-10). The concept of friendship keeps her connected to the sacred humanity. She writes of how God treats the soul with friendship; she even prays that the Lord make a certain person "our" friend, that is, the friend of both God and Teresa (27.9 and 34.8). God enables in us a sense of mutuality whereby the soul and God understand each other (27.10). This key, friendship, continues in her "Meditations on the Song of Songs." Though a human love story and one often used by mystics to comment on the love of God pursuing and enticing the soul in the image of the bride, Teresa adds her own twist. Her meditation is really on only a few verses and treats the themes of prayer and union as she does in her other works. But here she emphasizes "friendship" and "peace." Quoting the verse "Let Him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth," she asks how dare we speak them. She answers, "The soul that is enkindled with a love that makes it mad desires nothing else than to say these words." Then, after speaking of the Blessed Sacrament, she wonders whether the bride "was asking for that union so great that God became man, for that friendship that he effects with the human. race. Obviously a kiss is the sign of great peace and friendship among two persons.''2 Teresa discusses everything from "friendship" with the devil to our relationship with God as "skin-deep." Using "friendship" to express growth and union, she refers to "another kind of friendship, stronger than this," but adds that "neither is this the friendship the bride seeks" (2.20 and 2.27). "God grants so great a favor as to 6! 63.1 2004 Cordsen * Teresa of Avila and Friendship join [the soul] with himself in a friendship like this" (3.9); "how is it possible that even while in this mortal life one can enjoy You with so special a friendship [that] only those who experience this friendship will understand it?" (3.14 and 4.1). Teresa develops this human love story in many directions, including that of marriage. The fact that she uses it to reflect on divine friendship may help us reflect on the friendship dimension within marriage. As usual, Teresa not only shares her experience, but also reflects on it to help others. In setting up her Carmelite reform, she initially limits her monasteries to thirteen nuns. Here "all must be friends, all must be loved, all must be held dear, all must be helped.''3 She herself knows how difficult this is in practice and tries to point out pitfalls and give guidance. Though written for cloistered women, her insights are practical for us as well. She is concerned about hav-ing "excessive love" for one person and thus failing to love others equally, feeling sorry about an affront to the friend, desiring possessions so as to have things to give as gifts, and looking for times to speak with her and often only about trifling things. Such friendships seldom help each other toward love of God. Yet because we are human we are often drawn more to one person than another and easily become attached. The crucial ele-ments are self-knowledge and awareness (4.6-8). Teresa usually does not recommend cutting off con-tact altogether, which would not be possible in the monastery anyway. "To break away from these friend-ships involving a particular fondness, great care is nec-essary at the outset of the friendship. This breaking away should be done delicately and lovingly rather than harshly" (4.9). She says to limit time together. She is not trying to destroy the friendship, only reorient it. She shows this by the way she speaks of spiritual love, which is what she desires for all friendship. "Even though in Review for Religious the beginning it is not so perfect, the Lord will gradu-ally perfect it. Let us begin by using the suitable means, for, even though the love bears with it some natural ten-derness, no harm will be done provided this tenderness is shown toward all" (7.5). Her advice regarding falling in love with confessors shows her realism and balance. The sisters should "try not to think about whether they love the confessor or don't love him; but, if they do love him, let them love him . A great principle for making much progress is to love the confessor, if he is holy and spiritual and if I see that he is dili-gent about my soul's progress. For our weak-ness is such that some-times this love helps us very much to perform great deeds in the ser-vice of God. If the love is not of this kind, there is danger . There is much need for caution and pru-dence. The best advice is that the confessor not know that there is such affection . If [the sisters] know that he is God-fearing, they should not weary themselves over any temptation . about their great attachment; when the devil is worn out, he will go away." However, if they "become aware that the confessor is turning toward some vanity," they should make their confession brief and seek another confessor:4 Teresa looks to self-knowledge, awareness, patience with our emotions, and God's grace to navigate rela-tionships. Regarding confessors she advises developing internal boundaries rather than trusting external bound-aries to keep relationships proper. Again, it is Christ the friend who shows how we are to be friends together. Teresa looks to self-knowledge, awareness, patience with our emotions, and God's grace to navigate relationships. 63.1 2004 Cordsen * Teresa of Avila and Friendship Teresa says this is "a love with no self-interest at all. All that it desires., is to see the other soul rich with heav-enly blessings" (Way, 7.1). As with all of life, this friendship is not without suf-fering. After speaking of the cross, Teresa asks, "What better friendship than that [Jesus] desire for you what he desired for himself?." (Way, 17.7). This is one of many places where she notes that one of the gifts of Christ's friendship is a sharing in his cross--but the suffering comes not from denying friendship but from attempt-ing to live it without self-interest, to have affection but not attachment. We do not reach this fully in this life. In trying to distinguish the different loves, Teresa says, "I don't think I know which love is spiritual, or when sen-sual love is mixed with spiritual love" (Way, 6.2). Yet this is often the condition we are in. We have the choice of pulling back in fear we will become attached, or of crossing boundaries, ignoring cautions as Teresa did early in her life and fostering distracting and harmful rela-tionships. Or--a third choice--we can choose the path Teresa did and respond to the invitation to friendship with Christ and trust that his grace and mercy will grad-ually bring our friendships in line with his own. In her letters Teresa shows herself to be a very human person. She chides others for not valuing her friendship enough to write more; another "owes her more." Showing great affection, she speaks of being lonely, scolds, encourages, pleads. Her words leap energetically off the pages. There is her great affection for Jertnimo Gracifin, a friendship that brings her much joy and sor-row, and is a puzzlement to others. In her "Spiritual Testimonies" she writes of a time when she "was living in great~ loneliness" and says Gracifin was the only one to "give me comfort, and he had to be absent most of the time." The loneliness continued, and she had a curious intellectual vision of the Lord placing "himself in my Review for Religiot~s arms as in the painting" of the body of Jesus in his mother's arms after being taken down from the cross,s Teresa came to acknowledge her natural gifts for friendship and to thank God for them. She allowed them to be used to draw others to .Jesus. In our world that strives to improve communication skills, set boundaries, express our sexuality neither too much nor too little, where does friendship fit in? The recently beatified Mother Teresa of Calcutta spoke of the great loneliness in the United States. Sexual abuse continues to be a problem and to cause problems in the church and in the world at large. Where is the friendship that St. Teresa of Avila wrote of and lived? Teresa, teach us to be friends of Christ that we may be friends of one another. Notes ~ The Book of Her Life, chapter 1, section 8. Hereafter till note 2, references to this work will be supplied in parentheses in the text. The translations used in this article are those of Kieran Kavanaugh OCD and Otilio Rodriguez OCD, The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, Vols. 1, 2, 3 (Washington: ICS Publications, 1987, 1980, 1985). ¯ Note 2 begins a second series of parenthetical references, and note 3 begins a third series. 2 Meditations on the Song of Songs, chapter 1, section 10. 3 The Way of Perfection, chapter 4, section 7. 4 Teresa as quoted in the translators' note to The Way of Perfec-tion, 4.8. s Spiritual Testimonies, 53. 63.1 2004 ROBERT P. MALONEY Five Faces ofRosalie Rendu On 9 November 2003 Pope John Paul II beatified Rosalie Rendu, a Daughter of Charity. She was the Mother Teresa of 19th-century France. Her energy, creativity, and courage leap out from the accounts of those who knew her.~ Fifty thousand people flocked to her funeral on 9 February 1856. What was said that day, and the articles written in her praise, remind me of Shakespeare's eloquent words: When she shall die, Take her and cut her out in little stars, And she will make the face of heaven so fine That all the world will be in love with night.2 The church beatifies and canonizes men and women pre-cisely for that reason: that they may shine out like stars for us, that in the midst of darkness we may see what it really means to be holy. Saints make holiness real, con-crete. In this article I offer five faces of Rosalie Rendu. Prodigious Worker and Organizer Rosalie was born on 9 September 1786, in Confort, a tiny village in southern France. At just fifteen years of Robert P. Maloney CM, superior general of the Congregation of the Mission, is a frequent contributor to our pages. He resides at Via dei Capasso, 30; 00164 Roma; Italy. ¯ Review for Relig4ous age, she set off for Paris. There she spent more than fifty years of her life in the capital's poorest neighborhood, Mouffetard. Her works were prodigious. She began as a teacher in a primary school, which she later ran. Though she herself had little formal education (biographers say she never managed to write French very well), Rosalie and others labored strenuously to teach children to read, write, and do basic mathematics along with learning their catechism. For young girls and needy women, she soon orga-nized courses in sewing and embroidering. She then founded a day-care center and a nursery school fox; the children of working mothers. For these same mothers she started a branch of the Children of Mary. In addition, she and the sisters ran a center for the distribution of food and firewood, with a pharmacy, a clinic and a clothes dispensary. She helped in counseling the newly founded Society of St. Vincent de Paul. She assisted in the reestablishment of the Ladies of Char-ity in 1840. She cared for the sick and the dying in the recurring cholera epidemics, and throughout her life she visited the poor and infirm in their homes. During the several epidemics between 1849 and 1854, withas many as a hundred and fifty persons dying in the parish every day, Rosalie and the sisters kept doing all they could. They attended to the living, accompanied the dying, and buried the dead. Though Rosalie was not an advocate of orphanages, in 1851 she took over the running of one; in 1852 she began a home for the elderly. The secret of Rosalie's enormous energy was this: she saw the face of Christ in the face of every poor person. 63.1 2004 Maloney * Five Faces of RosMie Rendu In the judgment of the theologian who examined her writings, the secret of Rosalie's enormous energy was this: she saw the face of Christ in the face of every poor person. One of the sisters who lived with her remem-bered Rosalie encouraging the community: "Love our good God very much. Do not be sparing in your duty; serve the poor well, always speaking to them with great kindness . The ruder they are, the more dignified you must be. Remember, our Lord hides behind those rags.''3 Local Superior When she was not yet seventeen years old, a seem-ingly sickly Rosalie was sent away from the novitiate of the Daughters of Charity in the hope that a change of air would improve her health. It is hard to imagine that the air was much better in inner-city Mouffetard, but she thrived there. She quickly won the hearts of the sisters of the house. When she returned to the motherhouse for "habit taking," the local superior sent a letter to the superioress general saying: "I am very happy with this little Rendu. Give her the habit, and send her back to me.''4 And so it was that she took her first step toward becoming the "apos-de of the Mouffetard district," where she would spend the remainder of her life. In 1815, when she was twenty-nine years old, she became the superior. She carried out this service for the next forty-one years, until her death. What was Rosalie like as a superior? Those who gave firsthand testimony about her noted three things: (1) Describing Rosalie's relationship with the sisters in the community, her cousin speaks of her "infinite tender-ness." She was sensitive to what went on around her. Some thought she was sensitive even to a fault. In 1844, when two sisters whom she loved died, Rosalie broke into tears and wrote, "I rebelled in some ways against the hand that struck us, yet I am confident that these two angels will obtain mercy for me.''5 Review for Religious (2) Young sisters loved her. The house where she was superior became a "formation house," so to speak, to which many were sent. From Rosalie they learned first-hand how to serve the poor. Twenty-two postulants lived with her over the years. Eighteen sisters prepared for vows under her direction, starting in 1832. At the time of her death, twelve sisters lived in her community; half of them had been sisters for less than four years. She waged war against pride. One of the sisters says: "In spir-itual direction she pursued this fault relentlessly: 'It's our number-one enemy,' she said. 'Look for it . . . it dis-guises itself to trick us and confuse us, but we must grab it by the throat and choke it.'''6 (3) Rosalie's incredibly active house was also a house of prayer. The community rose each morning at four. One sister testified: "If we had to accompany her on a charitable visit during our prayer time, she said to us as we walked: 'Let's begin our meditation!' She suggested a subject for meditation in a few simple, clear words and entered into prayer." One of her best friends, the Viscount of Melun, quotes her as saying, "I never pray so well as I do in the street.''7 Intrepid Woman By all accounts this tender woman was fearless. Rosalie lived in turbulent times. As a child she experi-enced the Reign of Terror in France; her family hid a nonjuror priest in their home. She experienced the rev-olutions of 1830 and 1848 and the terrible cholera epi-demics of 1832, 1849, and 1854. Rosalie walked among the wounded, the sick, and the dying with little fear for her own health. She and the sisters ministered to thou-sands of cholera victims. The most well-known incidents of Rosalie's bravery took place during the revolutions. When she and the sis-ters hid revolutionaries, Monsieur Gisquet, the chief of69 63.1 2004 Maloney ¯ Five Faces of Rosalie Rendu police, signed a warrant for her arrest. But the local policemen warned him that her arrest would cause a riot in the Mouffetard neighborhood. Gisquet himself went to notify Rosalie of the warrant. She replied: "I am a Daughter of Charity. I have no flag. I help the unfortu-nate wherever I meet them. I try to do good to them without judging them, and I promise you that, if you yourself are ever being pursued and ask my help, I will not refuse it.''s The chief dropped the matter. Fierce fighting broke out within the city during the revolution of 1848. The archbishop of Paris mounted the barricades in an effort to stop the slaughter and was shot dead. The fighting became even more intense. General Cavaignac, later president of France, decided on a massive bombardment of the Mouffetard neigh-borhood, but first offered the sisters safe-conduct out. Rosalie responded to his messenger: "Please thank the general and tell him that we are the servants of the poor and also their mothers and that we want to die with them.''9 Rosalie and the general became lifelong friends. --70J Friend of the Poor and the Rich On many occasions I have walked to the cemetery in Montparnasse to visit the grave of Rosalie Rendu, which is near that of Jean-Paul Sartre. Fresh flowers always lie there. On the simple stone are engraved the words: To Sister Rosalie Her grateful friends The poor and the rich She knew how to be friend to both. The poor loved her deeply because they sensed that she lived out precisely what a witness said she asked of those who accompanied her: "Welcome everyone. Speak to the poor with both kindness and dignity. Do not make them wait. Treat them as you would treat your father, your brothers, your sis-ters.'' 1° The rich, too, were attracted to Rosalie. They Review for Religious found her appeals irresistible. She knew how to engage their energies and their resources in the service of the poor. Her correspondence extends to the archbishop of Paris, superiors general, politicians, doctors, young stu-dents, relatives, and friends. She took on Frederick Ozanam and his companions as apprentices and thus par-ticipated in the birth of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. From 1833 until Rosalie's death, the Viscount of Melun visited her at least once a week to seek her advice and help in the service of the poor. Among those who gave Rosalie material aid were the king and queen, General Cavaignac, writ-ers and politicians like Lamartine and Caubert, and many local politicians and administrators. The ambassador of Spain, Donoso Cort6z, came to Rosalie's house weekly to receive a list of the poor to visit. When he himself fell ill in 1853, Rosalie assisted him until his death. On 27 February 1852 Rosalie was awarded the Cross of the Legion of Honor. On 18 March 1854 the Emperor Napoleon III and the Empress Eug6nie came to visit her at her house. ¯ The daily line of those seeking entrance into Rosalie's office was long. She worked effici.ently, writing little notes to remind herself of their requests. She sought to find some response, even if inadequate, to all the needs presented to her. Rosalie knew how to engage the energies and resources of the rich in the service of the poor. Faithful, Sometimes Misunderstood, Daughter of Charity Rosalie was revered in her own lifetime. People from all ranks of society came to see her. ~ But her extraordi-nary popularity sometimes raised eyebrows in high cir- 71 63.1 2004 --79,.2 Maloney ¯ Five Faces of RosMie Rendu cles. In the latter part of her life, she suffered from the disapproval of her superiors. The troubles began in the late 1830s, when Jean-Baptiste Nozo was superior gen-eral of the Congregation of the Mission and the Daughters of Charity. Because of a financial scandal, strong opposition to Nozo mounted up. Jean-Baptiste Etienne was his most formidable opponent. News of the conflict hit the papers, so that much of Paris was talking about it. Finally the archbishop of Paris intervened, com-posing a document of interdict against Etienne and oth-ers. Rosalie wanted the matter to end peacefully. She had good connections with the archbishop and went to intercede with him, refusing to leave without an answer and pleading with him to burn the d

Issue 53.1 of the Review for Religious, January/February 1994. ; Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living JANUARY-FEBRUaRY 199Zl. - V6LUME ~; ¯ NUMBER 1~o Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at Saint Louis Universi~ by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-535-3048 ¯ Fax: 314-535~0601 Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ° St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP ¯ P.O. Box 29260 ¯ Washington, 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. ©1994 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. review for religious Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Assistant Editors Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Regina Siegfried ASC Elizabeth McDonough OP Jean Read Mary Ann Foppe Joann Wolski Conn PhD Mary Margaret Johanning SSND Iris Ann Ledden SSND Edmundo Rodriguez SJ Sefin Sammon FMS Suzanne Zuercher OSB Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living JANUARY-FEBRUARYI994 ¯ VOLUME53 '* NUMBER I contents feature Between the Times: Religious Life and the Postmodern Experience of God Elizabeth A. Johnson CSJ relates the stress within religious life to the loss of traditional God images and the search now for the hidden face of the living God. 29 43 58 toward the synod The Consecrated Life in Church and World Bishop Jan P. Schotte CICM explains the synod of bishops, with brief descriptions of previous ones and the 1994 synodal process. Charism, Charisms, and Faddism A. Paul Dominic SJ brings clarity to the Lineamenta treatment of the charism of religious life and the charisms of its many con-crete forms in various congregations. Hopes for the Synod and Beyond Joel Giallanza CSC focuses his attention on the identity and mis-sion of apostolic religious congregations and their relationship to the hierarchy. 64 73 82 mission and ministry Images of Hope in an Inner-City Parish George M. Anderson SJ shows God working in unlikely places, making use of humble and broken people to advance the values for which Jesus died and rose. A Bracelet of Elephant'sHair Jo O'Donovan RSM shares her sabbatical experience of an "outer" and "inner" Africa. The Modern Development of Messianic Prophecy Allen S. Maller presents for our ecumenical consideration a deeply felt Jewish view of Messianic meaning and fulfillment. 2 Review for Religious experiencing the spirit 89 Living in the Womb of God Marion Zeltmann PCPA reflects upon her experience of enclosure and prayer as a Poor Clare. 95 Do I Really Believe that Death Leads to Life? Francis Blouin FIC suggests some practical ways of responding to the current dyings manifest in religious life. 102 A Rite for Those Departing Religious Formation Peter A. Lyons suggests positive and wholesome ways in which individuals departing from religious life and ~he community mem-bers who remain might deal ritually with this reality. 107 120 130 religious life issues Integrating Human Needs in Religious Formation Howard J. Gray SJ suggests ways of viewing human needs as "longings," radical desires to be integrated in the art of religious ministry. Chapters Present and Future Catherine M. Harmer MMS reviews the history of chapters in reli-gious life and raises questions about their future functioning. Religious Life, a Continuum Francis Assisi Kennedy OSF examines, historical beginnings of reli-gious congregations for patterns surprisingly serviceable today. departments 4 Prisms 142 Canonical Counsel: The Conciliar Decree Perfectae Caritatis 149 Book Reviews Jan~mry-February 1994 3 prisms 1994--a year still to be lived, a year yet to pass into history. For most people there is a healthy anticipation of "good things" when new begin-nings are made. Perhaps such "anticipation" should be called, rather, a precious grace which interconnects us with God, the eternal optimist. New evangelization is the most consistently optimistic theme of John Paul II's papacy. While his encyclicals and apostolic exhortations are many and weighty (witness the most recent Splendor of Truth), I suspect that his repeated call to a new evangelization will be the most significant and lasting grace for the church. The call is a beginning similar to the beginning of a year; it is not as if evange-lization is any newer than the parade of days which form any year's calendar. The newness in large part comes from the attitude with which we enter into evangelization, just as it comes from the way we enter into another year. The oft-quoted phrase about this call to evangelization being "new in its vigor, new in its methods, and new in its expression" is grounded in the attitude which we bring to our Christian responsibility as evangelizers. Attitude alone is not enough, but unless the grace of optimism warms our efforts as believers in Good News to share it and explain it and to offer people a challenge, little evange-lization is the result. Do members of religious congregations need to see a more intimate connection between the new evangeliza-tion and their own efforts at renewal? Since all forms of Christian life come from our having the gospels in our blood, it would seem obvious that an evangelization effort promotes effective renewal. The gospels not only have 4 R~,iew for Religio~s inspired the different forms of religious life, but also have helped shape its various expressions and methods. Men and women moved by the Spirit of Christ have gifted the church with at least three prismatic "colors" of Christ-following that look monastic or mendicant or apostolic. The question remains for us today who have been illumined by these various Christ-prisms how our gospel-inspired attitude can reveal the graced mystery of this life-form in terms of new depths of meaning and new ways of expres-sion- in the very heritage we claim. The darkness we feel comes not from Jesus, the light-source whom we follow, but from our own self-chosen, squint-eyed angle of vision having so little to do with grace or gospel. So often our efforts at renewal seem more a vain search for one "tree of life" instead of for the God who gives all created gifts for our creatively discerned use. Optimism marks the effort of anyone who begins something. An evangelical optimism seems almost lacking both in internal reli-gious congregation renewal attempts and in hierarchical control efforts. As we begin this year of the synod on consecrated life, our prayer for ourselves and our church begs again for that grace dear to our God imaged as the prodigal parent who expects the son (and daughter) to be coming up the road--the grace of opti-mism. As we begin this new volume, Review for Religious warmly welcomes Regina Siegfried, a member of the Sister Adorers of the Blood of Christ, Ruma province, as associate editor. She serves currently as assistant professor of historical studies and spiritual-ity at Aquinas Institute in St. Louis. Former editor of Spirituality Today, she is well known for her books Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, edited with Bishop Robert Morneau, and In the Company of Preachers, edited with Edward Ruane OP. Review for Religious accepts graciously the loss of Michael Harter SJ as associate editor. In his new role assignment as direc-tor of novices for the Jesuit Missouri provirice, he can assure young candidates' solid formation through their familiarity with articles from Review for Religious. So in losing an editor, I am sure that we are gaining a number of new subscribers. Just as he leaves this media field, his prayer book, Hearts on Fire: Praying with Jesuits, has been published by the Institute of Jesuit Sources in St. Louis and is already in its second printing. We wish him well and know that we will miss him. David L. Fleming SJ January-February 1994 5 feature ELIZABETH A. JOHNSON Between the Times: Religious Life and the Postmodern Experience of God As the third millennium of the Western, Christian calen-dar approaches, all manner of assessments are being made about what will fade into history and what will newly flourish in the year 2001 and afterwards. It does not take a new millennium, however, to see that religious life in the United States is passing through an epochal change, the outcome of which in terms of fade or flourish is an open question. The research project "The Future of Religious Orders in the United States," conducted by David Nygren and Miriam Ukeritis under the sponsorship of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Conference of Major Superiors of Men, and the Leadership Council of Women Religious, sets out fully aware of this moment in history2 The original proposal for this study underscores the rad-icality of the journey now underway. Religious orders, it notes, are in the midst of a process of transformation, defined in categories from the social sciences to mean: The operation of changing (as by mapping or through strategies) one configuration or expression into another in accordance with a rule, a purpose or mission. Elizabeth Johnson csJ is associate professor of theology at Fordham University. This article will be part of a companion book to The Future of Religious Orders in the United States: Transformation and Commitment, (Praeger Publishers, 1993) by David J. Nygren and Miriam D. Ukeritis. Her address is Department of Theology; Fordham University; Bronx, New York 10458-5165. 6 Review for Religious Such change, furthermore, involves: qualitative, discontinuous shifts in organizational members' shared understandings of the organization, accompanied by changes in the organization's mission, strategy, and formal and informal structures. The most basic questions of group and individual identity, involving who religious are, how they are to live, what they are to do, and why, are all at stake. Religious orders in this country, the proposal continues, are in the midst of a transformative process so profound that it will lead to the demise of some, the revitalizing of others, and the birth of new forms of the evangelical life as yet unimagined. The aim of this research project is to identify factors within religious orders themselves that will contribute to a suc-cessful outcome of this major metamorphosis. Recent historical studies have unveiled a heartening picture of how the evangelical following of Jesus in the church, traditionally called "religious life," has been incarnated in a great diversity of forms. From monastic to mendicant to apostolic communities, to mention but a few of the more widespread models, new forms of this living movement have consistently emerged from the insights of individuals and groups responding to the Spirit in the crucible of cultural change. A compelling interpretation of the present sit-uation holds that in the United States, at least, the present crisis of religious orders signals yet another breakthrough in the many-faceted evolution of forms of the evangelical life. If this be true, this is the first time in the history of the church that members of religious orders in a time of transition have been so self-con-sciously aware of their situation and so equipped with the tools of modern research that they can reflect on and even direct the pro-cess of change. The purpose of this essay is to provide a theological context for the data that follows. It is important to note that this essay was commissioned, designed, and largely written before the research project was completed. Therefore it should not be read as an interpretation of the project's findings. Rather, it is intended as an independently conceived reflective piece on this moment in the history of religious life. To .contextualize the report that follows, this essay first surveys the state of the question in contemporary literature on religious life and then identifies a basic shift occur-ring that affects all the rest and that holds great portent for the future, namely, a change in the experience of God.2 January-February 1994 7 Johnson ¯ Between the Times The living tradition of the change of forms of religious life is still alive; the great cycle of death and rebirth is turning once again. State of the Question Starting in the late 1970s, a number of excellent works have contributed to discussion of the meaning of religious life and have expressed the emerging self-understanding of religious them-selves. Written by or available to members of religious orders in North America, the list includes works on the history, sociology, and theology of the life as lived by both women and men in general,3 as well as works that focus on the experiences of women4 or men5 in particular. The imagery and language of these writings reflect the enormous tension in the state of the question, both as lived and reflected upon. There is a prevalence of "re" words: revitalize, refound, rein-terpret, reimagine, reweave, redefine, rebirth. Metaphors point to new creative acts: pouring new wine into new wine-skins; reweaving the threadbare cloth; standing at the crossroads and discerning the way ahead; planting new seeds; mid-wiring a birth; bringing order out of chaos. The focus is consistently on the future: shaping the coming age, strate-gizing for growth, negotiating the challenge of change, claiming identity, being converted. Individual differences of approach in this literature recede when compared with the convergences that these writings dis-play. Virtually all of the authors are seized by the conviction that in the Western democracies the missionary and apostolic mod-els of religious life, prevalent for the last two hundred years, are dying. Relatively speaking and in some cases literally, "there is no one behind us." But this does not mean that religious life itself is dying, for no one form has ever been definitively lasting as the predominant form for every era. What it may well mean, however, is that the living tradition of the change of forms of religious life is still alive; the great cycle of death and rebirth is turning once again,6 The present malaise and decline, if lived through with discernment, fidelity, and courage, can lead to new, yet-to-be-determined forms commensurate with the cultural realities of the third millennium. 8 Review for Religious This being the case, the literature is replete with enlighten-ing analyses of ecclesial and cultural factors at work in the present changes. It also indicates that a strong consensus is taking shape regarding the way forward. A prophetic stance suffused with con-templation is being glimpsed as the crucial spiritual force that seeks expression in coming forms of religious life. Both the anal-ysis and this key proposal are surveyed here as interesting in their own right and as factors that themselves point further to a foun-dational experience of God. Changes in Church and Society The literature agrees that the most important ecclesial factor underlying the shift in religious life's self-understanding contin-ues to be Vatican II's two-pronged theological articulation of the church's identity and mission. Ad intra (internally) the church is first and foremost the people of God, with every member conse-crated by baptism and empowered to life in Christ. The conse-quent universal call to holiness undercuts the traditional notion that religious life is an elite state of perfection whose members are spiritually set above ordinary lay people. Rather, religious live out their call to holiness as a sacrament or sign to the whole church of its Spirit-filled vocation. Ad extra (externally) the church is to turn pastorally toward the world as God's good creation, marred by sin but redeemed by Christ and worthy of attention. The mission of the church in the world undermines the tradi-tional dualism between the sacred and the secular, along with the concomitant idea that religious should be set apart from the world. Rather, they are to live in relation to the world, not over against but ~vith and for, in criticism and compassion. The conciliar shift from a juridical to a more-biblically-based pastoral identity and mission, still being contested and negotiated in the church at large, undergirds the changes in self-understanding, lifestyle, and ministry that now affect traditional forms of religious life. Since the council, additional ecclesial factors have appeared that continue to impinge upon religious life in the United States. The ongoing efforts by religious orders to reinterpret founding charisms is occurring in the context of postconciliar reinterpre-rations of the Catholic biblical, theological, and liturgical tradi-tions themselves. The infusion of insight from these sources is resulting in new and influential understandings, such as the rad- .January-Febrnary 1994 9 Johnson ¯ Between the Times ¯ ical equality of all in baptismal grace. Furthermore, the postcon-ciliar explosion of lay ministries, both ecclesially sponsored and lay initiated, is multiplying the possibilities open to those who wish to serve in the church beyond the confines of traditional religious life. At the same time it creates a situation of shared, collabora-tive ministry between religious and the laity. In these same years, the original immigrant church in this country has reached mainstream status with the majority of its members moving into the middle class. More options for service and advancement have opened up in the civil sector, lessening the church's attraction as the primary field for a dedicated life. In addition, the economic and educational mores of middle-class life coupled with the availability of birth control has resulted in the reduced size of Catholic families, thus shrinking the pool from which candidates for religious life were traditionally drawn. Meanwhile, a new wave of immigration from Latin America and Asia is presently changing the face of the church; one-third of Catholics in the United States are now Hispanic, half of whom are younger than eighteen years of age. Despite outstanding service on the part of some religious of European descent, however, dif-ferences of culture, race, class, and age, if not overt, prejudice, seem to prev.ent the majority of religious orders from making an effective case for their way of life to members of new immigrant groups. Eras do not repeat themselves. All of these ecclesial factors are playing out in the wider con-text of the church .becoming a world church, less European in character and belonging to all cultures; a church of the diaspora, less supported by a homogeneous culture and more a little flock in a pluralist world; and a church in interreligious dialogue, open to the wisdom of other great religious traditions. Social, economic, and political forces at work in the culture of the United States are also contributing to changes in religious life) These forces are many and complex, but several consistently surface in the literature: democracy, which yields a more partic-ipative rather than authoritative style of governance; global aware-ness, which subverts provincialism; growing consciousness of economic and social injustice at home and abroad, which demands action to relieve poverty and promote justice; pervasive violence, which highlights the need for teaching and modeling peaceful resolution of conflicts; materialism, which calls for a countercul-tural witness to simplicity of life and the value of the human over 10 Review for Religious the product; excessive individualism, which cries out for the anti-dote of a genuine community of free and responsible persons; ethnocentrism, racism, and insensitivity to other cultures, which needs the word of the gospel about the fundamental human dig-nity of every person; and feminism, which advocates the equal inclusion of women in that human dignity. The search in the United States for a new, more humane society among ourselves, between all nations, and between human beings and the natural world of this planet contextualizes and begins to inspire the search for new, vital forms of religious life. In a striking way, ecclesial and cul-tural factors have converged in the rise of Christian feminism and its influ-ence in women's religious orders. It is indisputable that women's insights into how to live the evangelical life have never yet been allowed full scope in the course of church history, even now. Perhaps it was the play of prov-idence that unleashed the conciliar reforms at the very moment that the women's movement was gathering force once again in the United States. It is indisputable that women's insights into how to live the evangelical life have never yet been allowed full scope in the course of church history, even now. In any event, while renewing their lives in the light of the gospel and their founding charisms and while strengthening their witness in the world, especially among those depriv.ed of human dignity, women religious became aware of themselves as women in a patri-archal church and society. They .began to notice the systemic absence and silence of women in church pol!cy-making bodies and ministries, its obvious connection with gender, and the result-ing pressures on the way they lived their lives. Contextualized by the women's movement in church and society, they began to find their own voice and to claim, even for themselves, the respect befitting a human person. Women's experience was affirmed as a legitimate if untapped source of knowledge about religious life and its ministry, prayer, community, and governance, and this found expression in their reflection, dialogue, and new constitu-tions. The result of this awakening was a release of energy that bore and continues to bear promise for the future of religious January-February 1994 11 Johnson ¯ Between the Times life. But it also brings conflict as men church authorities refuse to reverence or dialogue with the insights coming from women's experience, insisting rather on conformity to their own under-standing and law. At this point the alienation of legions of women in the church is a matter of public record. Women religious, too, know this darkness. But among women religious in the United States at the end of the twentieth century, the conviction per-dures that the goals of Christian feminism are fully in accord with the gospel. They continue to grapple with issues of identity and mission with the understanding that through their struggle the Spirit of God is offering a transforming grace to the whole church, although, terrifyingly, grace may always be refused.8 In and through all of this analysis of ecclesial and cultural factors that affect religious life today, authors have been seeking clues as to how this life will be able to flourish in the future. The search appears to be narrowing. Glimpse of a New Form: Prophetic, Contemplative Life In books and essays about religious life and in documents generated by religious orders and the national conferences, a new combination of ancient dements is beginning to define the essen-tial character of religious life. The emerging understanding of this life is primarily that of persons and communities called to prophetic ministry embedded in a contemplative relationship to God. Prophecy and mysticism, prophetic witness and contem-plation, will shape the evangelical life of love of God and neigh-bor in its coming age. The two national conferences of men and of women religious place this insight at the head of the list of ten transformative ele-ments they identify for religious life in the future: 1. Prophetic Witness: Being converted by the example of Jesus and the values of the gospel, religious in the year 2010 will serve a prophetic role in church and society. Living this prophetic wimess will include critiquing social and ecclesial values and structures, calling for systemic change and being converted by the marginalized with whom we serve. 2. Contemplative, Attitude Toward Life: Religious in 2010 will have a contemplative attitude toward all creation and be motivated by the presence of the sacred? 12 Review forReligious In a similar way the visioning groups studied in the Futures Project as well as those identified by the research as outstanding leaders consistently and vigorously endorsed the prophetic/con-templative stance. Far from being an esoteric perspective, this stance brings to light what is most basic in Christian faith and what the church itself needs to emphasize in order to thrive in the future. As Karl Rahner foresaw, the spirituality of the future will arise from rela-tion with the living God at the very heart of the world and con-sequently "will be a spirituality of the Sermon on the Mount and of the evangelical counsels, continually involved in renewing its protest against the idols of wealth, pleasure, and power.''t° This is the calling of the church as a whole, and religious life crystallizes and witnesses to this. The two constituent elements, prophecy and contemplation, can be distinguished mentally and examined separately, but in reality they form one living shape, one wholistic form, one gestalt of life. Asking which comes first is a chicken-and-egg kind of question, with no intelligible answer in sight.1~ Contemplation is a way of seeing that leads to union. It arises from an experience of connection with the sacred at the very core of life. Mediated, as always, by created things such as words, images, and actions, this relationship unfolds as persons and com-munities allow these mediations to lead them into the living pres-ence of the holy. Insofar as the created mediations themselves are transcended in contemplation, this experience counteracts the human effort to control the divine and instead delivers the spirit into the bright darkness of God. From one perspective, the con-nection with the sacred is a result of the inflow of the love of God inflaming and awakening the heart. From another, it entails the discipline of becoming fully conscious, journeying to one's deepest self and to the outer limits of the cosmos in order to touch the divine. In the process, the contemplative "knows" God not in an extrinsic, conceptual way but from within, experien-tially. At the very heart of existence one is in touch with holy mystery, a relation for which the I-Thou relationship among human beings is only a remote analogy. As a result, a certain intuition arises by which one begins to know and love the world as God does. This attitude is totally inclusive of all creation. Everything created is precious and sacred within the cosmic ambience of life and is cause for delight and January-February 1994 13 Johnson ¯ Between the Times thanks. But the evident brokenness of the world and damage done persons and other creatures are cause for grief, compassion, and protest. In some unspeakable situations,, the utter depravity of evil occasions the most profound, wordless hope against hope, without any supports, in the risk that God is faithful in judgment and grace. The contemplative attitude is thus not otherworldly but pro-foundly turned toward this world in celebration and resistance, knowing that the Creator is also the Redeemer. The prophetic lifestyle and action that express this way of seeing are not the result of simple humanism (although the world could use a lot more of this too) but of real belief in God. In solidarity with divine purpose for the world, prophetic persons and communities desire to restore right relationships and so to set right what causes pain and suffering. While this has always been the case, the hermeneutic of prophecy in our day with its sophisticated knowl-edge of systems realizes that the wounds of the heart also afflict culture. Thus prophetic witness includes critique not just of per-sonal acts but also of social, economic, and political structures and values in society. Knowing, too, that we are a sinful church always in need of repentance and reform, this witness is borne toward the values and structures of the community itself. The prophetic stance is marked by a number of characteris-tics. These include attentive listening to the creative Spirit of God, connecting with the suffering in a situation and evaluating its causes, naming what is unjust, being empowered to articulate an alternative future based on the dream of God for the world, bringing compassion and hope to the brokenness, and resistance and challenge to the status quo that would maintain it. In the process prophetic persons and communities strive to empower people in their struggle to live and survive, in turn being taught and empowered by them to continue to seek the face of God. In the Christian tradition this witness is shaped by the fol-lowing of Jesus, in whom the compassion of God takes flesh in the world. Contemplation and prophecy were indivisibly connected in his historical life. As Edward Schillebeeckx explains, "In the prophet Jesus, mysticism and healing came from one and the same source--his experience of the contrast between the living God and the history of human suffering." ~2 The reign of God that he announced envisages an end to exploitation or suppression; his ministry in word and deed enacted practical anticipations of this 14 Review for Religious salvation to come. His own drink from the cup of suffering in torment and execution and the seal of God's graciousness in the resurrection ground a hope in human history that has empow-ered discipleship ever since. Remembrance of Jesus through the power of the Spirit guides and informs the life of prophecy and ~ontemplation in the church. This vision of a wholistic con-templative, prophetic shape to reli-gious life in the future, glimpsed in the literature, is already a living, growing reality in some cases. It also stands in contrast to the overall shape of religious life in the present, which has become domesticated by too close an identification with the law, structure, and spirituality of the institutional church. In a particularly eloquent argument, Diarmuid O'Murchu, taking a clue from reli-gious life as it is lived in Eastern religions, contends that religious life in the west needs to reclaim its liminal identity, a move of genuine conversion en.tailing profound change in spirit and structure. Re!igious would then be known as persons and communities who are in touch with the sacred, passionately committed to just and loving relationships, fiercely resistant against exploitation of the earth and of persons, and willing to live countercultural lifestyles with and for the marginalized. They would stand in church and society a.s liminal, archetypal, prophetic persons, articulating and empowering the deepest love.13 To arrive at this goal, religious must confront many chal-lenges and questions. A key CMSM paper muses: People in general probably do not think of us as genuine prophets. What must we do, what price must we pay, if we wish to embrace a prophetic stance? How can we be prophetic without becoming triumphalistic? How can we be prophetic without losing a ministry .to the middle class which is the social origin of nearly all of us? How can we learn to read the signs of the times and discern more surely the thrust of prophecy? What steps must we take to arrive at solid social and cultural analysis? How can we relate our The contemplative attitude is thus not otherworldly but profoundly turned toward this world in celebration and resistance, knowing that the Creator is also the Redeemer. ~anuary-February 1994 15 Johnson * Between the Times traditional institutions to the prophetic role? How can we motivate ourselves, with God's grace, to accept a materi-ally poor standard of living? We have more questions than answers, but we believe that we are on the way to a new, more prophetic presence within the U.S. Church.~4 The Futures Project identifies "fidelity to purpose" and "response to absolute human need" as the two most basic ele-ments for the revitalization of religious life. As this brief survey of the literature shows, the search for the sacred in resistance to what afflicts the world is being fingered as the purpose that will shape the new form of this life. The move toward a contemplative-prophetic stance augurs well for the future insofar as it grapples with the religious heart of the matter in the context of the suf-fering of the contemporary world. Experience of God My own reflection on these matters brings me to a founda-tional area not frequently mentioned in the literature, namely, the idea of God that undergirds the evangelical life. The fasci-nation with the mystery of God is endemic to religious life every-where and at all times. The varieties of structures and self-understandings that have emerged in the course of history only serve to underscore this fact. As Sandra Schneiders observes, "Whatever unites all these people is more interior and spiritual than forms of life or types of behavior."15 The common thread that unites them all is a search for relationship with the sacred, leading to a certain kind of absorption with the religious dimen-sion of life. "Those who are called 'religious' in the technical sense of the word," writes John Lozano, "have decided to adopt a way of life whose intrinsic, underlying explanation is religious experience.''16 This way of life intends to give daily, concrete expression to the experience of God, to empower its further devel-opment, and to manifest its fruits publicly. Put another way by Ladislaus Orsy, the only reason for religious life is the experi-ence of God. This being so, it seems vitally important to inquire about the idea of God that is presupposed at any given moment, for this structures the experience of God that sustains the entire endeavor. As the primary symbol of the whole religious system, the idea of God is a lodestar. It represents what a community takes to be the 16 Review for Religious highest good, the profoundest truth, the most appealing beauty. Thus it is not a neutral concept, but functions powerfully to shape the personal and corporate identity of believers. A religion, for example, which would speak about a warlike God and extol the way he smashes his enemies to bits would promote aggressive group behavior. By contrast, speech about a beneficent and lov-ing God who forgives offenses would turn the faith community toward care for the neighbor and mutual forgiveness.'7 By definition, the One whom people call God is the recipient of absolute human trust, God being "that to which your heart clings and entrusts itself" in the memorable phrase of Martin Luther (OSA).~s Consequently, the idea of God implicitly guides all of a person's and community's principles, choices, system of values, enterprises, and relationships. The symbol of God func-tions. Neither abstract in content nor feeble in its effect, it sums up a people's sense of ultimate mystery, the proper order of the world, and the right orientation of human life and devotion. Along with many others, I sense that a seismic shift is occur-ring in the experience and idea of God in our day and culture. Fully aware that not all people who live at the same time are con-temporaries, I nevertheless think that a certain culturally condi-tioned cast of mind is emerging in our era that yields an idea of God markedly different from the classical model. VChat is emerg-ing is a notion that coherently supports and strengthens prophetic and contemplative consciousness. Thus it is not just the move from a juridical to a pastoral relation of the church to the world, nor the dissolving of the sacred-secular dualism, nor increased global and ecological awareness, nor growing consciousness of injustice, nor any of the other ecclesial and social factors that alone or together are causing the changes in religious life. Rather, at the deepest level what is transpiring, I think, is new experience of God. The Postmodern World The contemporary mind-set in the United States shaped by conditions of the late twentieth century is frequently described as postmodern. First coined in artistic, literary, and philosophical circles, this term is used in a bewildering variety of ways to describe the sentiment that humanity must go beyond the mod-ern. Like the wanderer in Kafka's parable who, when asked where January-February 1994 17 Johnson * Between the Times he is riding to, responds, "I don't know,., only away from here, away from here, only by doing so can I reach my destination,''19. postmodernity points beyond the present to what cannot yet be readily envisioned. Philosopher Stephen Toulmin refers to the world "that has not yet discovered how to define itself in terms of what it is, but only in terms of what it hasjust-now-ceased-to-be," namely, the modern world originating from the seventeenth-cen-tury Enlightenment.2° Modern!ty esteemed at least four dynamic forces: the myth of unending progress, the clear and distinct ideas of universal reason, the power of the self-contained individual directed by his soli-tary ego, and the ascendancy of human control over nature. By contrast, postmodernity is conscious of the end of progress, the limits of reason, the sad isolation of the unconnected individual, and the catastrophe that results when nature is disrespected. Not everything originating in the modern era is to be discarded. One would want to keep the emphasis on human dignity and human rights and their expressions in liberty and equality (fraternity in isolation is suspect). But postmodernity is awake to the egregious failures that the modern ethos has wrought. It wants to go Away- From-Here. Perhaps the most felicitous description comes from David Power, who observes that postmodernism is the sensibility that does not try to pretend that the twentieth century has not hap-pened. Sprung from the disruptive, out-of-control evils of this century, postmodern consciousness is aware of the chaotic, con-tingent, threatened character of existence and the fragility of the human project. Two distinct but related positions have developed within this general description. One, the option for deconstruction, seeks to undo the power and securities that produce such evils. In theory and art it pokes holes through the rationalizations of the victors, unveiling their pretensions to righteousness and order. While in its extreme form postmodern deconstruction leads to radical skep-ticism and nihilism, its bracing insights are powerfully instruc-tive as to what should not be. In tandem with this option, a second, more constructive model has emerged. Suspicious of inherited triumphal truths, it seeks out suppressed voices and sto-ries, risking new interpretations of established tradition "from the margins" in order to enable resistance to the forces of destruc-tion. Its aim, unlike nihilism, is a more just and humane universe. 18 Review for Religious It is this latter type of constructive postmodernism, found in intellectual theory, literature, and art as well as in grass-roots movements, that generates a certain kind of spirituality.21 Its char-acteristics are painted here in broad strokes. Postmodern spiri-tuality notes the ambiguous character of progress itself and takes its bearing not from the dream of untrammeled, irreversible progress fueled by a consumerist mentality, but from the suffering of those on the underside of history, keeping in view the gaps and failures of human advance. It seeks wisdom not in the clear and distinct ideas of what is claimed to be universal reason but is in reality the thought of privileged men; rather, it honors the plurality and ambiguity of human con-sciousness, sensitive to the differ-ence that difference makes according to one's social location in gender, race, and class. The com-pass of postmodern spirituality points not to rampant individual-ism and its violent outcroppings but to the importance of community The compass of postmodern spirituality points not to rampant individualism and its violent outcroppings but to the importance of community and tradition, prizing human solidarity and peace. and tradition, prizing human solidarity and peace. It finds life not in human supremacy over the earth but in affective kinship with the extended family of the cosmos. In a word, it prizes not isolation but essential connectedness; not body-mind dualism but the wholistic, embodied person; not patriarchy but inclusive fem-inism; not militarism but expenditure for the enhancement of life; not tribal nationalism but global justice. Our age is witnessing the shift to a postmodern cast of values, in theory if not always in practice. This constitutes a widespread, if not universal, cultural phenomenon in the United States, even among Christian believers. It may well signal the first phase of an axial breakthrough in human consciousness that will shape the next millennium. If so, that is of no little significance for the future of religious life in this country. For the postmodern sensi-bility in its constructive form has a strong affinity with the prophetic-contemplative stance increasingly envisioned as con- January-February 1994 19 Johnson ¯ Between the Times stitutive for the future of religious life. At the very core of that life is the experience of God. And so we come to the heart of the matter by asking how the postmodern matrix shapes the experi-ence and concept of the sacred. Postmodern Experience of God In our era the concept of God developed by rational En-lightenment theology in the context of modernity has become largely unbelievable. Whether drawn from revelation or philo-sophical inference, this by-now-traditional theism views God as the Supreme Being who created all things and who governs all things with inscrutable providence. Perfect in a way that stands in sharp contrast to the finitude of creatures, "he" (the theistic God is always referred to in male terms) is "infinite, self-existent, incor-poreal, eternal, immutable, impassible, simple, perfect, omni-scient, and omnipotent.''22 Although architect and ruler of the world, it is essential to God's deity that he be essentially unre-lated to this world and unaffected by what happens in it. This view therefore excels at stressing ,divine transcendence and its human counterpart of spirit, while divine immanence along with the importance of matter and the body tend to slip from view. This God of classical theism is modeled on the pattern of an earthly absolute monarch, a metaphor so prevalent that most often it is simply taken.for granted. As a king rules over his subjects, so God the Lord has dominion over his creatures, a view which, as Sallie McFague has shown, is intrinsically hierarchical, whether the divine reign be accomplished through dominance or benevo-lence. 23 In theory such theism adheres to the truth that the mys-tery of God is beyond all images and concepts. Yet history shows how in practice modernity tends to objectify God, reducing infi-nite mystery to an independently existing Supreme Being along-side other beings, a solitary, transcendent power who together with the world can be thought to form a larger whole. This is the idea of God that is no longer seriously imagin-able within a postmodern sensibility. Factors that contribute to its lack of cogency include the evils of this century, contemporary science and its view of the universe, liberation and feminist anal-ysis, the political disparagement of dictatorship, and the encounter among world religions. Any one of these alone would put a large question mark next to the modern symbol of the divine. Taken 20 Review for Religious together within the cultural shift to postmodern consciousness, they all but bury it. The result for people of faith is the radical loss of their famil-iar God image, along with the experience of divine presence that it mediated. Along with this also comes the loss of their sense of place in the order of the universe. As Janet Ruffing comments on the domino effect of loss of the tradi-tional God image in religious communi-ties, "All the ways we had construed our place in the sun and the meaningfulness of our commitment have been gradually eroding.''24 But this experience is not restricted to religious life; it is culture-wide and has attracted a host of com-mentators. For Martin Buber, the loss signals the eclipse of God. For Karl Rahner, it involves entry into the spiri-tuality of a bleaker season. For Constance Fitzgerald, it means the classic mystical experience of impasse and dark night. For Sandra Schneiders, this dark night is not only individual but a corporate purification. For Martin Marry, winter serves as metaphor for this season of the heart. For Michael Bucldey, it is entry into emptiness, silence, the cross in accord with the dynamic of apophatic mysticism,zs For me, this shift is poignantly summed up in the titles of the first and last books of my friend and colleague William Hill OP, now seriously ill. He broke into print with Knowing the Unknown God, an exploration of how the Thomistic category of analogy could lead the mind to God even in the contemporary world. God might be unknown, but we were possessed of some knowl-edge through the judgments we make. Now his recent essays have been collected under the rubric In Search of the Absent God. We are not in possession at all. Enmeshed in history and its suffering, we can but seek the hidden face of the living God.26 The absence of God experienced through the breakdown of traditional mediations of structure and theory does not mean, how-ever, that there is no experience of God at all. In a profound dialec-tic, what has been taken away is encountered in the ache of its loss. Divine absence itself becomes a mode of divine presence. The unknowing beckons to a deeper knowing. Th~ darkness mediates a brightness that the eyes cannot see. The wintry horizon hints at Enmeshed in history and its suffering, we can but seek the hidden face of the living God. .~anuary-February 1994 21 Johnson ¯ Between the Times new life buried beneath the snow. The cry from the depths signals an affirmation of Life deeper than pain, as did Jesus' cry from the cross. As Maura Clarke wrote from E1 Salvador, "In the very absence of God here, God has never been more present to me." 27 It all depends on the character of God. If God be trustworthy, then we hope that we are grounded and enveloped by a Living Presence even here, in the night of the senses and of the spirit. While there is no universal enactment of salvation, the sacred comes in the form of promise mediated through everyday, small fragments of healing, beauty, liberation, justice, and love. This does not remove the darkness, but it allows us to keep on walk-ing. The ice melts but will freeze again: in history there are only relative victories. Lament and celebration are both necessary. Here there are no easy assurances, no props. We know God through hope and, in the face of starkness, even hope against hope, nourished by remembrance and the circle of community. For many years now I have found the prophet of this experi-ence to be Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In his vision God is being edged out of the world and onto the cross, and that is the way, the only way, that God can be with us: "only a suffering God can help.''28 His struggle to believe culminates in the maxim "Before God and with God we live without God.'':9 This is an experience of God in which darkness is an event of disclosure, clearing the decks of a false conception of God and opening contact with the incom-prehensible holy mystery of God who goes beyond all images, all grasping, all ~elling. The manageable God of the modern age who was immediately available and could be counted upon to intervene for our benefit is no longer there. But a new experience of God is already breaking through that intensifies our compassion. Constance Fitzgerald has wisely observed that what is going on in and through this experience is "a progressive hermeneutic of~e nature of God.''3° A full theology of God has yet to be writ-ten in a postmodern context, but the typical spii'itual experience of this age is yielding an unmistakable interpretation.3~ If there be a God at all, then this is absolute holy mystery that can never be fathomed. Not literally a male person writ large, the sacred can be pointed to by any created good: male, female, animal, cosmic. This mystery does not dwell in isolation from the world but encompassesit as the Matrix of its being and becoming. God in the world and the world in God--panentheism describes the mutual relation. Thus related, the Holy One of Blessing is a God 22 Review.for Religious of pathos who participates in the suffering of the world in order to transform it from within. Divine power is the strength of love, rather than raw, monarchical omnipotence. Passionate for justice and peace and compassionate over pain, Holy Wisdom typically self-reveals in the fragmentary breakthroughs of well-being that come about through human partnership with divine purpose. Forever God acts to create a fresh, new future: liberation is her signature deed. A God like this calls for an ethic of critical com-passion. We are impelled so to utter the word of God that the world will be changed and renewed by it. Religious people of all stripes are now in the transitional posi-tion of trying to find words and symbols for this personal and collective experience of God. A common language has yet to come to light. Yet the very way the search is being conducted gives some indication of the outcome. An LCWR paper expresses the efforts of women religious in this regard: God is immanent in creation, in the midst of the web of life. As we bond with the oppressed and marginalized, we know God standing on the side of the poor and oppressed, seeing with the eyes of the poor, leading the oppressed by alleviating oppression. In this context, we see God angry, sad, suffering, marginalized; we see God incarnated in peo-ples of color, in women, in the homeless and battered, the victims of violence and oppression of all kinds. And then the inevitable: Religious find themselves in a "Dark Night." The painful and intense moments of disintegration, which carry the hope for what can break through, characterize our living in this in-between.32 To sum up, the idea of God emerging in postmodern spiritual experience is a contemporary hermeneutic of the God whose reign Jesus preached and embodied: the God of life. If the experience of God is the core of religious life, and if it is this God who is being perceived in contemporary religious experience, then here is a key tt)eological factor shaping the future of religious life in the United States. Conclusion The dialectic between divine absence and presence, in the last analysis, is an experience of the Spirit of God: radically tran- ~tanlmry-February 1994 23 Johnson ¯ Between the Times scendent, like the wind blowing where it will; and at the same time radically immanent, dwelling at the heart of the world to vivify and renew all things. Empowered by the Spirit in our age, people of faith who treasure the living memory of Jesus seek the hidden God of life (contemplation) and live out the passion of God for the world in need (prophecy). It is my sense that religious life is riding the crest of this wave in the postmodern culture of the United States. Internally its forms are breaking down; its interpretive support systems are col-lapsing; rifts with the institutional church exacerbate the dark-ness, especially among women; many members are in distress. Most radically of all, forms of religious life that traditionally medi-ated the experience of God now not only do not mediate this experience but positively block it. At the same time, consciousness of the suffering of poor and marginalized peoples grows; action on behalf of justice continues to attract; women reclaim their human dignity and the voice that goes with it; the vivifying power of God is experienced in and through the human power to chal-lenge, cherish, and set free; the divine mystery is named in new ways. Here and there religious persons and communities begin to articulate the prophetic-contemplative identity coherent with these experiences and act in mission accordingly. For religious life in the United States it is now Advent, the most honest season of all. In my judgment, the times do not call for return to the securities of a previous age. In fact, the very effort to keep alive forms of religious life that have for the most part run their historical course may well be counterproductive to the evangelical following of Jesus. Rather,what is needed is vig-ilant patience, profound prayer, and the ability to act boldly toward that future where new forms of evangelical life will develop. Notes ~ See summary by David Nygren and Miriam Ukeritis, "Future of Religious Orders in the United States," Origins 22, no. 15 (24 September 1992): 257-272. Hereafter cited as the Futures Project. Also in Review for Religious 52, no. 1 (January-February 1993): 6-55. 2 1 would like to thank the following colleagues and friends for pro-viding me with materials for this essay: Mary Ann Donovan SC, Patricia Lucas CSJ, Thomas McKenna CM, Janet Ruffing SM, and Clara Santoro CSJ. My deep gratitude also goes to Mary Catherine Hilkert OP, John W. Padberg SJ, David Power OMI, and Sandra Schneiders IHM for read-ing and critiquing the manuscript in outline or finished form. 24 Review for Religious 3 Among the works that have made significant contributions are: Gerald Arbuclde, Out of Chaos: Refounding Religious Congregations (New York: Paulist, 1988). ~. Strategies for Growth in Religious Life (New York: Alba House, 1987). Marcello Azevedo, Vocation for Mission: The Challenge of Religious Life Today (New York: Paulist, 1988). Leonardo Boll, God's Witnesses in the Heart of tbe World (Chicago: Claret Center for Resources in Spirituality, 1981). Lawrence Cada et al., Shaping the Coming Age of Religious Life (New York: Seabury, 1979). Robert Daly et al., eds., Religious Life in the U.S. Church: The New Dialogue (New York: Paulist, 1984). Barbara Fiand, Living the Vision: Religious Vows in an Age of Change (New York: Crossroad, 1990). David A. Fleming, ed., Religious Life at the Crossroads (New York: Paulist, 1985). Mary Jo Leddy, Reweaving Religious Life: Beyond the Liberal Model (Mystic, Connecticut: Twenty-Third Publications, 1990). John Lozano, Discipleship: Towards an Understanding of Religious Life (Chicago: CCRS, 1983). ¯ Life as Parable: Reinterpreting the Religious Life (New York: Paulist, 1986)¯ Johannes Baptist Metz, Followers of Christ (New York: Paulist, 1978). Diarmuid O'Murchu, Religious Life: A Prophetic Vision (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1991). Sandra Schneiders, New Wineskins: Re-imagining Religious Life Today (New York: Paulist, 1986). Jean Marie Tillard, A Gospel Path: Religious Life (Brussels: Lumen Vitae, 1975)¯ The Way Supplement 65 (summer 1989): "Religious Life in Transition," pp. 1-152. Patricia Wittberg, Creating a Future for Religious Life: A Sociological Perspective (New York: Paulist, 1991). Evelyn Woodward, Poets, Prophets and Pragmatists: A New Challenge To Religious Life (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1987). 4 Works include: Mary Ann Donovan, Sisterhood as Power: The Past and Passion of, Ecclesial Women (New York: Crossroad, 1989). Nadine Foley, ed., Claiming Our Truth: Reflections on Identity by United States Women Religious (Washington, D.C.: Leadership Conference of Women Religious, 1988). January-February 1994 25 Johnson * Between the Times Marie Augusta Neal, Catholic Sisters in Transition: Front the 1960s to the 1980s (Wilmington, Delaware: Glazier, 1984). --. From Nuns to Sisters: An Expanding Vocation (Mystic, Connecticut: Twenty-Third Publications, 1990). Lora Ann Quifionez and Mary Daniel Turner, The Transformation of American Catholic Sisters (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992). Ann Patrick Ware, ed., Midwives of the Futttre (Kansas City, Missouri: Leaven Press, 1985). s "Hope-Filled Deeds and Critical Thought: The Experience of American Male Religious and Their Need to Reflect on It," paper pre-pared for the Third Inter-American Conference on Religious Life and printed in David A. Fleming, ed., Religious Life at the Crossroads, pp. 20- 50; John W. O'Malley, "Priesthood, Ministry, and Religious Life: Historical and Historiographical Considerations," Theological Studies 49 (1988): 223-257. The dearth of works in this category is due, I think, to the fact that for most men authors until recently, male experience, given its normative status in church and society, is simply presumed. Thus gendered experience has not become a major category of interpre-tation as it has among women. 6 L. Cada et al., Shaping the Coming Age of Religious Life, is the ground-breaking study that brought the notion of cycles to present-day awareness. See the excellent fine-tuning of this thesis b~; Philip Sheldrake, "Revising Historical Perspectives," The \¥ay Supplement 65 (summer 1989): pp. 66- 77. 7 Here I have found the following particularly helpful: Howard Gray, "Shapes for the Fut.ure," pp. 289-295, and Helen Flaherty, "Religious Life in the U.S.--A Guess at the Future," pp. 296-309, in R. Daly, Religious Life in the U.S.; Anne Clifford, "Women Missioned in a Technological Culture," pp. 37-55, in N. Foley, ed., Claiming Our Truth; the address by Robert Schreiter, "The Environment of Religious Life in 2010," to CMSM/LCWR Assembly in Louisville, Kentucky, August 1989; and the videotape "Religious Life: The Constant Is Change," IHM Sisters, Monroe, Michigan, which is an analysis of societal trends by Amata Miller, Margaret Brennan, and Sandra Schneiders. 8 See Anne Carr, Transfo~wting Grace: Christian Tradition and I, Vomen's Experience (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1988). 9 Joint Meeting of the CMSM and the Lcv~rR, Louisville, Kentucky, August 1989. ,0 Karl Rahner, "The Spirituality of the Church of the Future," Theological Investigations, vol. 20, Concern for the Church (New York: Crossroad, 1981), p. 145. ~ One of the best contemporary treatises on contemplation remains William Johnston, The Inner Eye of Love (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1978); and on prophecy, Walter Bruggemann, The Prophetic Imagination (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978). 26 Revieva for Religious 12 E. Schillebeeckx, Christ: The Experience of Jesus as Lord (New York: Seabury, 1980), p. 821. ,3 D. O'Murchu, Religious Life: A Prophetic Vision, passim. ,4 "Pilgrims and Prophets," paper drawn up by the Religious Life and Ministry Committee of the CMSM for the Fourth Inter-American Conference on Religious Life and printed in D. A. Fleming, ed., Religious Life at the Crossroads, pp. 51-64; quotation at p. 57. is S. Schneiders, New Wineskins, p. 32. 16 j. Lozano, Life as Parable, p. 9. 17 See Gordon Kaufman, The Theological Imagination: Constructing the Concept of God (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1981), pp. 187-189. Kaufmann argues here for the importance of the great symbol of Jesus Christ who, as the image of the invisible God, manifests a God who does not act in a violent way but rather creates a community of love and equality in a peaceable and free way. !8 Martin Luther, "Large Catechism," The Book of Concord (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1959), p. 365. 19 Franz Kafka, "My Destination," Parables and Paradoxes (Berlin: Schocken, 1975), p. 189. I am indebted for this reference to Catherine Keller, "Toward a Postpatriarchal Postmodernity," in David Griffin, ed., Spirituality and Society: Postmodern Visions (Albany: State University of New York, 1988), p. 65. 20 S. Toulmin, The Return to Cosmology: Postmodern Science and the Theology of Nature (Berkeley: University of California, 1982), p. 254. For further descriptions of postmodernity, see Frederic Burnham, ed., Postmodern Theology: Christian Faith in a Pluralist World (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1989); and Paul Lakeland, Theology and Critical Theory (Nashville: Abingdon, 1990), chap. 7, "Catholicism and Postmodernity." 21 The essays in the Griffin collection are enlightening, especially his own "Introduction: Postmodern Spirituality and Society," pp. I-31. 22 H. P. Owen, Concepts of Dei~y (New York: Herder and Herder, 1971), p. 1. 23 Sallie McFague, Models of God: Theology for an Ecological, Nuclear Age (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), pp. 63-69. 24 Janet Ruffing, "Seeing in the Dark: The Present Moment in Religious Life," address to regional meeting of LCWR, Sparkill, New York, September 1991, p. 10. This address, somewhat edited, appears in Review for Religious 51, no. 2 (March-April 1992): 236-248. 2s M. Buber, The Eclipse of God (New York: Harper and Row, 1952); K. Rahner, see note 10; C. Fitzgerald, "Impasse and Dark Night," in Tilden Edwards, ed., Living with Apocalypse: Spiritual Resources for Social Compassion (New York: Harper and Row, 1984), pp. 93-116; S. Schneiders, see video-tape, note 7; M. Marry, A Cry of Absence: Reflections for the Winter of the Heart (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1983); Michael Bucldey, "Atheism and Contemplation," Theological Studies 40 (1979): 680-699. January-February 1994 27 Johnson ¯ Between the Times 26 William J. Hill, Knowing the Unknown God (New York: Philosophical Library, 1971), and In Search of the Absent God, Mary Catherine Hilkert, ed. (New York: Crossroad, 1992). 27 Quoted in Mary Catherine Hilkert, "The Experience of Impasse and the Roots of Wisdom," address to Dominican Leadership Conference, October 1991, p. 11. 28 D. Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison (New York: Macmillan, 1953), letter of 16 July 1944, p. 220. 29 Ibid, p. 219. 30 C. Fitzgerald, "Impasse and Dark Night," p. 112. 31 For a profound analysis see Peter Hodgson, God in History: Shapes of Freedom (Abingdon: Nashville, 1989); and Wendy Farley, Tragic Vision and Divine Compassion: A Contemporary Theodicy (Louisville: Westminster, 1990). 32 "Reflections upon the Religious Life of U.S. Women Religious," paper prepared for the Fifth Inter-American Conference on Religious Life, 1985, and printed in N. Foley, ed., Claiming Our Tmtth," pp. 173-181; quotation at p. 177. Cana, Meaning Uncertain Wine flowed until there was no more at a wedding in Galilee; Mary, seeing this, turned to her son, one till then like any other, a brother, a carpenter who measured what he said and did. "They have no more wine," she said. He hesitated, questioned her, stirred up feelings between them. In the end Jesus acquiesced, six stone jars, water into wine, a fine line crossed, spirit revealed. Yet the uncertainty remains, was it not a mother's prompting that disrupted heaven's intent or is love so strong even God can be swayed by its openness? Neil C. Fitzgerald 28 Review for Religious JAN P. SCHOTTE The Consecrated Life in Church and World: Toward the Synod On 30 December 1991 the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, called for the gathering in autumn 1994 of the Ninth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops to treat the topic: "The Consecrated Life and Its Role in the Church and in the World." But what exactly is a synod of bishops? What are the various theological elements connected with this institu-tion? What are its pastoral aspects? Practically speaking, how does the synodal process work? And in what way does the treatment of specific topics bring benefit to the whole church? toward the synod A Synod of Bishops Etymologically speaking, the term "synod," derived from the elision of two Greek words, syn meaning "together" and hodos meaning "road" or "way," literally means "together on the way" or "sharing a journey." This idea immediately calls to mind the Vatican II image of the church as the people of God "on the move," always on pilgrimage, led and guided by the Holy Spirit through history to its ultimate fulfillment when the Lord shall Jan P. Schotte CICM serves as the general secretary of the Synod of Bishops. This presentation of his to the May 1993 Meeting of the International Union of Superiors General in Rome was orig-inally published in the UISG Bulletin, no. 92, 1993, pp. 68-78. Bishop Schotte may be addressed at Office of the General Secretary; Piazza Pio XII, 3; 00193 Rome; Italy. January-February 1994 29 Scbotte ¯ The Consecrated Life in the Church come again (see Lumen gentium, §6). The term also calls to mind some biblical associations. For example, in John's Gospel Jesus calls himself the "Way" (see Jn 14:6), and St. Paul makes reference to Christianity as the "Way" (see Ac 22:4). The term's rich theological and biblical associations can be saidto culminate in the concept of the church as communion. As quoted in Cbristifideles laici, "communion speaks of a double, life-giving participation: the incorporation of Christians into the life of Christ, and the communication of that life of charity to the entire body of the faithful, in this world and in the next, union with Christ and in Christ, and union among Christians in the church." Therefore, "communion" should not be looked upon as something static, but an active and dynamic reality which is both a hallmark of the church and the divine force continually enliven-ing her. This mystery of the church's communion is reflected in an unlimited number of ways in the church's life, from its most sub-lime aspect in the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, to the var-ious encounters both personal and communal experienced by Christians everywhere. One instrument for celebrating the communal nature of the church on the local level is through archdiocesan and diocesan synods, which are becoming more frequent an occurrence. In convoking such a synod, a local bishop gathers around himself, as the source and foundation of communion or unity in his partic-ular church, various representatives of the church community-- lay, clerical, and religious--to pray and reflect in common and, using the eternal truths of the faith as set forth in the teachings of the church, to seek pastoral approaches and solutions to living the Christian life as a community and as individuals. The church's communal nature on the particular and univer-sal level also exists in the authority over the church which was established by Christ and subordinated to the task of preaching the gospel (see LG, §20 and §21). Therefore, where the synod of bishops uses the same word as that applied to celebrating the communal nature of the particular church, there is a basic theo-logical difference. The synod of bishops celebrates the mystery of church communion on the hierarchical level, that is, among the bishops. The Second Vatican Council describes this unity in the fol-lowing manner: "Just as, in accordance with the Lord's decree, 30 Review for Religious St. Peter and the rest of the apostles constitute a unique apos-tolic college, so in like fashion the Roman pontiff, Peter's suc-cessor, and the bishops, the successors of the apostles, are related with and united to one another'~ (LG, §22). This fundamental unity of the episcopate is the basis for the teaching on the collegiality of bishops (see LG, §22 and §23), which is like-wise an essential element in understanding the synod of bishops. The highest and fullest expression of this mystery of hierarchical communion is manifested and celebrated in an ecumenical council where the whole .episcopal college is convoked by the Holy Father. On various occasions the doc-uments of the Second Vatican Council refer to the episcopal gathering as a "synod" (see LG, §54; Christus Dominus, §36; etc.). But in this sense the word has the same meaning and theological significance as "council." Where the "synod of bishops" might resemble a "minicoun-cil," there is a fundamental qualitative difference between the two. For example, a synod convenes only a representative por-tion of the world episcopate, and unlike an ecumenical council, the synod of bishops is convened by the Holy Father for consulta-tive and not deliberative purposes. Nevertheless, despite the dif-ferences, "the synod of bishops," according to the Holy Father, "expresses collegiality in a highly ifitense way." The institution of the synod over twen.ty-seven years ago was inspired by the collaboration among the bishops at the Second Vatican Council and its beneficial effects for the whole church. Pope Paul VI on 15 September 1965 in the motu proprio Apostolica sollicitudo, establishing the synod of bishops, used these words: "With the aim of providing for a continuance after the council of the great abundance of benefits that we have been so happy to see flow to the Christian people during the time of the council as a result of our close collaboration with the bishops [and] because The institution of the synod over twenty-seven years ago was inspired by the collaboration among the bishops at the Second Vatican Council and its beneficial effects for the whole church. January-February 1994 31 Schotte ¯ The Consecrated Life in the Church of our esteem and regard for all the Catholic bishops and with the aim of providing them with abundant means for greater and more effective participation in our concern for the universal church, on our own initiative and by our apostolic authority we hereby erect and establish here in Rome a permanent council of bishops for the universal church, to be directly and immediately subject to our power." Much more than a structure inspired by the Second Vatican Council, the synod of bishops has proven itself to be an apt instru-ment for the implementation of conciliar doctrine and the appli-cation of its pastoral directives. At the same time it has also been the forum for the interpretation and further development of the teachings and spirit of the council. An Instrument of Continuous Pastoral Renewal Though each session is called to respond to unique pastoral situations, no synod is ever an isolated event, but has a relation to other synodal gatherings. Because each synod calls together a representative portion of the episcopate with its head the pope, each synod has a relation to the whole church. At the same time, because the synod is a unique response of the episcopal college to the mandate or mission entrusted to it by the Savior, each synod has a relation to the fundamental salvific mission of the church through history as well. A brief look at the various synods which have taken place to date is evidence enough of the importance of these episcopal gatherings for the church and their value in bring-ing about the reforms intended by the council. Pope Paul VI stated the goals for the First Ordinary General Assembly, held in the fall of 1967: "the preservation and the strengthening of the Catholic faith, its integrity, its force, its development, its doctrinal and historical coherence." One result of this meeting was the eventual establishment of the International Commission of Theologians to assist the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and to broaden a discussion on approaches to theological research. The same assembly provided the stimu-lus for the 1983 publication of the revised Code of Canon Law and also made recommendations to the Holy Father on various pastoral questions. Two years later, in 1969, the First Extraordinary General Assembly was convoked to seek and examine ways and means of 32 Review for Religious putting into practice the collegiality of bishops with the pope. This meeting opened the door to greater collegiality in the pas-toral care of the universal church and in episcopal conferences and the relations between individual bishops. In 1971 the Second Ordinary General Assembly treated two subjects: "The Ministerial Priesthood" and "Justice in the World." In the former, treatment was centered on the theological nature of the priesthood with the intention of addressing certain diffi-culties experienced by priests in the course of their ministry. On the subject of justice, the bishops stated the need to relate the gospel to existing worldwide and local circumstances. "Evangelization in the Modern World" occupied the work of the Third Ordinary General Assembly held in 1974. At this assem-bly the bishops reemphasized the essential missionary character of the church and the duty of each member to bear wimess to Christ in the world. The bishops' recommendations and proposals sub-mitted to the pope were used in the formulation of the apostolic exhortation Evangelii nuntiandi. At the Fourth Ordinary General Assembly, which took place three years later, in 1977, the discussion of the bishops centered on "Catechesis in Our Times," with special attention given to the teaching of the faith to children and young people. Shortly after the synod, Pope John Paul II issued the apostolic exhortation Catecbesi tradendae, which utilized a great many of the bishops' insights and proposals. The First Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, popularly known as "The Dutch Synod," was convoked in 1980 to examine more thoroughly the teachings of the Second Vatican Council on the mystery of church communion and its practical implications on the universal and local level, and the figure of the bishop and his ministry. In this way the synod sought at that time to address its designated topic, "The Pastoral Situation in Holland." The Fifth Ordinary General Assembly in 1980 reaffirmed the church's teaching on the family, in particular defending marriage and the contents of Humanae vitae. From the discussion and the proposals of the assembly, the pope issued the apostolic exhorta-tion Familiaris consortio. In 1983 the Sixth Ordinary General Assembly, held during a specially called Holy Year commemorating the 1950th year of Redemption, appropriately discussed the need of applying the fruits of Christ's passion, death, and resurrection to the individ- January-February 1994 33 Schotte ¯ The Consecrated Life in the Church These different synodal gatherings which have taken place in the course of the synod's history appear more and more clearly as a continuous process of pastoral renewal. ual and society. The bishops' work during the synod served as the basis for the apostolic exhortation Reconciliatio et paenitentia, which for the first time was designated a "postsynodal" docu-ment. The Second Extraordinary General Assembly in 1985 com-memorated the "Twentieth Anniversary of the Conclusion of the Second Vatican Council" and assessed the state of church renewal according to conciliar teachings. The recently published Catechism of the Catholic Church was the result of a proposal by the bishops at this episcopal assembly. "The Vocation and Mission of the Laity in the Church and in the World" was the topic chosen for the Seventh Ordinary General Assembly in 1987. Through a con-sideration of vocation and mission in the context of church commu-nion, the bishops sought to empha-size the distinctive nature of the lay faithful in the church's life and her work of evangelization in the world. The fifty-four proposals of this assembly were used in the formulation of the postsynodal apostolic exhortation Christifideles laici. In 1990 the Eighth Ordinary General Assembly again took up the subject of priesthood. However, where in 1971 the bishops focused on the theological nature of priesthood and its implica-tions, this assembly's attention was more pastoral in tone, cen-tering. upon priestly formation and the "person" of the priest himself-both religious and diocesan--before and after ordination. The forty-one proposals from this assembly were used by the Holy Father in the formulation of the postsynodal apostolic exhor-tation, Pastores dabo vobis. The Special Assembly for Europe was called in the follow-ing year, 1991, to help discern the kairos of the situation on the European continent created by the historic fall of communism and to consider the role of the church in the various programs of renewal and construction. 34 Review for Religious In preparation are two other special assemblies. In his recent apostolic visitation to Africa last February, the Holy Father announced, in conjunction with the release of the assembly's Instrumenturn laboris, that this special assembly will take place in Rome in 1994, just after Easter. In March the Lineamenta of the special assembly for Lebanon was published, initiating the con-sultation phase of the preparation for that synod. These different synodal gatherings which have taken place in the course of the synod's history appear more and more clearly as a continuous process of pastoral renewal, giving opportunity through prayer and reflection to deepen a sense of the church's mission and to stimulate all the people of God to participate in this mission, each according to his or her state. Perhaps our under-standing of the synod of bishops can be further enhanced by fol-lowing the synod process which has taken place thus far in the preparation for the 1994 synod on "The Consecrated Life and Its Role in the Church and in the World." The 1994 Synodal Process The principles governing the synod of bishops and the synodal process are set forth in three basic documents: the motu proprio Apostolica sollicitudo of Pope Paul VI establishing the synod; Ordo synodi episcoporum celebrandae, or the Constitutions of the Synod of Bishops; and the Code of Canon Law, canons 342 to 348 inclusive. For the purpose of our presentation I will limit myself to those aspects of the process which immediately affect the synod topic, its documentation, and the various preparatory phases leading to the synodal gathering. Before the conclusion of the Eighth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, the synod fathers were asked to elect from their number, according to synod regulations, the required fifteen-member council to assist the general secretary in the follow-up work of the assembly and to work on the prepa-ration of the Ninth Ordinary General Assembly. At the same time the synod fathers were invited to make suggestions on a topic to be treated at the next general assembly. There is a certain value to this initial exchange on the topic during the general assembly because the responses are spontaneous and unprepared. In making their suggestions the bishops were asked to keep in mind the following general criteria in selecting a synodal topic: (1) January-February 1994 35 Sctsotte ¯ Tlse Consecrated Life in rise Church that the topic have a universal character, that is, a reference and application to the whole church; (2) that the topic have a con-temporary character and a certain urgency, that is, have the capa-bility of exciting new energies and movement in the church towards growth; (3) that the topic have a pastoral focus and appli-cation as well as a firm doctrinal basis; and (4) that treatment of the topic be feasible, in other words, that it have the potential actually to be accomplished. In retrospect it is interesting to note that even in the initial consultation during the synod itself a con-vergence of ideas was evident regarding the treatment of some aspect of the consecrated life. Shortly after the conclusion of the general assembly, the gen-eral secretariat continued the consultation process by preparing a letter with the above criteria and sending it to the patriarchates, bishops' conferences, heads of offices of the Roman Curia, and the Union of Superiors General--the normal participants in the synod process. This communication requested the submission of three topics in order of preference. The suggestions coming from this consultation were then analyzed and discussed by the members of council of the general secretariat at one of its regularly sched-uled meetings, and a series of formulations of the theme in order of preference was submitted to the Holy Father. Until now the Holy Father has always selected the council's first choice, con-vinced that the consultation process provides a true indication of the desire of the universal church to treat a given subject. Such was the case for the topic of the 1994 synod. The general consultation process revealed a remarkable con-vergence of ideas indicating a preference for the topic of the con-secrated life. Initially some persons made a rather shallow interpretation to explain the choice, insisting that since the laity and the priesthood were treated in the two previous synodal assemblies, it was only logical that the consecrated life should receive attention. The truth of the matter is that in the course of the consultation a great number of reasons were given for calling a synod to treat the topic of the consecrated life. Many argued in the following manner. 1) With the importance of the consecrated life in the church today, there is necessity to reaffirm its true nature in various new social contexts and in the world at large. 2) The flourishing of vocations in some parts of the world 36 Review for Religious and the crisis of vocations in others requires a thorough exami-nation of the consecrated life. 3) After the Second Vatican Council, various efforts have been made to rewrite constitutions, to propose anew the charism of the founder, and so forth, and consecrated life in general has been subject to an overall renewal. Therefore, the time seems right to engage in an evaluative process. 4) The question of the relationship of those in consecrated life to bishops deserves renewed consideration as well as the sub-ject of the greater participation of women and men religious in the overall pastoral plan of a diocese, particularly in light of the unique charism proper to each. Where the document Mutuae relationes has been fruitful and productive on the whole, certain episcopal con-ferences have given indications that there remain some areas still needing attention. 5) The new forms of consecrated life appearing in many parts of the church require evaluation and proper guidance. The nature of religious institutes, secular institutes, and the societies of apos-tolic life needs to be clarified and their role in the church more clearly defined. Many of the new forms of unions and confrater-nities are appearing with the false notion that they are part of the consecrated life according to the evangelical counsels. 6) Some developments and interpretations have caused the common life for religious to be questioned. In some countries there are situations which deserve attention. 7) The prophetic character of consecrated life in certain cir-cumstances needs to be more clearly defined. How is a person in the consecrated life to respond in faithfulness to his or her voca-tion in the face of secularization, the crisis in culture, and the decline in moral values? 8) In some countries religious congregations have abandoned the work proper to them in favor of individual attempts at apos-tolic work. Such a situation raises the concern of religious con-gregations as well as bishops, requiring them to seek the proper pastoral approach to such situations. The above sampling of reasons underlying the choice of topic for the 1994 synod sufficiently indicates its universal appeal, pas-toral relevance, timely character, and feasibility. At the same time, it can be seen that they have a general inter-est for the entire church. In virtue of the church's unity, every part and every member will be affected by the exchange and out- January-Fetrruary 1994 37 Schotte * The Consecrated Life in the Church come. In this sense the synod will not simply treat a topic, but make suggestions to the Holy Father regarding the future. What does the consecrated life have in store for the future? How are those in consecrated life to live out their consecration in the apos-tolic mission of the church? What courageous and bold steps are required to meet the unique challenges made on consecrated life by the present state of affairs in the church and society? Before these questions can be faced by the bishops in syn-odal assembly, the church at large will have time to reflect on them and other aspects of the topic and be invited to make their observations known through the proper channels so that those required to make official responses on the topic to the general secretariat will have current information with which to work. The 1994 Lineamenta The synod process can be divided into four great moments: the Lineamenta, the Instrumentum laboris, the synodal assembly, and the postsynodal document. We logically pause to devote some time to explaining the Lineamenta document, the present stage of preparation for the Ninth Ordinary General Assembly. After the Holy Father's choice of topic, the council of the general secretariat at a regularly scheduled meeting held a roundtable discussion with the secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life and with representatives from the various groups associated with con-secrated life, that is, women and men religious, members of sec-ular institutes, and members of the international organizations of consecrated life in the church, namely, the Union of Superiors General for Men and the International Union of Women Superiors as well as the International Congress of Secular Institutes. The observations resulting from this meeting were fur-ther discussed and developed in subsequent council meetings, and with the help of theologians an outline and texts of the Lineamenta were drafted and studied, before a definitive text was submitted to the Holy Father. As its Latin name suggests, the Lineamenta is an "outline" or general presentation of the synod topic followed by a series of questions intended to direct the prayer and reflection of the whole church on the subject. The information resulting from this stage will provide the raw material for the synod's Instrumentum laboris 3 8 Review for Religious or "working document," intended to present a composite picture of the present situation and prevailing attitudes in the church on consecrated life and its role in the church and in the world. The Lineamenta document is divided into three major parts, each treating a specific aspect of the topic: (1) "The Nature and Identity of the Consecrated Life"; (2) "The Consecrated Life in the church and in the World of Today"; and (3) "The Role of Consecrated Life." The document's initial pages immediately address the prob-lem of terminology. Strictly speaking, the term "consecrated life" in Canon Law refers to religious con-gregations and secular institutes only. What, then, is to be done with soci-eties of apostolic life? Since canon 731, § 1, states that the societies of apostolic life are "comparable to the institutes of consecrated life," it was agreed that the synod topic would also include their treatment. Therefore, when the term is used in the Lineamenta, it is meant to be all-inclusive. After a brief introduction, Part I begins with an explanation of the essential characteristics of the conse-crated life, namely, vocation, conse-cration, mission, the evangelical counsels, the common life, eschato-logical witness, its essential values, and the commitment to the spiritual life. The section then proceeds to speak of the charismatic nature of the consecrated life, as wit-nessed in its variety of charisms and multiplicity of forms. In this regard attention is given to the charism of the founder or foundress, the various forms of consecrated life, institutes of con-templative life, brothers, secular institutes, societies of a.postolic life, and the new forms of consecrated life emerging today. The second part of the document describes the present situ-ation of the consecrated life in the church and in today's world, seeking on this basis to suggest various subtopics which merit consideration, for example, the direction to be taken by the con-secrated life with the approach of the third millennium, the fruits of renewal, new values and aspects of the consecrated life, nega- The synod process can be divided into four great moments: the Lineamenta, the Instrumentum laboris, the synodal assembly, and the postsynodal document. Jam~ary-February 1994 39 Schotte ¯ The Consecrated Life in the Church tive aspects (even these must be addressed), the necessity of a clear witness in responding to the challenges of modern society, and finally the situation in various countries and cultures (Africa and Asia come especially to mind). This section ends with a call to those in consecrated life to continue the renewal begun after the Second Vatican Council. The third section speaks in practical terms of the role of the consecrated life in the church and society, beginning with a pre-sentation on the ecclesial dimensions of the consecrated life, its relation to the church hierarchy, its coordinating structures in fostering communion, its place on the level of the local church, and its communion with the lay faithful. With this in mind, var-ious topics related to the role of the consecrated life within the universal church community are treated, including the new evan-gelization, authentic apostolic creativity, acceptance of the call to evangelization, remaking the fabric of society, promoting the unity of all the baptized, and the dialogue with followers of other religions. The concluding portion of Part III turns its attention to the church's mission in the world, emphasizing features associ-ated with the consecrated life, for example, its specific witness to God's love through the works of mercy; its attention to young people and their needs; its presence in schools, hospitals, and social programs; its dedication to work on behalf of the poor; its role--past and present--in the transmission and formation of cul-ture; and its part in the church's work of safeguarding the values of nature and conscience in today's world. The closing pages of the Lineamenta then offe~ a brief look at Mary as the model and mother of the consecrated life and a reflec-tion on the consecrated life in terms of a renewed presence of Christ in the world of today. The presentation concludes with a section containing the document's endnotes, followed by a table of contents. Incorporated in the Lineamenta text and appearing at the con-clusion of each section is a series of twenty-five consecutively numbered questions which are meant to focus the prayer and dis-cussion of the universal church on various aspects of the synod topic. At the same time, these questions and numbers are to pro-vide an orderly structure for the responses from various individ-uals and church bodies which will be formulated and submitted in the lively exchange on all levels of the church community dur-ing the consultation period. 40 Review for Religious Official responses are expected to be filed with the general secretariat by those normally involved in the consultation pro-cess, that is, patriarchates, episcopal conferences, offices of the Roman Curia, and the Union of Superiors General for Men. Given the synod topic, the International Union of Women Superiors and the International Congress for Secular Institutes are also to submit responses. All responsible for such responses are to work on the best possible manner of facilitating the reading of the document by individuals and groups associated with them, and of seeking information from them so that the responses may be truly complete and reflect the richness of the exchange on the various levels of the local church community. With the publication of the Lineamenta on 20 November 1992, a significant and important stage in the preparation for this synodal assembly was initiated. I would even go so far as to say a most critical phase, because the richness and depth of the Instrumentum laboris, the reference point and source of discus-sion during the actual synodal assembly, depends on the widespread participation of the whole church and a thorough-ness in answering the series of questions posed in the Lineamenta. For this reason, it is incumbent upon each individual in the church, no matter what his or her state or circumstance, to con-tribute through the accustomed channels in this presynodal prepa-ration period, thereby providing the necessary information which will be eventually used in the official responses to be sent to the general secretariat. From my experience over the years I am becoming more aware and convinced of the very real contribution and impact of synodal assemblies in the life of the church. These beneficial results come about not simply from a month-long meeting, but from the whole synodal process, from the consultation regard-ing the theme, the prayer and reflection period, the actual cele-bration of the synod, and its follow-up. Not only do the reflection and prayer which are a part of the Lineamenta phase assist in setting the agenda in the Instrumentum laboris or "working paper," but the process itself taps and exer-cises the dynamism of church communion in the listening, shar-ing, and stirring up of new energies on various levels of the church community. And after the synodal assembly, where there is a con-centrated effort at intensely living the communion which has come beforehand, the effects make themselves felt years later. January-February 1994 41 Scbotte ¯ The Consecrated Life in the Church The Lineamenta itself makes reference to this fact when it states that the occasion of this synod will provide the opportunity for "all members of the church, particularly the institutes of con-secrated life, to reconsider the subject of their own renewal in light of the challenges and the opportunities of the present moment," based on the church's appeal in these days "for a renewed endeavor towards evangelical life, towards a profound spirituality, and towards a generous presence in the new evange-lization" (§33). This time of synodal preparation, then, is an occa-sion for hope, a hope that this profound examination of the status of renewal and the prospects for future growth of the consecrated life in all its aspects will be a moment of grace and revitalization, and bring great benefits to all those in consecrated life and to the church as a whole. Message from a Coreopsis Lanceolata (Daisies Do Tell) Some of us are past our prime, And one of us has lost a few petals; Another--will never see the sun. Yet we all rejoice That we reflect our Maker And celebrate a loving God Who signs each one of us With his own life's Blood. Joann Stuever, ASC postulant 42 Review for Religious A. PAUL DOMINIC Charism, Charisms, and Faddism d sexagenarian religious superior who keeps abreast of the times asked me if I had read the recent document on reli-gious life produced by the council of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops. I said yes, adding hesitantly: "But it is not very interesting." Without hesitation she agreed completely. The Point of Departure: The Lineamenta Surely the Lineamenta, the preliminary agenda on "The Consecrated Life and Its Role in the Church and in the World" prepared in view of the forthcoming Ninth General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, is not a particularly charismatic piece of writing. After all, it is not from the pen of a theologian like Rahner, or a biblicist like Elsa Tamez, or a feminist like Ruether, or a third-world figure like Amalorpavadass, or a cardinal like Martini. On the contrary, it is an official document with its strengths and weaknesses, treating the topic "in a complete organic manner, indicating the topic's precise content and its necessary limits''1 and touching upon "only the essential points of doctrine" (§4).2 As such, therefore, it would read somewhat like a protocol without the charismatic cadence or resonance of your fa~,orite author. However, considering that the document is the product of the pastoral office of the church, we would not be wrong if we rec-ognized in it the charismatic teaching included by Paul in his lists A. Paul Dominic SJ can be addressed at Satyodayam; S. Lallaguda; Secunderabad 500 017; India. .~anuary-Felrruary 1994 43 Dominic * Charism, Cbarisms, and Faddism of charisms. And so what it says about religious life as a charism that includes many a charism can serve for our mental nourish-ment and impart to us a spiritual gift (Rm 1:11). It can set us thinking about religious life as a matter of charismatic experi-ence, that is, an experience of living a fundamental charism through as many different charisms as there are societies of"con-secrated" or "apostolic" life. Any serious reflection on this mat-ter will prove to be relevant, for the prevailing confusion in religious life concerns partly the lack of clarity about charism and charisms.3 Religious Life as Charism Religious life, like all life, is best observed in its relationships. On the one hand, it is a part of the church; and, on the other, it is itself the church and so serving, like the church, the rest of the world (§3, §25, and §44). In the first perspective, religious life is one of the many charisms of the church; in the second, it is, as we said earlier, a fundamental charism giving rise to a wide variety of expressions of itself. The religious state of life is a "particular gift in the life of the church" (Lumen gentium, §43). As such it can be properly appre-ciated only when we see it in place, beside many other similar gifts enjoyed by the church. That is why the Lineamenta begins the consideration of charisms (§14-§17) recalling the mystery of the church as the Mystical Body of Christ endowed with many gifts, quoting Paul: "There are many different gifts, but it is always the same Spirit; there are many different ways of serving, but it is always the same Lord. There are many different forms of activ-ity, but in everybody it is the same God who is at work in all" (1 Co 12:4-6). By the parallelism of the verses, the different ways of service or activity are all to be understood as gifts in a variety of forms. Paul goes on to list such gifts in the immediate context (i Co 12:8-10, 28) and also in other letters (Rm 12:6-8 and Ep 4:11). A look at all the lists can give us an idea of the wide range of gifts enjoyed by the growing church. Though it would be anachronistic to look for the mention of religious life among the listed gifts of the Spirit bestowed on the church, note that celibacy is proposed as a special gift (1 Co 7:7). In the course of time the church came to recognize many more gifts in its ongoing life, gifts like asceticism, monasticism, vir- 44 Review for Religious ginity, choice of poverty, and social virtues, to speak only of those that have an obvious reference to religious life.4 As the church grew in self-awareness, it came to discover many elements that we now associate with religious life as its specific gifts; and so today we can speak about "the charism of the consecrated life" (§14), that is to say, the consecrated life itself viewed as a gift or charism. However various and heterogeneous the different charisms may be in the manner of their working, they are one and homo-geneous in intent and purpose. They are all meant to build up the Body of Christ. The Body of Christ is built up when the mem-bers are well nourished and so live to the full, reaching unity in faith and knowledge of the Son of God and forming the perfect Person fully mature with the fullness of Christ himself (Ep 4:13). This fullness of Christ is the same as the life permeated by the Spirit ever filling us or even overwhelming us with all her gifts and charisms. Such a life energized by the working of the Spirit is spiritual and holy. M1 the charisms of the Spirit nourish the life of the church, making it ever more holy with the life of Christ himself. Situating religious life thus in the sphere of the church's life of holiness and recognizing in it a universal reality in the church's makeup, the Lineamenta concludes: "With this in mind one speaks of 'the charism of the consecrated life'" (§14). Here is surely an echo of the approach to religious life taken by Lumen gentium, §39-§47. Such an affirmation of religious life, however, is slightly marred by the way the Lineamenta, following of course Vatican expresses it. After describing the way of holiness of religious life marked by vows that establish a special bond to God, Lumen gen-tium concludes: "Thus, although the religious state., does not belong" to the hierarchical structure of the church, nevertheless it belongs inseparably to her life and holiness" (see L §1; see also §14 and §36). One can discover a patronizing voice here, rightly or wrongly. Anyway, what a difference it would make if the state-ment were to read towards the end: "nevertheless, like the hier-archy, the religious state too belongs inseparably to her life and holiness." Does not Vatican II after all state in the chapter on universal holiness, "In the various types and duties of life, one and the same holiness is cultivated by all who are moved by the Spirit of God" (LG §41), and further go on to describe the way of holiness of the different classes of persons and finally end with a clear reference to the life of the religious (LG §41 and §42)? January-February 1994 45 Dominic ¯ Charism, Cbarisms, and Faddism There is a good reason why we can parallel religious life and hierarchy in this way. Of all the charisms enumerated by Paul-- who, incidentally, developed the terminology of charisms--the pastoral office of the hierarchy is the only one that concerns a state of life. This idea gets all the greater force because the pas-toral letters signal a development in the idea of charism which continued to prevail in postapostolic times. Paul's reminder to Timothy, "You have in you a spiritual gift which was given to you when the prophets spoke and the body of elders laid their hands on you" (i Tm 4:14), a reminder repeated again in 2 Timothy 1:6, certainly refers to Timothy's charism as one of grace of state or office. If we add to this way of looking at the hierarchical charism the reference to the charism of married life in 1 Corinthians 7:7, where there is a simultaneous reference to the charism of celibacy too, we can discern a line of thinking in which the various particular vocations in Christian life can be considered charisms establishing people in different states of life. So we can now speak in particular of the charism of religious life as the grace of the religious state of life; contributing to the holiness of the church in a particular way. In this context it is enlightening and inspiring to recall an old nomenclature of the religious state of life, namely, the state of perfection, proclaiming visibly the prophetic office of Christ wit-nessing to the kingdo~n here and hereafter. What is basic about states of perfection is the perfection to be acquired by way of the evangelical counsels in a community set-up. The function of any particular way of religious life, contemplative or active, lies. in this: that religious, by their very striving after holiness, call upon all Christians to do the same in their own way. So remarking, Bernard H~iring quotes papal authority in support: "The church would not fully respond to the mind of her Divine Bridegroom, men would not fix their eyes on her as on the 'the signal unto the nations'., if they did not find in her men who reflected the splendor of the gospel more through the example of their life than by means of words.''s All this is not so old-fashioned. A few years ago America carried an article describing religious as those who, unlike the laity, make religion their very career with its own particular structures that not only favor and promote it but also witness to it.6 The charism of religious is to be identified with striving for perfection, as the Lineamenta often repeats (§3, §5, §8, and §16). 46 Review for Religious To speak of the state of perfection is perhaps not a post-Vatican practice. However, in avoiding the falsity of perception possible in the expression, one need not altogether abandon its right use. Rather, we need to rediscover in the correct meaning of the phrase some essentials of religious life. Here is one: "It is not so much we who profess as others (the church, the community) who recognize that we. at least have received an explicit call and have come to a state of commitment to pursue it relentlessly, wholeheartedly; and radically.''7 But even in so reflecting on religious life as a state of perfec-tion, one should beware of a dan-ger. If one were to emphasize the personal pursuit of perfection that religious undertake, one is liable to overemphasize all their many undertakings on the path to perfection, thereby forgetting that any and every charism is a pure and simple gift of God. The story of Peter is apt here, as Bonhoeffer tells it. "Three times Peter heard himself proclaim that Christ is his Lord and God--at the beginning, at the end, and at Caesarea Philippi. Each time it is the same grace of Christ calling Peter to follow, and revealing itself to him in his confession." To reiterate the idea with Bonhoeffer: "This grace was certainly not self-bestowed. It was the grace of Christ himself.''8 Quoting all this, J.M.R. Tillard concludes; "Now, this costly grace., is for Simon Peter and for every religious the charism which makes existence as such a sign of the gospel. This charism comes from the Lord's Spirit . It is truly a gift made by the risen Lord, through his Holy Spirit, to his people. The Lord passes by. his grace seizes certain men and women. Poor sinners, they are nonetheless of those who will say to . . . the world: 'We have found what we were looking for! Come and see!' This is their charism.''9 One may, then, delve into the experience of religious life and discover in its depths not so much a for but a because of. No one enters religious life primarily for some thing or some work, but rather because of the One Who calls. "The for will come later, nec-essarily, but in the radiance and as the evangelical fruit of the No one enters religious life primarily for some thing or some work, but rather because of the One who calls. ~tanuar2/-Febrttary 1994 47 Dominic ¯ Charism, Cbarisms, and Faddism because of," as Tillard says.~° Can anything be clearer than this? Yet in the culture shock that religious were exposed to after Vatican Council II, not a few sought their identity in their works and tasks, in their of religious life. But the more they did so, the more elusive they found it. For their real existence as religious was concentrated in the call of Christ to which they had once com-mitted themselves because of the altogether new experience of being seized by the Lord's power. Their existence, therefore, became, or ought to have become, a new existence, a charismatic existence, a charism. Such a vision of religious life as the charism in itself appears distinctly, though in a less charismatic expression, in the Lineamenta when it speaks of the profession of the gospel as the supreme rule for all institutes, whatever their particular ministries may be (§8; see also Perfectae caritatis, §2). The Charisms of Religious Life Once religious life is understood in terms of one unique exis-tential charism underlying all forms of it, one may be able to appreciate the more familiar experience of the particular charisms that at once characterize and distinguish the various institutes. It is in this way that the Lineamenta would seem to interpret the charismatic nature of religious life as taught in the conciliar and postconciliar documents (§ 14). Logically and theologically, the consideration of the charism that constitutes religious life leads to that of the many charisms of religious life. It is the one charism of religious life that begets many a charism in it. Are not the latter "like branches sprouting out wondrously and abundantly from a tree growing in the field of the Lord"? (LG §43, quoted in L §16). Historically, however, what attracted the attention of people was the variety of charisms and not the one charism beneath and beyond all charisms. So, tracing the beginning of religious life from the very infancy of the church, Perfectae caritatis could point out: "Under the influence of the Holy Spirit, many., pursued a solitary life, or founded religious families . And so it happened by divine plan that a wonderful variety of religious communities grew up" (§ 1, partly quoted in L § 16). The mention of solitary life and religious families obviously refers to the twin charisms of original religious life, namely, 48 Review for Religious eremiticism and cenobitism (§9 and §19c). Cenobitism itself in the course of history developed two other charisms, namely, divine contemplation and human service. These in turn became spe-cialized in their ways of focusing on God and on people. In what-ever century religious live out their days, they adopt or develop distinct varieties of direct service of God and humanity, in imita-tion of Christ. Through them, therefore, Christ comes to be shown "contemplating on the mountain, announcing God's king-dom to the multitude, healing the sick and the maimed, turning sinners to wholesome fruit, blessing children, doing good to all, and always obeying the will of the Father" (LG §46, quoted in L §15). Often enough, charisms are considered, or even identified with, graces meant for the common good. Such a consideration is incomplete because it misses something important, namely, the source of the power of service. Charisms are particular graces imparted to us by which we bear or image or reflect or even become Christ in ourselves in a particular limited way, and so are able to render appropriate service in a specific context in a par-ticular part of the world in the manner of Christ himself. So they highlight in us "a specific aspect of the mystery of Christ" (§ 17). However, the gospel, or for that matter Christ himself, if under-stood with proper nuance, is not apart from the church. So the Lineamenta does well in describing charisms as bearing upon a specific aspect, not only of the mystery of Christ, but also of the church's life, and thus manifesting in the makeup of the Mystical Body the multiform grace of Christ (§15). One should not miss here how charisms are at once incarnational and ecclesial (§46). Charisms and Service Once it is grasped that charisms have to do primarily with a fundamental religious way of being, one cannot go wrong in insist-ing that charisms are out-and-out oriented towards service, "des-tined for service of the kingdom" (§3); for surely charisms have an inalienable reference, not only to the way of being, but also to the way of doing. The Lineamenta spells out the nexus between charism and service forcefully thus: "Each charism . . . brings with it a particular manner of faithfully and intensely living the evangelical counsels. In addition, it implies a particular and con-crete style of spiritual life, a determined form of apostolate, a .~anuary-February 1994 49 Dominic ¯ Charism, Cbarisms, and Faddism specific experience of community life, and a particular involvement in the world" (816 [emphasis added]; see also $8). What, then, are the specific paths of service in the building of the earthly city (§44)? Not forgetting the contribution of the contemplatives to society through their divine service of worship (§2)--the first permanent foundation of women in the United States was Carmelites~l--the Lineamenta illustrates the service of active charisms thus: "Today the consecrated life is present in our society through the multiplicity of apostolic services rendered to others, each according to its diverse charisms, in one magnificent expression of the charity of Christ on behalf of the integral for-mation of persons; in the education of children and young people, in the care of the sick, the suffering, the elderly, and those in want; and in aid to persons with special needs and those marginal-ized by society" (§44a). What do all such services intend except "to make operative the gospel of the beatitudes and the works of mercy" (§44a)? One particular element of service rendered by charisms con-cerns life of communion within the church. Different forms of religious life characterized by their different charisms do not con-stitute exclusive churches within the church, but, forming part of the one church, ought to feel themselves to be the church and so identify themselves with her (~3 and ~35; see also Perfectae car-itatis, §2c). The charisms of the different religious families, with their charismatic and yet ecclesial-minded founders, belong as much to the whole church as to the religious themselves (~16, §26e, and §46). For not only are they meant for the growth of the chhrch, but they also have their origin, regulation, guarantee, and approval in and from the church (§6, §15, and §16). Therefore, far from being closed in upon themselves, religious offer a rich fare for communion, reflecting ideal church commu-nion (§9). There is every reason, then, to identify the religious living together by the term community. Incidentally, the hierarchy as such can only contribute, in terms of sociology, to the culture of societas with role differentiation; but the religious as such plunge themselves into the heart of society with their charisms of ser-vice (§3, ~42, and §44) and break through segmentations in soci-ety and initiate the culture of communitas in our world.~2 In bringing about this new culture of communion in the world church, the religious, as "experts in communion" (§35), have nec- 50 Review for Relig~otts essarily to act locally in the particular church, but with their hearts spanning universally in the global church (§27a). The exercise of religious charisms "assists everyone--clergy and faithful--to open themselves to the universal and missionary dimension of the church, and., makes the particular churches an image of the uni-versal church" (§39). For a con-crete example of communion resulting from the enduring charisms, the Lineamenta points out the flourishing of lay third orders, lay associations, and lay-volunteer groups "whose mem-bers are bound under different titles to the spirituality and apos-tolic work of various institutes" (}41). Where the charisms do not serve the cause of church com-munion, they are likely to become mere means of some service or religious themselves. other without the underlying spirit. The Lineamenta warns of the danger of reducing the pres-ence of institutes to parochial ser-vice "without encouraging and welcoming the richness of the spirituality and their proper charismatic service" (~40). More plainly, in the church Body each part can do only the service it is meant for. As charisms are vivifying and beautifying graces of the differ-ent members of the Body of the church (§46), they complement one another; and so they cannot healthily coexist without mutual encounter and influence. Perhaps, in the pre-Vatican "ghetto" church, religious congregations developed their own ghettos, pos-sibly without even knowing it. But the time has come, especially in the era of ecumenism, for % better understanding of the sense of communion among foundational charisms" (§27b). It is high time, therefore, for religious to realize how a particularly har-monious communion among themselves, sharing one another's charism, "can and should contribute to express better the full-ness and richness of Christ" (§46), not only in his Body the church, but also in his extended body, the world in need of union. The charisms of the different religious families, with their charismatic and yet ecclesial-minded founders, belong as much to the whole church as to the Jan~ry-Febrz~ry 1994 51 Dominic ¯ Charism, Cbarisms, and Faddism As charisms serve the cause of communion in the church, so do they contribute to the unity of the separate congregations them-selves. It is unthinkable that a religious family could maintain its unity of life amid all its committed involvement in the world if it failed to cling to its essential charism for nourishment (§32b). Each particular charism, bringing with it a particular manner of intense eyangelical life, makes the presence of the one Lord pres-ent in space and time (§46) and thus "enriches the legacy of life, history, and spirituality characterizing each family identity, shared in common through the spirit of the founder or foundress" (§16). Keeping Charisms Alive The dynamism of religious life in its variety depends on the vitality of its true charisms. Once charisms turn false, they lose their vitality and spell the ruin of institutes. Present-day insti-tutes can continue their existence faithfully only if they recog-nize, recover, retain, and renew their particular charisms in their past originality and present timeliness (~ 17). What, then, can we say about the renewal of charisms? "In keeping with their proper charism" (§40) and similar phrases recur in the Lineamenta, as in the Code of Canon Law, emphasizing that the charisms are to be preserved with fidelity and continued without alteration, avoiding all subtle deviation from the original spirit (§16). This supposes in religious a healthy appreciation and pride in the early traditions of their congrega-tion, as advocated by Perfectae caritatis. Given the evangelical inspiration of all charisms, one can say more, drawing a compar-ison between keeping to the purity of the gospel and maintaining the primitive charism. As Paul insisted on an anathema for those who dare preach a different gospel (Ga 1:8-9), religious founders and foundresses could do likewise, enjoining their followers to abide by the spirit of their constitutions without any dilution or dissimulation on their part.13 In this spirit, while expressing appre-ciation of the general progress in the awareness of the separate charisms in the different congregations in the postconciliar era, the Lineamenta adds affirmatively: "This consciousness ought to find expression in a spiritual commitment and a working pres-ence which effectively enlivens and makes operative for the good of the church the spirit of the founder orfoundress and the legacy of each institute" (§3 lc). 52 Review for Religious Two modern experiences with regard to charisms are note-worthy. One, the preferential choice for the poor, which has been "a constant feature of charisms in the apostolic life, often inspired by the words and actions of the Lord" (§44c; see also §27d), is becoming more and more a serious concern for religious life, leading communities to share the very life of the poor and the marginalized with all their risks, trials, and problems. Second, reminiscent of the early successes of many a congregation, there is the geographical spread of extant charisms in the younger churches of the third world and in the newly liberated Eastern European countries (§27c), giving rise to new cultural expres-sions of them (§32c). The above-mentioned experiences are two fine examples of how charisms rise to the occasion and serve their purpose today, provided they are ever deepened and constantly developed (Mutuae relationes, §1 i; L ~16) according to the signs of the times (Perfectae caritatis, §2; L §17). The sign today is the oncoming of the third millennium, throwing up opportunities and challenges (§33) and giving rise to the sprouting of new charisms and new forms of evangelical life (§24 and §27c). One aspect of this deepening and developing of surviving charisms lies in the direction of their "being called upon today-- inspired by the spirit of the founder or foundress--to serve as the basis for making new commitments and responses in Christian charity to the new and old expressions of poverty in our world" (§29g) and, more generally, to the changed atmosphere of the world "because of the social and cultural happenings which have rapidly come about in modern society" (§25). This is reminiscent of the call of Mutuae relationes to be innovative enough for bold enter-prising initiatives (§12; L §42). Which persons are inspired enough and thus inspiring enough to make new initiatives and refound their congregations, warding off the subtle temptation to be wise in their own eyes? Only fer-vent people (§29e). Only they can update discerningly for today the expressions of their original charism. But in the absence of such people "a certain leveling in behavior and in the tenor of the spiritual and communal life has brought a certain loss of prac-tical identity in charism and works" (§28b)--as surely happened in India, for instance, when some religious working with the masses wanted no public association whatever with their congre-gation. So the apparently clever and outspoken members certainly ~tammry-February 1994 53 Dominic ¯ Charism, Cbarisms, and Faddism need to be cautioned, against tendential postures, theoretical and practical, regarding charisms that go against their.genuineness (§3 lc). A case in point was that of a Jesuit who spoke of the need to rewrite the Ignatian rules for thinking with the church, to the applause of the gathering of course, with scant awareness of their foundation in the mystical union of the church and Christ that inspired Ignatius's Eharacteristic service of the church. While there have been new, positive, and worthy initiatives-- the switch of women religious in the United States from the ser-vice of the clergy to frontier ministries should be hailed as one such measure though grudged by not a few men even in the highly progressive United States of Americal4--there have also been negative, unworthy, and false initiatives--which brings me to the discussion of faddism. Faddism Faddism, the cultivation of fads, has to do with "a rapid, sud-den, and ephemeral collective adoption of novel behavior which affects only superficial or trivial areas of life.''s It was certainly the fad of hasty paradigm shifting when some persons clamored for implementing changes in religious life at a faster pace than peo-ple could cope with. Even when people were willing to change, it was not without the grief of losing the familiar past or the fear of the unknown future. So whoever rushed their fellow religious into the world of Vatican II without at the same time providing them time to grapple with their fear or to grieve over or even rage about their apparent loss were carried away more by an itch for change (2 Tm 4:3) than by the breath of the Spirit, for whom there are times for everything. It was also a fad whenever an opinion gained ground that this or that particular individual was the resource person for renewal. To venture an example, it would seem that a certain fad of what may be called spiritual consumerism surrounded Anthony de Mello of Sadbana fame, for numbers of people kept looking to him alone for renewal, almost as if he were the director of world-wide renewal. In any case, whenever one individual looms too large in some endeavor, the result tends to be superficial, whereas all renewal worth the name happens deep within people, where the creative Spirit works in the innermost recesses of hearts. Another similax: fad, which coflld be called hybridization, was 54 Review for Religious the adoption of a celebrated model as the sole means of renewal, whether or not it squared with the blueprint of one's own origi-nal charism. If the one-month retreat according to the Spiritual Exercises appeared to be such a fad some twenty years ago, today in certain circles external dialogue--whether with native tradi-tions or modern situations--would seem to hold sway more than inner dialogue within one's own charism. Among all those who were "zealous" about reforms in reli-gious life, precious few resorted to a real praxis. Not only did individuals and small groups indulge in the fad of stylized ideo-logical talk.~6 Even entire provinces, if not whole congregations, could be all talk, adopting popular phrases about the poor, for example, rather than making sincere options for them. How pro-ductive can all this exercise be except for inviting occasional out-right condemnation. A bold village woman responded to a group of young religious whose actions were not as forthcoming as their words, "These are not the kind of shepherds who will save the sheep; they swallow the sheep." What is absent in feverish talk, namely, action, can itself become a fad and go beyond all proportion. The slogan (not the idea itself) "formation for mission in mission" suits such a fad, giving the go-by to minimum privacy and seclusion for necessary growth in maturity and personalization. Showmanship and one-up- manship feed this fad, causing each one's action to be largely unproductive. These things are the very opposite of prophetic action. They may have the imaginativeness of the prophets of old, but not their soundness of inspiration. The craze of using anything and everythin

Issue 46.2 of the Review for Religious, March/April 1987. ; Modern Media and Comn~unity Vocation Directors and Sexuality Trends in Spirituality--1986 An Experience of Group Direction Volume 46 Number 2 March/April, 1987 Rl~v~l~w VOR RIz~,~c;~ous (ISSN 0034-639X), published every two months, is edited in collaboration with faculty members of St. Louis University's Department of Theological Studies. The editorial offices are located at 3601 Lindell Blvd., Room 428: St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. REvw.w RF~l_~c,~otJs is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus, St. Louis, MO © 1987 by REv~.w ~:OR RV, t,~G~OtJS. Composed, printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, MO. Single copies: $2.50. Subscription: U.S.A. $11.00 a year: $20.00 for two years¯ Other countries: add $4.00 per year (surface mail)¯ Airmail (Book Rate): $18.00 per year. For subscription orders or change of address, write: R~:viFzw vor~ R~:~Acaot~s: P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Daniel F.X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Richard A. Hill, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Review Editor Contributing Editor Assistant Editor March/April, 1987 Volume 46 Number 2 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the edilor should be sent to REVIEW I.'OR R~:~.~taotls: Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the department "Canonical Counsel" should be addressed to Richard A. Hill, S.J.; J.S.T.B.; 1735 LeRoy Ave., Berkeley, CA 94709. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from R~:v~:w ~'ou RE~,W.~o~s: Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393, "Out of print" issues and articles not published as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. A major portion of each issue is also available on cassette recordings as a service for the visually impaired. Write to the Xavier Society for the Blind; 154 East 23rd Street; New York, NY 10010. The Fi st Stage tO"Union: The Active Night Of the .Senses Susan A. Muto Doctor Muto is Director of Duquesne's Institute of Formative Spirituality (Duquesne University; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15282). St. John of the Cross' teaching in the first book of the Ascent of Mount Carmel presupposes that the sojourner has reached that stage in the spiritual life where he or she Js ready to advance beyond the beginnings of prayer and awaken to the deeper regions of divine intimacy. Thus he writes here for (advanced) beginners and persons already proficient in such virtues as detachment, humility and charity. The aim of Book One is threefold: to help an already well,formed self, one who has tasted certain pleasures and satisfactions, to unburden itself of worldly, inordinate attachments; to share the knowledge the saint has gathered through his own reading, experience, and direction as to how souls are to avoid spiritual obstacles; and to describe in concrete detail the way in which one can live in the freedom of spirit necessary, for divine union. It is wise at this point to read the poem, "One Dark Night," and return to it, for its moving images teach--more than abstract concepts can--how happy the soul is to pass through the nights of sense and spirit to union with its Beloved. In the Prologue to Book One the master says that his guides on this journey will be, above all, the desire for God, along with the background wisdom provided by Sacred Scripture and the doctrine of the Church. He immediately identifies two main obstacles to advancement, these being, in a phrase, inadequate direction and inadequate appraisal. Spiritual directors, 161 Review for Religious, March-April, 1987 lacking both sufficient knowledge and experience.of what is happening to the pilgrim soul may unwittingly encourage persons to continue in their old ways. Then, too, the person himself or herself may neither know how to nor want to advance. Even if the Lord comes, they are not willing to adapt themselves to his work. They resist the flow of grace or refuse to cooperate. Thus: God gives many souls the talent and grace for advancing, and should they desire to make the effort they would arrive at this high state. And so it is sad to see them continue in their lowly method of communion with God because they do not want or know how to advance, or because they receive no direction on breaking away from the methods of beginners (AMC, I, Prologue, 3/70).* Failing to understand that God is the author of this enlightenment, ill-prepared directors may urge persons, instead of advancing, to return to former ways of prayer or to make many general confessions. They do not realize that now is not the time for such activity: Indeed it is a period for leaving these persons alone in the pu~'gation God is working in them, a time to give comfort and encouragement that they may desire to endure this suffering as long as God wills, for until then, no remedy--whatever the soul does, or the confessor says--is adequate (AMC, I, Prologue, 5/71). Having said this, St. John begins in Chapters One and Two to explain the imagery of'the "night" that will guide both him and the soul. Early evening or twilight marks the point of departure, the time of purgation, for the soul will experience deprivations of its appetites for worldly pleasure, possessiohs; powers. As one mortifies these, one is led deeper into the night--to the midnight hour of dense darkness where the only means of progress is faith, where intellect is deprived of its normal modes of knowing so that one may be made ready for the secret and intimate self-communications of God. The night eventually gives way to daybreak, to the dawn, which symbolizes the point of God's arrival, the time of love's illumination transformed into perfect union with the Lover: Thus these phases of the night encompass the threefold path of purgation, illumination, and union, not as something accomplished once and for all in linear fashion, but as an ongoing cycle of deprivation, restoration, and transformation. One discovers through the nights of sense and spirit that, as St. Teresa of Avila says, on this walk through life God alone suffices. No object of sense, no concept, image, or idea, can fulfill our infinite desire. The point of Chapter Three is to identify the first cause of this night as the "privation"~or deprivation of perverted desires or appetites. Perhaps The First Stage to Union this is St. John's way of explaining, as a necessary condition for.spiritual deepening, control of the pleasure principle. This control actually effects a rechanneling of vital energies so that they flow from and return to their transcendent source. We must go through this "night" in order to restore the equilibrium thrown off by excessive attachment to the gratifications afforded by our relations, sensually speaking, to persons, things and events. It is clear from the context of this chapter that St. John believes that all creation is good; nothing is evil in itself. Ideally we ought to proceed from the manifestations of God to God himself. In reality, due to the spiritual blindness imposed by our fallen condition, we cling frantically to these vital gratifications. By refusing to let them go, we disavow them. as pointers to their Creator. We tend to make them ultimate sources of pleasure or posses-sion. They become idols or ends in themselves. The result of not entering the night of sense deprivation is, therefore, an increase of formation igno-rance or forgetfulness of our true transcendent" nature--the dynamic that marks our most distinctive human quality. Hence, we need the "night" to reawaken our capacity to remember the Creator in our sense perception of creatures. That is to say, we must see through the visible to the invisible Reality. We are not to remain only on the surface of things but to behold in faith the depth dimension. By darkening the senses of hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting and touching, one is paradoxically free and empty of all things, even though one possesses them. In short: "Since the things of the world cannot enter the soul, they are not in themselves an encumbrance or harm to it; rather, it is the will and appetite dwelling within it that causes the damage" (AMC, 1, 3, 5/77). St. John now goes on, in effect, in Chapters Four and Five to suggest three steps to follow on this phase of the journey through the dark night to God. They are, in a word, remembrance, comparison and renunciation., In the first place, to be freed from this idle/idol illusion, one must strive to remember the right relation between creation and the Creator. Curiously enough, this re-membering has to do with dismembering, that is, of divesting ourselves of inordinate attachments to things as they are in themselves, as if they could be separated f~om their Creator. To dismember a thing as ultimate is to re-member it as dependent on God.Such detachment, while painful, helps one to appreciate things much more as manifestations of the goodness of God. By contrast, one who is clothed in these affections (versus dis-membered) will be "incapable of the enlightenment and dominating full-ness of God's pure and simple light, unless he rejects them" (AMC, I, 4, 1/77-78). Harsh as it may sound, St. John holds firm to his conviction that the light of divine union cannot be established in the soul until these (inordi-nate) affections are eradicated. A more positive way of making the point 164 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1987 might be to ~ay t~at when our idolizing ~lesire to take pleasure in and to possess things as such is mortified, we can appreciate them as they are in their pristine origin and beauty. We move in this way from a posture of violence and control to one of love and letting be, from an attitude of manipulation and calculation to one of compassion. A second helpful step at this stage of the journey is to set up a comparison between the finite, limited nature of things as distinct from the "how much more" of the infinite. For example, the Sea of Galilee compared to the sea of God's love is like a drop of water compared to the Pacific Ocean. Simi-larly, creatures, however beautiful, elegant and abundant they may be, com-pared to their Creator are as darkness compared to light, are as coarseness compared to grace, or ignorance compared to ability. Through this exercise in comparison, St. John introduces us to the Reality Principle, namely, he wants us to see things as they really are in their limited value and as pointers to the limitlessness of thei'r Lord. Via this comparison, we will be better able to break the tendency to make any "little beyond" into the "True Be~,ond"' and hence _to. r_is_k !nitiating a pseud.o-spirituality that invests in something finit~ the richness of the Infinite. Understanding this point of comparison enables us to read Chapter Four as a litany of praise to our Creator God: ¯ . . all the being of creatures compared with the infinite being of God is nothing . All the beauty of creatures compared with the infinite Beauty of God is supreme ugliness . All the grace and elegance of creatures compared with God's grace is utter coarseness and crudity. (AMC, l, 4, 4/79). Here St. John would agree fully with St. Paul that the wisdom of the world is mere foolishness in God's sight (1 Co 3:19). Clearly, the meaning of these statements does not intend for us to reject creaturely being, beauty, grace and ability as bad, but to place these attributes in their proper rela-tion to God. They will all pass away, but not his word. Creaturely qualities, no matter how rich, are ultimately poor in comparison to the Being, Beauty, Elegance and Wisdom of God. Our hope resides not in this or that momen-tary pleasure or possession but in God alone. If the first step out of illusion is to remember our nothingness without God, then the second step is to compare his eternal truth with whatever is temporal. The promise he makes to us is more trustworthy than any stopping place on the path of formation. Thus it is up to us to keep running the race to the end, which means not resting ultimately in anything but God, for, as St. Augustine has said so beautifully, our hearts are restless until they rest in him. Or, to again quote St. John: The First Stage to Union All the sovereignty and freedom of the world compared with the f~eedom and sovereignty of the Spirit of God is utter slavery, anguish, and cap-tivit3; . All the delights and satisfactions of the will in the things of the world in contrast to all the delight that is God is intense suffering, tor-ment and bitterness . All the wealth and, glory of creation compared with the wealth that is God is utter poverty and misery in the Lord's sight (AMC, I, 4, 6, 7/80). The third step, as suggested in Chapter Five, is the most radical, for St. John says that total renunciation is the condition par excellence for pure transformation. Here paradox prevails, Just as knowing is only possible in unknowing, so freedom of spirit or liberation is the result of detachment or renunciation. One must empty the appetite of all the natural and super-natural things which can be a hindrance to the journey to God. This kenotic experience does not happen once and for all but demands habitual effort in cooperation with the graces God is bestowing. The language here allows for no compromise: , The road and ascent to God, then, necessarily, demands a habitualeffort to renounce ~nd mortify the appetites; the sooner this mortification is achieved~ the sooner the soul re~ches the top. But until the appetiteff are eliminated, a person will not arrive, no matter how much virtue he practices. For he will fail to acquire perfect virtue, which lies in keeping the soul empty, naked and purified of every appetite (AMC, I, 5, 6/83). If we desire to climb the summit of the mount "in order to become an altar for the offering of a sacrifice of pure love and praise," we must strive to accomplish three.tasks, described through the following metaphors: first, we must "cast out strange gods," meaning that we have to let go of any affections and attachments that tend to alienate us from God; secondly, we must purify ourselves of their residue through habitual denial (saying no for the sake of a greater yes) and--for as often as we fail to do so-- through habitual, confident repentance (trusting that God's mercy responds with motherly tenderness to our misery); and, thirdly, we must take on a "change of garments," meaning that we must be clothed in a "new under-standing of God [through the removal of the understanding of the old man], and in a new love of God in God . " In this way, we move from igno-rance of who we really are toward acceptance of our being made in the form and likeness of God, of our being, as St. John puts it, "his worthy dwelling." The saint is one who says with every fiber of his or her being: "My God and my all!" One accepts this truth without flinching: "The only appetite God permits and wants in his dwelling place is the desire for the perfect fulfillment of his law and the carrying of his cross" (AMC, I, 5, 8/84). Having reflected on the meaning and demands of total renunciation and "166 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1987 the liberation it brings, St. John moves on in the next five chapters (Six through Ten) to analyze the harms the appetites engender in the soul. There are two main areas of harm, the one privative, the other positive. In general, unruly appetites deprive us of God's spirit. By our attachment to a created thing weoare less capable of soaring free to God. St. John relies for his reason-ing on the philosophical fact that two contraries cannot coexist in the same person. Therefore, "Since love of God and attachment to creatures are con-traries, they cannot coexist in the same will" (AMC, I, 6, 2/85). In biblical terms, rather than accept our privilege as children of God to eat at his table, we act like dogs who must eat the crumbs that fall to the floor. We refuse to rise from the "crumbs" of creatures to the uncreated Spirit of the Father. It stands to reason that "this uncreated fullness cannot find entry to a soul until this other hunger caused by the desires is expelled" (AMC, I, 6, 3/85). As to the second harm, which is positive, we must realize that numerous. impediments are wrought in the soul by inordinate appetites, the most obvious of these being that they weary, torment, darken, defile and weaken the true seeker. Our spiritual life suffers in the first place because these appe-tites weary and tire us to death. He compares them to restless, discontented children, who wear their mothers out trying to please them. Satisfied at one moment, they demand more satisfaction the next. The more one quiets their cravings, the more demanding they become. One feels increasingly agitated, disturbed, fatigued. Like the pulsion governing physical hunger or sexual need, so appetites in general are stirred to satisfy themselves endlessly. St. John makes this analogy: Just as a lover is wearied and depressed when on a longed-for day his oppor-tunity is frustrated, so is a man wearied and tired by all his appetites and their fulfillment, because the fulfillment only causes more hunger and empti-ness. An appetite, as they say, is like a fire that blazes up when wood is thrown on it, but necessarily dies out when the wood is consumed (AMC, I, 6, 6/87). Such desires make it impossible for us to live in the longing for God alone, for instead of him, weexpect them to satisfy us. It is as if we keep looking for heaven on earth. Thus we become ready victims of illusory promises of fulfillment. We give in to the pressures of consumerism. In both cases the sad reward is discontent, for we have turned unwittingly from God who alone can satisfy us. These inordinate appetites not only wear us-out, they also torment us. They gnaw at us mercilessly, as if we were bound by tight cords or tortured on a rack. The torment would be comparable to that which a person suffers who lies naked on thorns and nails; who is in pain; who knows no peace; who is always thirsty. In contrast to what happens to us when the cord of The First Stage to Union / 167 desires tightens around us, when the possessions we cling to desperately possess us, think of the liberation of the children of God. Consider the refreshing peace that is ours when we surrender our will to his. Instead of wasting our efforts, why don't we delight in the abundance of God? We should learn to see that this movement to~vard abundance is a departure from the pleasures of crea-tures, because the creature torments, while the Spirit of God refreshes'.' -Accordingly, God calls us through St. Matthew. as though he were to say: All you going about tormented, afflicted, and weighed down by your cares and appetites, depart from them, come to me and I will refresh you; and you will find the rest for your souls that the desires take away from you (Mt 11:28-29) (AMC, 1, 7, 4/88-89). Thirdly, these self-centered desires blind us. It is as if we are living behind a cloudy pane of glass that blocks out the bright sunshine. We see only a hazy image of things--not things as they really are. Due to this blindness, it is impossible for us to think clearly. It is as if the powers of our transcen-dent mind are dulled by the excessive demands of the vital or functional spheres. Both natural reason and supernatural wisdom are darkened. And when the intellect is obscured, the will becomes weak and the memory dis-ordered. The desire for const'an~ pleasure or sensual stimulation makes reflec-tive living a virtual impossibility. Things go from bad to worse because the intellect is incapable of receiving the illumination of God's wisdom; ttie will cannot embrace the pure love of God; and the memory lessens its capacity for the impression of the serenity of God's image upon it. Unless these blinding desires are mortified, one will not advance on the way of union. It stands to reason that if the~e unruly appetites lead a person, he or sh~ is bound to be blind to the'mind's appraisal powers. One reacts on impulse, without the help of a quiet attunement to the Christ form in the core of one's being. All that is released is the counterfeit form of con-cupiscence and pride. No amount of penance can overcome this darkness if one does not root out the source of the trouble, namelyl the blinding blockage of inordinate desires. They are like a ~ataract on the eye or specks of dust in°it. Until they are removed, they obstruct vision. One way or another, in this life or in the next, these appetites have to be chastised and corrected. They have to underg6 purgation before any steady progress in the spiritual life can take place. St. John laments this condition of forma-tion ignorance in language reminiscent of the prophets: Oh, if men but knew what a treasure of divine light this blindness caused by their affections and appetites deprives them of, and the number of mis-fortunes and evils these appetites occasion each day when left unmorti-fle!! . At every step we mistake evil for good and good for evil. 16~i / Review for Religious., March-April, 1987 This is peculiar to our nature. But what will happen if appetite is added to our natural darkness? . We have felt our way along the way as though blind, we have groped as if without eye,s, and our blindness has reached the point that we stumble along in broad daylight as though walk-ing in the dark (AMC, I, 8, 6, 7/91). Using even stronger language, St. John assures us that such blind desires stain ,and defile the soul, bringing it into bondage under the rule of the autarchic-pride form, and blackening the beauty of the christ form we are called to release. We are like someone who is stained by pitch or blacker than coal--and yet we are meant to be whiter than snow or milk. This is so because even the disordered soul remains in substantial union with God. It "possesses in its natural being the perfection that God bestowed when creating .it," even though in its rational being it is full of the defilement described here. We cannot grow in Christ-likeness until this defilement, is checked by formative detachment. The tragedy is that these inclinations keep us away from the peace God is drawing us toward in the life of union. incredible as it may sound: One inordinate appetite alone., suffices to make a soul so captive, dirty, and unsightly that,until the appetite is purified the soul is incapable of con-formity with God in union. This is true even though there may be no matter for mortal sin in the appetite. What thenwill b~.the ugliness of a soul entirely disordered in its passions and surrendered to its appetites? How far it will be from God and his purity (AMC, I, 9, 3/92-93). It follows that all three faculties of the soul are affected by this kind of attachment. Just as one bad spot spoils an entire garment, so intellect, memory, and will are defiled by disordered desires. . The end result is that such desires render us lukewarm, spiritually speaking. Appetites that go unmortified eventually sap the soul of the strength it needs to persevere in the practice of virtue. In this weakened state, ours is an on-again, off-again spirituality. We are usually overdependent on consolations and only sporadically attracted to steady discipline. Appetites, as it were, divide and conquer us, whereas asceticism unites our inner faculties and makes us stronger. Lacking this discipline, we feel scattered. Our faith is easily challenged. We may.be open targets for exalted schemes that promise salvation through a wide door, not a narrow gate. We would like to master God rather than allow him to master us. What matters most is not his will but our own interpretation of the easy way. Without purgation and ongoing appraisal of the direction of our spiritual life, self-gratification, not God, becomes our center. As far as St. John is concerned, this would be hell on earth. Instead of copcentrating on strength-ening our practice of virtue, all we care about is satisfying our desii~es, Little The First Stage to Union / 169 wonder, then, that they rob us of what we already have. Unmortified appe-tites result in killing our relationship with God. Because we did not put them gently but firmly to death first, they live on to kill us. For what difference does it make if we win the whole world and lose our soul? Having spelled out in vivid detail the privative and positive harms appe-tites can cause in the soul, St. John explains again in Chapters Eleven and Twelve what kinds of appetites are detrimental to the soul. To do so he distinguishes three kinds of appetites, moving from the least to the most detrimental, these being the natural ones, the "semivoluntary and the voluiatary. Natural movements, as, for example, an ear for and an attraction to good music, are of little or no hindrance to the attainment of union, provided we do not make them the center of our attention nor pass beyond the first stage of spontaneous affinity in which the rational will plays no part. Because we are a body-mind-spirit unity, because we are born with certain givens in the realm of temperament, disposition and talent, it is impossible to eradi-cate natural appetites in this life, and, were we to do so, it would most likely be deformative. TheSe movements go hand in hand with our creatureliness. One can be experiencing them in the sensitive part of one's being, as, for instance, a hunger pang, and yet be free of the desire for food at this moment, as, for instance, during a liturgy, in the rational part of one's being. These movements can even be stirring in a person who is experiencing an intense union of will in the prayer of quiet. These appetites may actually dwell in the sensory part of the soul, yet the superior part pays no attention to them, just as there can be foam on the ocean's surface and deep calm underneath the sea. One. may even feel certain sexual stirrings without in the least detract-ing from one's absorption in God in the center of one's being. As long as one pays no attention to them--rletting them buzz in and out like flies but not stopping to swat them--one need not be concerned about them. Such is not the case with the other appetites--~whether the less grave, which involve venial sin, or the most serious, which involve mortal sin. The trouble with natural movements, which are the least of them all, is that one can consent to them and be forthwith ~aught up in imperfections that are contrary to God's will. If one is to reach (he perfection of union with God through one's will and love, it is obvious that one must be freed from every appetite, howe~,er slight. One must have the strength and freedom to be able--in the face of temptation--to refuse consent. There is a difference between "ad~,ertence" Or "knowingly" falling into imperfections, and "inad-vertence" or falling without much knowledge or control of the matter. These are the semivoluntary sins because of which it is said that the just man will fall seven times a day and rise up again. Review for Religious, March-April, 1987 The real problem resides with the voluntary appetites. Anyone of these, even the most trifling, is sufficient to impede union. Especially problematic are the "habitual appetites," because scattered acts rooted in diverse desires are not such a hindrance. They are not a determine~l habit--yet ultimately the soul must be liberated of these too since they both proceed from and may lead to habitual imperfection. Habitual, voluntary imperfections that are not completely mortified not only stand in the way of divine union but also hinder spiritual prog~ress as such. St. John gives some examples of what he means by habitual imperfections (those deformed dispositions that prevent us from responding fully and freely to the call to love). ¯ . . the common habit of loquacity; a small attachment one never really desires to conquer, for example, to a person, to clothing, to a book or a cell, or to .the way food is prepared, and to other trifling conversa-tions . Any of these habitual imperfections, and attachment to them, causes as much harm to an individual as ,would the daily commission of many other imperfections (AMC, I, 11, 4/97). Harsh as it may sound, St. John will not compromise his conviction that such an attachment, however trifling it ma~, seem, will make it impossible in the long run for one to progress in perfection. Something as simple as insisting on the same place in a church pew, and compelling others to crawl over one, can hinder the spiritual flight the saint is talking about. The point is: It makes little difference whether a bird is tied by a thin thread or by a cord. For even if tied by thread, the bird will be prevented from taking off just as surely as if it were tied by cold--that is, it ~vill be impeded from flight as long as it does not break the thread . This is the lot of a man who is attached to something: no matter how much virtue he has he will not reach the freedom of divine union (AMC, I, 11, 4/97). In one text after another, St. John comes back to this issue. How regret-table that a soul laded like a rich vessel with the wealth of good deeds, spiritual exercisesand virtues never leaves port because one lacks the courage to break the rope of a little satisfaction, attachment or affection. God gives them the power to sever other stronger cords while they cling to some childish act or thing God ask~ them to overcome for love of him. Not only do they fail to advance; they even turn back for so ,mething that amounts to no more than a thread or a hair. And, "Everyone knows that not to go forward on this road is to turn back, and not to gain ground is to lose." The goal of union demands that we do not stop on the road, but that we continually mortify our appetites rather than indulge them. For how can a log of wood be transformed into the fire if a single degree of heat is lacking to its prepa- The First Stage to Union ration? Similarly, itis St. John's contention that the soul "will not be trans-formed in God even if it has only one imperfection." This is so because a person has only one will, and if this is encumbered or occupied by any-thing, it will not possess the freedom, solitude and purity requisite for divine transformation. Complementing these clarifications from Chapter Eleven are a few of his Sayings of Light and Love, for example, Saying 23--"He who does not allow his appetites to carry him.away will soar in his spirit as swiftly as the bird that lacks no feathers" (668). Returning to the topic of the kinds of harm the appetites can cause in the soul, St. John explains, in regard to privative evil or the loss of grace, that only the voluntary appetites whose object may involve mortal sin can do this~completely--that is, deprive the soul of grace in this life, and glory, the possession of God, in the next. The positive evils (weariness, torment, blindness, defilement, weakness) correspond in general to a turning toward creatures, just as the privative involve an aversion from God. Naturally, the degree of harm depends on whether the appetite leads to mortal or venial sin, whether it is voluntary or semivoluntary. The harm. caused by each appe-tite can be direct or indirect. For example, vainglory positively harms the soul in all the ways mentioned, but it most principally darkens and blinds it. The point to keep in mind is that all these evils together oppose the acts of virtue, which generate the contrary and corrective effect. For example, a virtuous act produces in one mildness, peace, comfort, light, purity, and strength; an inordinate appetite brings with it torment, fatigue, and so on. In short: "Through the practice of one virtue all the virtues grow, and similarly, through an increase in one vice, all the vices and their effects grow" (AMC, I, 12, 5/100). Don't we all know from experience (think of that overstuffed feeling after a too rich meal) that "the appetite when satisfied seems .sweet and, pleasant, but eventually the sour effect is felt." We cannot avoid this basic truth that if and when we allow ourselves to be carried away by our appetites, the bitter effect of losing our-selves in vitalistic feelings or functionalistic preoccupations is inevitable. Such is not the case with the natural, involuntary appetites. Though disturbances in this realm may seem to defile one, the actual resistance of them has the opposite effect. In this struggle one wins strength, purity and many other blessings, for as our Lord told St. Paul: "Virtue is made perfect in weakness" (2 Co 12:9). Since, in conclusion, it is the voluntary appetites that bring on all these evils--and even more--the chief concern of spiritual directors with their directees ought to be the "immediate mortification of every appe-tite." Nothing less than this emptiness-will liberate them. We come now to the famous Chapter Thirteen of Book One of the Ascent in which St. John delineates some counsels pertaining to the active night 179 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1987 of the senses or how one can conquer and overcome voluntary appetites. Though one is doing what one can, this very action is dependent on the "already-thereness" of God's grace, prompting one to enter this night and thereby come "quickly" to the passive way in which God accomplishes this work in us. What is this "abridged method" that leads us from~nothing to everything, from emptiness to fullness, from renunciation to liberation, from being bound to soaring free? It proceeds in a series of steps, which we shall summarize here. 'First and foremost comes the habitual desire to imitate Christ in all of one's deeds. Nothing is more important on the way of perfection than bring-ing our lives into conformity with his. This being with the Christ form implies the ongoing reading (lectio continua) of the Scriptures together with their more concentrated study (lectio divina). Knowing him through his words and actions, we can better emulate his attitudes in our own situation, thus drawing our entire existence more and more into union and communion with his. It follows that to succeed in this imitation, we need to calm down and by and large renounce sensory satisfactions severed from that which gives honor and glory to God. We cannot do this on basis of willpower alone; our motivation must emerge not from fear but from our love of the Lord who came to show us how we are to go through him to the Father. His one desire in life was to fulfill the Father's will, which "he called his meat and food" (Jn 4:34). What does this decision mean concretely? The key resides in the phrase "do not desire," and it means do not desire to hear, . look upon, act, take pleasure in anything that is unrelated to the service and glory of God. St. John would never be against enjoying good music, if we have an ear for it, of appreciating the beauty of art or nature, or in delivering or hearing a moving sermon. What bothers him is our tendency to stop at this literal level instead of going through and beyond it to the transliteral, sacred mystery. One cannot help but experience satisfaction in these sensory goods. The important directive is not to desire the gratifica-tion as such but to desire the God who gratifies. By this method, we leave the senses, as it were, in darkness and, from the spiritual point of view, "gain a great deal in a short time." Such vigilance, perhaps understood as purity or singleness of heart, leads to the tranquilizing or harmonizing of the natural passions of joy, hope, fear, and sorrow--four emotions that constitute the basis of the active purga-tion of the will by love in Book III, Chapter Sixteen ff, of the Ascent. Here it is sufficient to present a few maxims that represent a first formula for pacifying these passions while practicing many virtues. Note here as well that what we are pacifying is the passion for (inordinate attachment to) satis- The First Stage to Union / 17'3 factions that are self-centered; expectations that are willful; anxieties rooted in our search for security; and depressions due to lack of control, and not having things go our way. Only if we understand this can we understand and accept as wise these well-known maxims: Endeavor to be inclined always: not to the easiest, but to the most difficult; not to the most delightful, but to the harshest; not to the most gratifying, but to the less pleasant; not to what means rest for you, but to hard work; not to the consoling, but to the unconsoling; not to the most, but to the least; not to the highest and most precious, but to the lowest and most despised; not to wanting something, but to wanting nothing; do not go about looking for the best of temporal things, but for the worst, and desire to enter into complete nudity, emptiness and poverty in everything in the world (AMC, 'I, 13, 6/102-103). This passage may seem life-denying, slightly masochistic, to say noth-ing of the impossibility of reaching or doing, if we overlook the crucial phrase at the beginning, which says "Endeavor to be inclined always . " This is the same as saying "Strive," "Try," "Foster the inclination" to develop that "sixth sense" that guides our call to be a true follower of Christ, which implies inevitably to deny ourselves and to take up our cross for his sake. As witnesses to the Gospel, we ought to be ever more proficient in detecting what in us operates on basis of the pride form and what in us gives assent to the Christ form. For did he not choose the "narrow way" that was, by human standards, most diffic.u~lt, harshest, less pleasant? Did he not work so hard to accomplish our salvation that he had nowhere on which to rest his head? Was his agony not unconsoling? Was he not numbered among the least of men? Among the most despised? What did he want except to fulfill the will of the Father? If this is true, and if we want to walk with him, then we too must practice the poverty of spirit by which he emptied himself and became like a slave for our sake. Thus in these counsels, St. John is indicating concretely how we are to accomplish the imitation of Christ. With his help, we can learn to embrace them earnestly and overcome the aversion we may feel toward them. By entering into nothingness, we enter into nothing-butness--for nothing but God will satisfy the heart that loves him. Such a life practiced with order and discretion (for these mortifications are means toward union, not union itself), enable us to live in faithfulness to our unique call to discipleship. What is easiest and what is most difficult depends, of course, on who we "174 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1987 are. It may be easiest for a research scientist not to spend tedious hours in his laboratory looking for formulas that will benefit human health when he would rather be on the golf course. Hence, what is difficult and done for Christ is to maintain his place in the lab, putting his God-given gifts to work. For another, the most difficult.may be to overcome his shyness and meet colleagues on the golf course, thus tempering his workaholic ten-dency and relaxing so he may be a better servant for the Lord. These decisions are dependent on the appraisal powers of our transcendent mind and will, but behind this appraisal stands the basic counsel, "Endeavor to be inclined always" to imitate Christ and to be ready to do what is most consonant with our call to radical discipleship. This commitment will inevitably lead us through the narrow way of the night of the senses, for we will have to die to the old, unredeemed, fleshy pride form, the "pride of life," as St. John calls it, for this "concupiscence" reigns in the world, as separated from God, and gives rise to all the appe-tites. Toward this pride form, we are to try to act with contempt, speak with contempt, and think with contempt. Nothing short of this radical rejec-tion of pride will ready us for radical discipleship. This contemptuous no is for the sake of a greater yes. We are saying no to formation ignorance, to its remote cause which is the pride form, and to its proximate causes, such as the immersion in vitalism, the escape in functionalism, the evasion of interformative responsibility. In saying no to the pride form, we are taking the first necessary step to combating demonic seduction (the deception that we are in charge of our destiny) and growing strong in Christ for the greater struggle to come in the dark night, where our only guide is faith. These counsels are thus an essential preliminary for formation freedom. For only if we desire nothing can we allow God to give us all. In summary, to mortify "the concupiscence of the flesh" means to ceas~ allowing the vital dimension of the life form to be a substitute for the tran-scendent. It means the end of downward transcendence. To mortify "the concupiscence of the eyes" means to cease allowing the functional dimension to dominate our existence with its penchant for envious competition and ego control. It means the end of horizontal transcendence. And, ultimately, to mortify "the pride of life" means to root out the source of our trouble and to pursue upward transcendence, in which the vital and functional spheres become servants of the ascent to God. Such are St. John's basic instructions for climbing to the summit, "the high state of union." Now perhaps we can understand and absorb with relief his concluding counsels., for if we read them properly, they will tell us to desire nothing in order to allow God to give everything. Thus: The First Stage to Union / 175 To reach satisfaction in all desir~e its possession in nothing. To come to possess all desire the possession of nothing. To arrive at being all desire to be nothing. To come to the knowledge of all desire the knowledge of nothing. To come to the pleasure you have not you must go by a way in which you enjoy not. To come to the knowledge you have not you must go by a way in which you know not. To come to the possession you have not you must go by a way in which you possess not. To come to be what you are not you must go by a way in which you are not. When you turn toward something you cease to cast yourself upon the All. For to go from all to the All you must deny yourself of all in all. And when you come to the possession of the all you must possess it without wanting anything. Because if you desire to have something in all your treasure in God is not purely your all. In this nakedness the spirit finds its quietude and rest. For in coveting nothing nothing raises it up and nothing weighs it down, because it is in the center of its humiliiy. When it covets something in this very desire it is wearied. What St. John is saying in these remarkable verses is that one will reach satisfaction in all, possession of~all, being all one desires, only if one desires nothing but God. One will know much in the knowledge and remembrance that one is no-thing. One is a child of God, emerging from him and returning to him--not an object of one's own pleasure or satisfaction, but his child, with all the dignity that one is afforded thereby. Thus if we want a pleasure higher than any vital stimulation, if we want an understanding greater than any reason can conclude, if we want to possess more than any collection of material or spiritual goods can yield, if we want to be who we most deeply are, then we must follow this narrow way of 176 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1987 enjoying what we don't know, of understanding One who is incomprehen-sible, of possessing what we can never fully own--for the divine mystery will ~ilways escape our urge to master it. Indeed, to be who we are we must go by this way in which our pride form is not, in which we are increasingly naughted, in which it is noI longer we who live but Christ who lives in us. Every time we turn toward some thing, person, or event as ultimate or absolute, we turn away from the Lord of all. We cease to cast ourselves upon his mercy, forgiveness, love. To go from the all (God's gifts every-where) to the All (God himself), we must deny ourselves of the All (God), that is, the illusion that the All can be found in or contained in all. God is beyond every little idol we try to create. And even when we possess him, we must do so in a letting-be attitude, without wanting anything but him as he reveals himself. Because if we desire to have something, for example, more consolations or signs of his love, then our treasure in God is not purely or wholly in him as our all, but only in his consolations. The more we reflect on this message, the more we discover that only in this nakedness, this emptiness of spirit, can the soul find its rest. In coveting, in desiring, nothing but God's will, one experiences real tranquil-lity. Whether in adversity or prosperity, whether in consolation or desola-tion, nothing raises one up and nothing weighs one down. It is a blessed state to live in the center of one's humility, to walk graciously in the truth of who one is. Coveting something produces the opposite effect: weariness and torment. For nothing can bring to rest our restless soul save union with God--and it is toward this union that St. John fires our love with urgent longings. Book One closes with two short chapters, which really provide a transi-tion to Book Two. The.phrase St. John comments upon points to the main effect of the active night of sense, namely, "Fired w.ith love's urgent long-ings." The result of this initial purgation of the appetites is a more intense enkindling of another love: a better love, the love of God above all else. The motivation for giving up these attachments must be neither fear of punishment nor the presumption of merit but the freedom, based on faith and love, tb choose a higher good. "By finding his satisfaction and strength in this love, a man will have the courage and constancy to deny readily all other appetites" (AMC, I, 14, 2/105). Such love is not static, but dynamic; it is a longing love. Since the sensory appetites are always in a state of "craving," spiritual desires must be fired with other more "urgent longings." Lacking this transcendence,dynamic, the soul will not be able to overcome the yoke of absolutized vital impulses and functional ambi-tions (what St. John calls the "yoke of nature"); nor will one be able to enter the first night of sense, and certainly one will not have the courage The First Stage to Union / 17"/ to live in the darkness of all things--not by rejecting them as such but by denying the desire for them as if they could provide the fulfillment God alone can offer. St. John will deal with these matters more fully in upcoming Books on the active night of the spirit (which will discuss the purification of our spiritual faculties, intellect, memory and will by, respectively, faith, hope, and love). At least to have passed through the night of the mortification of the senses, the night in which the house of self-will is stilled, is itself a "sheer grace." God's grace, his always active love, has released us already from this prison. But because of our fallenness, "flesh" is still subject to the passions and unruly appetites. To be liberated from this bondage in a way that is unimpeded by its enemies (world, flesh and devil) is for the soul an unspeakably wonderful grace. To achieve this liberation to the full, one must, so to speak, leave the Egypt of sensory satisfaction and cross the desert of spiritual deprivation. When the house of willful appe-tites is quieted through the mortification of sensuality, then the soul is free to walk in genuine freedom, enjoying union with the Beloved. It is to this next phase of renunciation for the sake of greater liberation that one must now turn, keeping in mind this saying of St. John's: "If you purify your soul of attachment to and desire for things, you will understand them spiritually. If you deny your appetite for them, you will enjoy their truth, understanding what is certain in them" (Sayings o fLight andLove, 46/671). *All quotations can be found in references by paragraph and page number. Collected ~'orks of St. John of the Cross, translated by Kieran Kavanaugh, O.C.D. and Otilio Rodriguez, O.C.D., ICS Publications, Institute of Carmelite Studies, Washington, D.C. The Eucharist: Heart of Religious Community Susan Wood, S.C.L. Sister Susan Wood teaches theology at Saint Mary College (Leavenworth, Kansas 66048). This article is the fruit of her reflection in anticipation of her community's General Chapter last summer. As she writes, "Paradoxically, what may be most specific sometimes touches what is true universally." The daily celebration of the Eucharist is a focal point of our lives a source of our charity a fount of inspiration in our mission a sign and means of unity and nourishment. Constitution, #23 Today many sisters are asking whether we can continue to say that the Eucharist is a focal point of our lives. Quite simply, some say, for many of us our daily schedules prohibit a daily eucharistic celebration. Others question how the Eucharist can be expressive of unity in a situation where the worshipping community does not know one another. Still others wonder whether we should celebrate Eucharist at all if we find ourselves divided and still in need of reconciliation with one another. They remind us that Jesus said to leave our gift at the altar and be reconciled with our sister and brother before offering our gift. If we inquire further, we discover yet more serious roots of the current questioning of the place of the Eucharist in our religious lives. The Eucharist may appear to be a devotional practice which, while important, is somehow peripheral to other concerns which claim our energies. The real task that 178 The Eucharist: Heart of Community / 179 the question of the place of the Eucharist in our lives sets before us is the identification of what constitutes the center of our common life. Is our service of the poor our focal point? Is our common life? Does the inspiration for our religious adaptation and reform repose in fundamentally non-sacramental realities such as community, authority, Chapter enactments, the Constitution, our apostolates, our charism? Or can we say that our sacramental life is our center, and that all these important, but non-sacramental, aspects of our life are means rather than ends in themselves. That is, they are the means of extending and making concrete and specific the sacramental reality which first defines our life together. These pages cannot solve the problems of conflicting schedules; nor do they pretend to offer a complete theology of the Eucharist. They do propose, however, to examine some connections between the Eucharist and religious community. It is only after we grasp this connection that we will be equipped to address the more concrete questions concerning our daily eucharistic celebration. Religious Life: An Ecclesial Life The basis for the connection between the Eucharist and religious com-munity is, first, the relationship between religious life and the Church and, second, the close association between the sacraments of baptism and Eucharist. The first presupposition is that religious life is fundamentally ecclesial. More than simply a manner of living within the Church, religious life is directly oriented to the Church. This is evident within our own tradition when we recall St. Vincent de Paul's description of the Daughters of Charity as "daughters of the Church." The ecclesial character of religious consecra-tion is further evident in its sacramental foundation, baptism. In baptism we are incorporated into the body of Christ and his Church and our religious life is an attempt to live out the implications of our baptism, and thus this incorporation, in a radical way. As a radical living out of the baptismal commitment, religious life is equally a living out of our identity as ecclesial women. This theology appears in our Constitution where we state: As Christians united personally by baptism to Jesus Christ and to his body, the Church, the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth . . . are women who view baptism as the most significant event in our lives and who have responded freely to the Divine call to express this consecration more fully by profession of the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience lived in apostolic and communal love (Constitution, n. 3). The decree of the Second Vatican Council, Perfectae Caritatis, refers Review for Religious, March-April, 1987 to this ecclesial~orientation when it urges religious to "more and more live and think with the Church," and "dedicate themselves wholeheartedly to its mission (n. 6).'.' If our unity as a Church is the unity in the Spirit of the body of Christ, and if our identity as religious women is inseparable from 0u¢ identity as ecclesial women, then it follows that the source of our unity is radically identical with that of the Church. In other words, our unity is baptismal and eucharistic. From this close association between religious and ecclesial life, it follows that the relationship between the Eucharist and religious community will be analogous to that between the Eucharist and the Church. The Unity of Baptism and Eucharist The second theological presupposition is that baptism and Eucharist are intrinsically related. Consequently, if religious life is a radical living of the baptismal commitment, it is no less a eucharistically centered life. The Eucharist is not simply that which we receive when we come together as the Church. Nor is it primarily a celebration of who we are as a believing community. The Church does not exist prior to the Eucharist, but is formed and created by it. This may appear at first as paradoxical, for in a sense a minister and community are necessary for the celebration of the sacrament. One may also object that the Christian community is formed by baptism rather than the Eucharist. This, however, ~eparates the sacraments of initia-tion when they should instead be seen as a unity. Baptism is indeed incorpora-tion into the Church, but the culmination or fulfillment of the sacraments of initiation, and thus baptism, is the Eucharist. Initiation into the Church is incomplete without the reception of the Eucharist which is incorporation into the historical body of Christ sacramentally present in our world. This is evident in the rite of initiation in the Eastern Church where baptism, confir-mation and Eucharist are conferred within the same ceremony. Baptism and the Eucharist.are closely associated, first, because both are intrinsically related to Christ's Paschal Mystery. In the Eucharist we proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes (1 Co 11: 26). In the eucharistic sacrifice the victory and triumph of Christ are again made present (Sacrosanctum Concilium, I. 6). In baptism we are plunged into the Paschal Mystery of Christ, die with him to sin, are buried with him, and rise with him to a new life in Christ (Rm 6:4; Ep 2:6; Col 3:1; 2 Tm 2:11). Second, both baptism and the Eucharist are means of incorporation into the body of Christ. The text of 1 Co 12:12-13 makes this clear regarding baptism: Just as a human body, tho.ugh it is made up of many parts, is a single unit because all these parts, though many, make one body, so it is with Christ. The Eucharist: Heart of Community In the one Spirit we were all baptized, Jews as well as Greeks, slaves as well as citizens, and one Spirit was given to us all to drink. It is precisely as members of Christ's body that we share in his death and resurrection through baptism (Rm 6: 3-4). The Eucharist is a further means of participation in the body of Christ as is evident in 1 Co 10: 16-17: The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. In the final analysis, therefore, we are incorporated in Christ by both baptism and the Eucharist, the principal reason why they are both considered sacraments of initiation. Initiation into the Church differs from initiation into human societies precisely because it is sacramental. This means not only that through the sign of the sacrament we are initiated into membership in the body of Christ, but that this union with Christ is really achieved now, and is itself a sign of the final eschatological union that all the blessed will share with Christ and with one another. The Eucharist is causative of the Church because the unity of the Church is not that of an aggregate of individuals, a collectivity which exists prior to or independently of Christ, but the unity of a body. In the Eucharist we are nourished by the body and blood of Jesus Christ, and, being vivified by that body, we become one. Consequently, the unity of the Church does not exist metaphysically prior to or apart from its union with and incorporation in Christ. To grasp this profound interconnection between the Church and the Eucharist requires that we think sacramentally rather than according to the categories of human societies and organizations. The temptation throughout history has been to pattern the Church according to the models of society current at the time--in our day the democratic model. The Mystery in which we are invited to participate transcends merely human structures. An example of the shift required in our perception is that while that which we eat is normally transformed into our own flesh and blood, in the sacrament we. are assimilated to Christ, not he to us. The unity of the Church is not a moral unit~, sustained by the good will and cooperation of those consenting to be united, but rather is the unity created on the initiative of Christ who offers us the New Covenant. The Ecclesial Dimension of the Eucharist We believe that sacraments are efficacious signs of God's grace. Therefore we believe that what is signed by the sacrament achieves its effect in us both Review for Religious, March-April, 1987 individually and communally. The sign of the Eucharist is our partaking of Christ's body, efficaciously signified by the bread and wine. Sacramental realism assures us that that which is both signed and effected is our union with Christ, and, as 1 Co 10 indicates~ our union with one another. In tradi-tional eucharistic theology this effect of the Eucharist has been- called the res tantum, and is none other than the unity of the ecclesial body, the Church. This unity is the union of the members with their head, Christ. Since the middle of the twelfth century, largely in response to the eucharistic controversy involving Berengarius, eucharistic theology has fre-quently concentrated on eucharistic realism. Great care has been exerted to emphasize the fact that Christ is really and truly present in the Eucharist. While this truth is of incomparabl~ worth within eucharistic theology, the care to correct a heretical eucharistic theology led to the neglect of the ecciesial dimension of the sacrament. A eucharistic piety that focuses too narrowly and exclusively on the real presence often misses the ecclesial signification of the sacrament, as well as its context within salvation history. The Eucharist in addition to and precisely because it is the sacramental presence of Christ within history is anamesis (remembrance) as well as antici-pation. As remembrance it is the representation of the sacrifice of Christ as well as the fulfillment of the typological prefigurations of Christ's sacrifice in the Old Testament. As anticipation it looks ahead to the final eschato-logical union of all the blessed with Christ at the end time. The final union of the members of Christ with their head is what St. Augustine called the "whole Christ." Thus the Eucharist is an instance of what theologians call "realized eschatology." That is, that which will be complete at the end time eschatologically is already present in a real, but incomplete form. We are really united with Christ now in the present time, but this union prefigures a complete union for which we work, pray, and wait. In a similar manner, we are really sacramentally united with one another, but our unity is still imperfect. Concrete Consequences of a Eucharistic Ecclesiology Once this is seen, certain corollaries become evident. First, the referent of the sacrament, that is, that which it signs, is both the Christ who died, rose and ascended to the Father as well as the eschatological union of all the blessed with Christ. Thus the sacrament effects this union in the present, but its ultimate referent transcends the present as it anticipates this final union. This means that the primary referent of the Eucharist is not the immanent worshipping community or exclusively the presence of the Christ within the community. The Eucharist is not a celebration of unity achieved apart from our union with Christ and prior.to the Eucharist, but effects The Eucharist: Heart of Community / 183 and anticipates that for which we hope as Christians--final, irrevocable union in Christ. This means that we do not wait until we experience perfect union before we approach the Eucharist. If a community stands in need of reconcilia-tion, it should indeed work so that it is in fact what it proclaims itself to be in word, namely, Christian community. However, just as we do not save ourselves but ask for salvific grace, so our reconciliation is not entirely our work but something worked within us by the grace of God with our cooper-ation. The Eucharist is not only a sign of unity, but effects unity and recon-ciliation; Secondly, the community which gathers for eucharistic worship is not required to be an intimate, homogeneous group. The universality of the kingdom of God, the body of Christ, indicates that those ecclesial communities which most accurately reflect the universal vocation to union with God may be the most diverse of groups, often anonymous, where faith in our common vocation transcends the diversity of races, nations and walks of life. This does not me.an that we should not work for a more ideal realization of como munity but rather that such an ideal should not become a prior condition of eucharistic worship. Third, although in the Eucharist we receive the sacramental presence of Christ, the primary focus of the sacrament is communal rather than indi-vidual. We approach the Eucharist as a Christian community who celebrates the great things the Lord has done for us in his life, death and rising. The Eucharist as anamesis, that is, remembrance, sacramental presence and pledge of our. future hope, reminds us that we are a people in the midst of the history of God's salvific plan for us. This communal and historical focus of the sacrament is the primary reason why communion services can never be an adequate substitute for the celebration of the Eucharist. These services, even under the best of circumstances, emphasize the individual's reception of the sacramental presence of Christ rather than the community's immersion in salvation history with its celebration of a past event sacramentally present, itself a sign of a future reality. The Eucharist is properly word and sacra, ment, the sacrament representing more than the presence of Christ's body and blood. It is also the presence of that sacrifice which renders that body and blood efficacious for our salvation. Objective vs. Subjective Meaning of the Eucharist One of the problems today is that we may~be confusing "meaning" with "meaningfulness." The first is an objective category while the second is s~ubjective. When we experience the liturgy as dull and lifeless, apparently divorced from the rest of our lives, we are tempted to say that it has "lost Review for Religious, March-April, 1987 meaning" for us. In this instance what we really mean is that it has ceased to be meaningful. The Eucharist obviously has not lost its objective meaning as the sacramental presence of Christ within human history, as the Christian community's remembrance and representation of Christ's salvific death and rising, as an efficacious sign of our future union in Christ. Our experience, therefore, is more of a statement about ourselves than about the objective meaning of what takes place at our eucharistic liturgy. It is a statement 6f our inability to consciously live and celebrate what we believe, of the incongruity between our life as a Christian community and what the Eucharist calls us to be as a community. Indeed, we may experience fragmentation, boredom and disunion but this experience is a call to recon-ciliation, a call to approach the altar once again so that that which we cele-brate liturgically may be integral with the whole of our life, a call to pray for a more lively faith. It is likewise a call to contribute our best efforts so that our liturgical prayer, through sign and symbol, awakens, fortifies and expresses our faith. Even though it is a mistake to confuse meaning with meaningfulness, we are not excused from the efforts necessary for good liturgical celebration, including personal prayer and reading of Scripture as well as the more proxi-mate preparations of celebrants, musicians and artists. Sacraments are signs, and signs are of their nature human, subject to expressing more or less adequately what they signify. The liturgical renewal enjoined by Vatican II calls for a more active participation on the part of the faithful so that the liturgy can be the "outstanding means by which the faithful can express ~n their love, and manifest to others, the mystery of Christ and the real nature of the true Church" (Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 2). Within eucharistic theology there exists an objective and subjective di-mension of the sacrament. Traditionally this has been referred to as the opus operatum, the work effected by Christ, and the opus operantis. This latter term originally referred to the disposition of the celebrant. The dis-tinction between the two terms explained how a Mass celebrated by a priest in a state of serious sin was still valid although not spiritually fruitful for him. Recent writers have extended the meaning of opus operantis to refer to the cooperation with and active reception of grace by the believer. In the opus operatum, the objective element of the sacrament, we are assured that Christ is really present. In the second, the subjective element, we receive grace, and the sacrament is "fruitful" with our growth in faith, hope and charity. The question of meaning vs. meaningfulness can, in part, be expressed as the relation between the objective reality of the sacrament, the opus oper-atum, and the subjective disposition of the recipient, the opus operantisl The Eucharist: Heart of Community Our sacramental celebrations may appear arid when the ecclesial reality of the sacrament does not find expression in a renewed commitment to Christ and his Church. Some writers, including Karl Rahner, discuss the frequency of eucharistic celebration with reference to the opus operantis, saying that this frequency should be governed by the conditions which make it possible for us to receive the sacrament fruitfully, with conscious faith and the psychic energy necessary to enter subjectively into that which we celebrate objectively. Two extremes are to be avoided. First, within the context of the communal character of the Eucharist, it is obvious that it is not question of increasing grace by multiplying the number of eucharistic celebr.ations one attends. This not only emphasizes the individual rather than the com-munal nature of the Eucharist, but it also quantifies grace, distorting its primarily relational character. However, it is equally a mistake to expect each 0"f our eucharistic celebrations to be a peak religious experience. An excessive emphasis on our preparation and readiness for the Eucharist makes it our work rather than God's gift and action on. us. In the Eucharist we are invited once again to enter into the New Covenant. Within the vicissitudes of our life we need to be invited to this oft~en, perhaps even daily. The Lord's Prayer provides,us with the model for the dailiness of our eucharistic celebration for when we ask for our daily bread, this is no less than the Bread of Life. However, this emphasis on the ideal of a daily celebration need be neither slavish nor mechanistic. The essential is to realize that the Eucharist is truly the sacramental focal point of our reli-gious life together. Once this is realized and lived, the frequency of our eucharistic celebration will not be so much a question of legislation as that which is truly possible within our individual circumstances and the expression of who we are as ecclesial women. The relationship between Eucharist and religious community is parallel to the relationship between the Church and the Eucharist. Within ecclesiology today there are many theologies competing with a eucharistic ecclesiology. The search for relevance and liberation has prompted dialogue on what con-stitutes salvatio.n, whether it represents liberation from oppressive societal structures and/or whether it is more properly a release from the bondage of sin. Much of what is good within this discussion represents a healthy correction of the excessive individualism which has plagued us since the Enlightenment. An excessive emphasis on intra-worldly goals of this liberation is now being cort~ected within a broader vision of the drama of sin and grace in the world. That these same tensions are reflected in religious life is no accident since religious life is fundamentally ecclesial. In many ways a religious commu-nity is a microcosm of the larger Church. Within this perspective it is not "186 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1987 sufficient that we pray together, serve the poor and live a common life, We can do all these things without being a religious community. Although our charism is to serve the poor, our primary identity is not that of the social worker. Furthermore, there are times when the non-sacramental aspects of our life lead us away from our true identity as a religious community. For instance, we may become excessively work-orierited. While work for the kingdom is praiseworthy, a certain attitude distorts our work so that it becomes something which we undertake, initiate. Our events replace the Christ event. Communal efforts become our action rather than God's action on us, and the Eucharist becbmes a devotional practice rather than the most fundamental expression of the reality of our lives. The Eucharist is the heart of religious community because it is the histor-ical presence of the New Covenant which unites that community with its Lord. Our primary identity is to be a eucharistic community in union with Christ. Our service of others then flows as a consequence of what the Eucharist means--as a response of thankfulness for what the Lord has done for us, as the service modeled by. Christ at the Last Supper, as a means of facilitating the union of all in Christ. It is then that we can truly say that the Eucharist is the focal point of our lives. Good Friday, April 1, 1983 Gently running, delicate raindrops--spring rain as tears from the windows of my soul. The clear-paned pain allows me to glimpse the promise of life within the dry earth, within myself. Suffering and tears stir tender blossoms deep inside. They struggle to break through the crusty-hard shell, to lift themselves to the long-promised warmth of the loving Son. Sister Mary Therese Macys, S.S.C. 2601 W. Marquette Road Chicago, Illinois 60629 Learning from the Worldly Leo D. Davis, S.J. Father Davis, a member of the Jesuits' Oregon Province, presently resides in Italy, where he may be addressed: Via Spaventa, 4; 50129 Firenze,: Italy. "For the worldly are more astute than the other worldly in dealing with their own kind" (Lk 16:8). Desperate for American reading material while in a foreign country, ] dipped recently into one of the national best sellers of a few years .back, Peters and Waterman's In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies (New York: Warner °Books, 1982). Though not ordi-narily a reader of business literature, I found the book absorbing, not as a study of American business success, but as an indication of why many religious institutes, including my own, fail specifically as organizations to reach their goals. Of course, we religious are not primarily in business: auxiliary to our main purposes we do run businesses. These auxiliary enter-prises, however, are not my concern in this article. Rather, I'm interested in how we organize and conduct ~urselves in spreading the Word of God and serving our neighbor. Can we learn from successful business con-cerns how to do this better? I I~ave it to the readers themselves to judge after considering Peters and Waterman's findings. The two studied sixty-two corporations in the fields of high tech-nology, consumer goods, services, industrial supplies, management and resources. They wanted to discover just what makes these firms leaders in their fields. They found that all agree on an eight point philosophy in doing business. Contr'~ry to what one might expect from business men out to make a 187 11~8 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1987 buck, the authors argue that hardheaded rationality is not enough to suc-ceed. International Telephone and Telegraph, for example, was managed in a rigidly national fashion, and failed. The war in Vietnam was largely run from the Pentagon by Robert McNamara's Ford Company technical "whiz kids," and we all know the outcome. Mere technique however sophisticated, won't do the trick. Planning, long and short range, is needed, but planning can often become an end in itself. Of three hundred twenty-five planning task forces studied, none had yet finished its task after three years of work. Task forces, the authors suggest, should be small, limited in time, volun-tary, and contain some senior staff. Their work should call for no addi-tional staff and produce a minimum of documentation. Follow-up on their recommendations should be swift. Paper shuffling among executives and back and forth between executives and managers can stifle all action. Analysis can lead to . paralysis. Gamesmanship and contention in committees replace action. As one executive commented, it is easier to develop a negative argument f~r doing nothing than to advance a constructive one which issues in action. The authors argue that major concerns should be dealt with one at a time. More than two objectives for a task force mean no objectives at all. There should be constant communication, constant keeping in touch with the realities and persons involved in decisions. Communications should be short and clear; the authors cite the famous practice of Procter and Gamble in restricting all memoranda to a single page. Chaotic action is preferable to no action at all. Experimentation and testing ideas in prac-tice is better than just talking about problems. Get people acting and they solve their problems, and come to believe in what they're doing. Close to the Customer As religious, we're not, as such, selling goods to customers, but we are dealing with people. What are the needs, tastes, preferences of those with whom we deal? Are we willing to put ourselves out for others? The successful companies know their clientele and go to great lengths to serve them. Thomas Watson of International Business Machines had a simple philosophy: We want to give the best customer service of any company in the world. He guaranteed answering any customer complaint in twenty-four hours. Caterpillar Tractors guarantees forty-eight hour service to any country of the world. Frito-Lay aims at a 99.5 percent rate of service in peddling their products; they will spend several hundred dollars to restock a remote store with thirty dollars worth of potato chips. But their reputa-tion for reliability in the end outweighs the short term costs. I'm reminded Learning from the Worldly of an old priest colleague of mine who was preaching to the coffee room audience on service; when a telephone call interrupted him, he told the caller to see him during office hours--and continued his harangue with no sense of incongruity. The Disney people realize what service means; sixteen-year old ticket takers at Disneyland are put through four eight-hour days of training just so they can take tickets with the Disney elan. McDonald's scores of billions of hamburgers are sold by insistence on cleanliness, efficient ser-vice, uniform quality and reliability. Burgers not sold ten minutes after cooking are thrown out; french fries, after seven minutes; and their cashiers are taught to have eye contact with the customers. The authors give an example of the extraordinary lengths to which some companies will go. When a woman complained about a foul-up with a discount air ticket, she wrote to the president of Delta Airlines. The president of the corporation himself met her at the airport and per-sonally presented her with a new ticket. All these companies stress quality. McDonald's, with seven thousand restaurants doing 2.5 billion dollars worth of business annually, tell their stockholders: Quality is the first word in McDonald's motto. Digital Com-puter's philosophy states: "Growth is not our principal goal. Our goal is to be a quality organization and'do a quality job, which means that we will be proud of our work and products for years to come. As we achieve quality, growth will come as a result." There's food for thought here for religious experiencing a decline in vocations. The lonely Maytag serviceman of the TV ads is a symbol of the company's guarantee of ten years' trouble-free operation of any machine. Hewlett-Packard is obsessed with quality; ask them about personnel, they talk quality; ask about sales, they talk quality; ask about management, they talk quality. The president of Heineken Beer says bluntly, "I consider a bad bottle of Heineken a personal insult to me." Until recently, the eighty-two-year-old founder of Marriott Hotels read every complaint card personally. Productivity Through People All members of an organization should be made aware that their best efforts are essential to success and that they will share in that success. Here again we religious in the ranks are not mere employees in the ministries of our institutes. In fact, many times we might be better off in some of America's best companies than at the hands of some religious superiors. One executive complained to the authors: People issues take up all my time. To them he was really saying that his business would be easy to run if it weren't for people. But corporations, like religious institutes, 190 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1987 are people. Those who work in them should be treated as adults and as partners, with dignity and respect. This doesn't mean that they be mollycoddled; they should be given reasonable and clear expectations, and practical autonomy to get the job done. In a study of school teachers, the authors point out it was found that when they held high expectations of their students, that alone was enough to cause an increase of twenty-five points in the students' IQ scores. Workers should understand what is being done and why. Peters and Waterman quote Admiral Zumwalt's method of reorganizing Navy prac-tices: What I tried hardest to do was ensure that every officer and sailor on the ship not only knew what we were about, not only why we were doing each tactical operation, however onerous, but also managed to understand enough about how it all fitted together so that they began to experience some of the fun and challenge that those of us in the top slot were having. 1 knew from experience the impact of treating sailors like the mature adults they were. Dedicated religious women and men deserve no less. Communication between superiors and ranks cannot be mere lip ser-vice, mere gimmicks, but must be a sincere effort to make all really part of the team. Sam Walton has built a company from eighteen to three hun-dred thirty stores, with sales rising from forty-five million dollars, to 1.6 billion dollars and the process made his family the richest in the United States. He always calls his employees "associates." "The key is to get out and hear what the associates have to say," he states. "It's terribly important for everyone to get involved." For him this is not lip service: one sleepless night he went down to the loading dock with four dozen donuts and talked to his "associates." He learned that they needed two more shower stalls in the wash room--and they got them. This is a sur-prising degree of concern in an executive running a 1.6 billion dollar com-pany. Again, when Thomas Watson first took over IBM, he was not out to shake up the company by wholesale transfers and firings, but to buff and polish those already in place so their performance would improve; his bone-deep belief, says his son, was respect for the individual. Peters and Waterman suggest some simple rules iia the treatment of workers: all important communication should be face to face; there should be opportunity for career education; there should be security in their posi-tions. Superiors should be accessible to all, their doors always open. Finally, there should be incentives. "A man wouldn't sell his life to Learning from the Worldly you, but he would give it to you for a piece of colored ribbon," says a war correspondent about soldiers in World War lI. The best corporations go to extraordinary lengths to reward good performance, creating oppor-tunities for showering pens, badges, buttons and medals on their people. At Mars Candy everyone on time for work during the week gets a ten percent bonus; IBM has a "gold circle" for top salespersons; Tupperware senior management spend thirty days a year at "jubilees" for outstanding performers; one company even puts gold stars on a public bulletin board after the names of those who don't miss work. Religious might well feel out of place in an atmosphere like this. Indeed, our vocation is not to look for rewards but to dedicate ourselves to the selfless service of God and neighbor. But superiors, on their side, should be aware of the value of incentives; nothing is more powerful than positive reinforcement. This, the authors advise, should be specific, tan-gible and frequent. They point to a model of motivation in a Procter and Gamble executive who, red in the face and vehement, told a Stanford University seminar: "Just because the product is toilet paper doesn't mean that Procter and Gamble doesn't make it a damn sight better than anyone else." The executive, he continues, is called to help fulfill the individ-ual's search to transcend himself or herself, to avoid isolation and the fear of helplessness, to give people a sense of being, in control of their des-tiny. High performance is based on intrinsic motivations: people must believe that a task is inherently worthwhile if they are to be committed to it. All this to sell toilet paper! Hands On, Value Driven Management The authors insist that the successful executive keeps in close touch not only with personnel but with the firm's essential business. Again Thomas Watson of IBM: "I believe the real difference between success and failure in a corporation can very often be traced to the question of how well the organization brings out the great energies and talents of its people . I firmly believe that any organization, in order to survive and achieve success, must have a sound set of beliefs on which it premises all its policies and actions. Next, I believe that the most important single factor in corporate success is faithful adherence to those beliefs. And, finally, I believe if an organization is to meet the challenge of a changing world, it must be prepared to change everything about itself except those beliefs . " The institutional leader is primarily an expert in the promotion and protection of values. The basic values: a belief in being the best; in the "" "109 / Review for Reiigious, March-April, 1987 importance of the details of execution; in the importance of people as indi-viduals; in superior quality and service; in supporting innovation and tolerating failure. The effective leader must be a master of two ends of the spectrum--ideas at the highest level and actions at the most mundane levels of detail. The top performers create a broad, uplifting, shared: cul-ture, a coherent framework within which charged up people search for appropriate adaptations. The real leader does' not force others to submit and follow him by the sheer overwhelming magic of his personality. He is influential in inspiring and strengthening them; he arouses confidence. Success in instilling values appears to have little to do with charismatic personality. Rather it derives from obvious, sincere, sustained personal commitment to the values the leader seeks to implant, coupled with extraordinary persistence in reinforcing these values. Hewlett- Packard advises its executives to wander around, being approachable, accessible, listening, keeping people informed. Others advise: don't summon people to your office; go see them. Kill grimness with laughter; maintain an atmosphere of informality; encourage exuberance. Without such hands on management, it seems nothing much happens. Stick to the Knitting By this Peters and Waterman mean, "Remain with the business you know best." Organizations that do branch out but stick close to their orig-inal purpose outperform others. Successful companies enter only those businesses that build on, draw strength from, and enlarge some central area of competence. ITT began as an international telephone company, but the tools that it took to run a phone company in Chile didn't help much in the management of newly acquired Continental Baking and Sheraton Hotels. The result was that ITT had to sell off thirty-three busi-nesses. The lesson is never acquire a business you don't know how to run. Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, makers of Scotch tape, make fifty thousand other products and introduce one hundred new ones each year, but all is built around its central coating-and~bonding technology. Procter and Gamble is good at soap, but Pringles' potato chips, machined to uniform size in a neat box, is an apparent failure from the standpoint of consumer taste. Simple.Form, Lean Staff The authors are passionate advocates of clear, simple structural organization so that everyone knows to which boss to report. Some staff gain power by keeping everything vague and unclear. Outlaws can use the lack of clarity to their own advantage and to the detriment of the whole. Learning from the Worldly / 193 With simple organization, fewer staff are needed at headquarters to make things work. Emerson Electric, with fifty-four thousand personnel, has one hundred in corporate headquarters; Dava Industries, with thirty-five thousand, has one hundred; Schlumberger, an oil service company with six billion dollars worth of business annually, has ninety cprporate staff. The Society of Jesus in its headquarters in Rome has ninety-five on the corporate staff for only 25,500 personnel. The story goes around Jesuit circles that at one time our largest province had more departmental provincials than first year novices. "Less is more" in corporate manage-hment, say Peters and Waterman. Simultaneous Loose-Tight Properties By this the authors mean fostering a climate in which there is dedica-tion to the central values of the company combined with tolerance for all employees who accept these values. The central values must be carefully fostered and protected, yet autonomy, entrepreneurship and innovation should flourish among the rank and file. The discipline of shared values provides the framework for all the rest. It gives people confidence to exper-iment stemming from stable expectations of what really counts. Too much overbearing discipline kills autonomy but the discipline of shared values encourages innovation. Rules should reinforce positive traits and not just discourage negative ones. The company should offer meaning, provide guiding belief, create a sense of excitement, a sense of being part of the best, a sense of producing something of quality that is valued. Basic .values should be set in concrete, and executed by attention to mundane, nitty-gritty details. Every hour, everyday is an opportunity to act in sup-port of overarching themes. A lively sense of realism enforces tight disci-pline; the attention to the desires and needs of the clientele is the most stringent means of self-discipline. Autonomy and Entrepreneurship Tight discipline and preservation of basic values should not interfere with a stress on innovation, and a tolerance of failure for those who fail in the pursuit of innovation. Some companies support "skunk works" where the talented mavericks of the business brainstorm and experiment. All of this must be coupled with constant communication and the dogged persistence of innovators to put their ideas across. Interestingly enough, physical proximity is vital in this communica-tion. The authors point out that people working thirty feet apart meet each other only eight to nine percent of the time, while those working only fif-teen feet apart meet twenty-five percent of the time. They maintain that 194 / Roview for Religious, March-April, 1987 the best companies do their work in large, self-contained, campus-like headquarters outside the city. What does all this add up to? What I've tried to say in a modern idiom and detail drawn from actual studies is only what St. Paul told his Corinthians: "You know (do you not?) that at sports all the runners run the race, though only one wins the prize. Like them, run to win! But every athlete goes into strict training. They do it to win a fading wreath; we, a wreath that never fades" (1 Co 9:24-25). The "Active-Contemplative" Problem in Religious Life by David M. Knight Price: $.75 per copy, plus postage. Add ress: Review for Religious Rm 428 3601 Lindell Blvd. St. Louis, Missouri 63108 Modern Media and the Religious Sense of Community Matthias Neuman, O.S.B. Father Neuman is well known to our readers. His last article in these pages was entitled "Personality and Religious Adjustments in Older Candidates" (May/June, 1986). Father Neuman continues to teach at St. Meinrad Seminary; St.Meinrad, Indiana 47577. Back in the sixth century St. Benedict, in his Rule, included a short chap-ter on "The Proper Amount of Drink." To modem ears some of its sug-gestions may seem mildly humorous, yet in context a radical practicality pervades the .thought of this monastic genius. We read that monks should not drink wine at all, but since the monks of our day cannot be convinced of this, let us at least agree to drink mod-erately and not to the point of excess, for wine makes even the ffise to go astray.' Were this same St. Benedict composing a rule for a religious order of the late twentieth century it is quite likely he would feel the need to insert a chapter on "The Proper Amount of Watching Television" with similar suggestions and pleas .for moderation. For few would be the reli-gious men and women today who would agree that they should avoid all television. This article treats some of the background issues which would lead to that hypothetical modern chapter on the proper amount of television. Actually the topic goes far beyond television to include all manner of modem electronic media: radio, stereo systems, cassette players, tele-phones, VCRs and, most recently, computers (can spiritual video games be far behind'?). What religious house is there that has not felt the inva- 195 Review for Religious, March-April, 1987 sion of this technology? What communities today do not admit into for-mation programs young people shaped by a high-intensity media culture? The electronic media have, for better or worse, become part of the ethos of life in twentieth-century America. My basic premise suggests that the presence of these media has influ-enced the communal shape of religious community life far more drastically than we may initially surmise. Surely the use of such media affect common schedules (viewing a late "Special" on some current event) and budgets ("Our office must have a computer!"). Beyond these surface impacts the involvement with media slowly but surely has shifted our very sense of what community means and how we associate as social persons. To media theorists one of the major human effects of all cultural media, and particularly electronic media, is to create a very specific and delimited realization of "being together," a style of how people gather and interact.'- For example, television gathers people physically, but focuses their communal attention outwardly and away from the people around them. Relentlessly sustained participation in such media experi-ences will alter slowly the way one interacts and responds in all situa-tions. Television creates an instant community which passively watches. As an interesting sidelight, when television first began to be widely commercial in the 1950s the leading American theorist on communica-tions flatly predicted that it would never be a success because "people would have to sit in a dark room and ignore each other." One might wonder how far that attitude has affected our religious sense of com-munity? Other entertainment media besides television reinforce this psy-chological separation or distancing from one's immediate surroundings and relationships. Cassettes and stereos supply individual, isolated encoun-ters with music and detached thoughts. Now with portable stereo and ear-phones we can eat, recreate, shop or work, and clearly advertise that we wish no personal contact with anyone immediately around us. The tele-phone brings instant contact over worldwide distances; we start to belong to a global network embracing an incredibly wide range of personal connections. Without our being that aware, these daily immersions into media experience adjust our expectations of personal relationships. In par-ticular they change the way we are involved with the people immediately around us. The previous issue is a critical one for vowed religious who have a spiritual stake in the meaning and practice of community life. According to the Church's law, participation in community is essential for one to be considered a religious by the Church;3 in contemporary theology the for- Modern Media and Community mation of authentic community is praised as a preeminent goal of Chris-tian life and ministry; and in many modern forms of spirituality the very notion of community inclines toward the realizing of the Trinitarian mys-tery of God.4 But with the arrival of the electronic community we had better stop and take a careful look at what precise actions are implied in the linguistic usage of "community jargon." Under the surface we may find a clash of world views taking place, a clash that undermines real com-munity, an undermining that gnaws away in the midst of people busily doing their daily work, living their lives, and talking incessantly about community as an important aspect of their lives. A brief comparison of these contrasting world views of community might focus our reflections. The ancient notion of "religious" com-munity, as traditionally used of the Church as a whole or of particular vowed communities, rested on a conviction of human solidarity borrowed from the goals, structures and attitudes of a close-knit, agrarian, craft-based or familial society. Community here meant the composite of ways that people lived, worked, prayed and played together. The goal of such sustained daily interaction was communal solidarity, mutual commitment, the sharing of hopes and values in a communality of life. The structures which embedded those goals aimed at a slow, patient, day-by-day, elbow-by- elbow building up of emotional bonds and support systems. Just as one learned to love in familially-arranged marriages, so one learned to be a member of a vowed community by the shaping of common intentions formed through daily work and prayer. These community goals and struc-tures depended on social routines of living that stressed the physical prox-imity and sharing of participants over the long haul of life. This religious vision of community was a prize to be won through sustained work and prayer. The concluding words of the Prologue to the Rule of St. Benedict exemplify perfectly this ancient vision: Therefore we intend to establish a school for the Lord's service. In draw-ing up its regu!ations, we hope to set down nothing harsh, nothing bur-densome. The good of all concerned, however, may prompt us to a little strictness in order to amend faults and to s~ifeguard love. Do not be daunted immed!.ately by fear and run away from the road that leads to salvation. It is bound to be narrow at the outset. But as we progress in this way of life and in faith, we shall run on the path of God's commandments, our hearts overflowing with the inexpressible delight of love. Never swerving from his instructions, then, but faithfully observ-ing his teaching in the monastery until death, we shall through patience share in the sufferings of Christ that we may deserve also to share in his kingdom.5 1911 Review for Religious, March-April, 1987 How divergent appears the community of the electronic mindset! It presents instantaneous intentions drawn from anywhere in the world, and on any topic, from far bey6nd the gathered viewers, and its heightened visual intensity etches those intentions into the awareness of participants. Electronic media joins the viewers automatically to a national and world community. The communal intentions that bind us here are all given by what the media chooses to focus on and present. The solidarity of the elec-tronic community does not flow from a patient and lengthy building up of common intentions, but,from the impulsive response to instantaneously given themes. It is a fragile solidarity indeed. Its communality depends on intensity to maintain interest. (So it must deal with a topic ever more heatedly-~or find a new topic.) And media are powerfully effective! By themselves the media constitute a very real and engaging psychological support system. Any individual can retire to the privacy of his or. her room and by means of TV, radio or stereo be in touch with any particular psychological input (to soothe, to excite, to reinforce love, to wal,low in nostalgia). It is a support system that dispenses with flesh and blood people. It is instant electronic community, and is radically different from the older notion of religious community founded on agrarian, craft and familial social patterns. This latter style has been the traditional founda-tion of vowed religious community life in the Church, but it is being increasingly challenged by the newer media style. The critical point I wish to raise is this: if religi6us communities of today believe they can continue to stress and intend the older form of com-munity while allowing the ever-spreading presence and use of electronic media, they are sadly deceiving themselves. Houses in which many indi-viduals hold active ministerial positions in the Church and society must face the challenge more acutely; these people need bolstering in stronger doses. Their increased emotional drain begs for a multitude of psy-chological supports. Make no mistake! Electronic media constitute a pow-erful psychological support system, and by themselves they can under-mine the traditional ethos of familial religious community. The inherent reason that electronic media form such a strong psy-chological buttress lies in their ability to alter the fundamental shape of our sense perceiving. Lengthy exposure to media causes differences in the balancing of sight, hearing, touch and balance. Marshall McLuhan, the great pioneer of media theory, noted that electronic media create an instant sensorium, synthesizing sight, sound and touch simultaneously.~ The music video (MTV) is a perfect example of instantaneous multiple sensual involvement. Through this complex sensory input the perceiver's emotions "heat up" quickly; they can attain an intense level of inner Modern Media and Community involvement, and even psychologically remove the perceiver from the pressures of the present. If I happen to be dealing with some specific vexing problem and my feelings are.tired or conflictive, how smoothly a change comes from flipping on the TV or putting a favorite record on the stereo. These media generate an instant, sensual response and become a psychological support system in themselves. Many aspects of the traditional style of community life have already been affected by the intrusion of media into the daily life of religious houses. The structure and frequency of common recreation has altered sig-nificantly. I've heard many individuals either lament or factually describe the practical disappearance of large community-recreation sessions, the evening walks of many people, the diminishment of common reading rooms. In their place have appeared public television rooms, usually more than one to accommodate smokers and non-smokers (for men's houses) or Dan Rather or Tom Brokaw fans (for women's houses). In some communities the time of the evening news program has influenced the daily schedule of meals arid prayer, although the more recent advent of the video cassette has eliminated this temporary problem. The electronic media have subtly altered what people look for in rec-reation itself, that is, what we expect from and put into a period of recre-ation. In the older familial style, recreation was in part a kind of work, an effort to get to know the individuals of the community and to construct these common intentions that make a group into a true communitas. Russell Baker in his delightful autobiography, Growing Up, reminisced about his childhood evenings when the whole family would sit around the kitchen table for three hours or more, each working at some game, hobby or menial task and conversing about different aspects of their day and inter-ests. Such a scenario would be practically impossible for someone raised in today's media world; it would be the ultimate "bore." Although it is so much easier to watch television, maybe recreation for both families and religious communities needs to recapture some aspects of work and effort. Perhaps it's a modern area of life that demands a practi~:al asceticism. Maybe we should go back to ~the basics and see recreation not just as a time of personal leisure but also as a special moment for build-ing the common intentions with real people that will bond us to a particu-lar group. In the last several decades electronic media have frequently become an intrinsic part of the way some religious communities care for their elderly. Mothers with small children often refer to the television set as the "essential babysitter." The TV also gets used as companion an~ diversion for the infirm and bedridden. Has anyone ever wondered what 200 Review for~Religious, March-April, 1987 kind of psychological impact or shift in fantasy those old priests and sis-ters experience through their continual exposure (subjection) to game shows, soap operas and nighttime police stories? It's a thought worth pondering. In some cases those various media have even generated a new com-munity "official," like the custodian of the TV set or the curator of video movies. Their responsibilities are varied: get the TV guide from the Sunday paper before it disappears, tape the evening news for later rerun, moderate disputes about which programs will be watched, and so on. One final way that the media impinge on religious community life today may be in their subtle escalation of psychological depression. More than a few observers have suggested that depression is merging on becom-ing a national epidemic, the prototypical American social disease that eve-ryone seems to suffer from at one time or another. Depression results from a mixture of physical, psychological and social causes: weariness and exhaustion combine with discouragement that we have not met our expected goals within a social context that regularly fails to provide sus-taining or creative human relationships. All of these causes can be com-monly present in work-oriented, overly-structured and perfection-motivated religious houses. When someone senses the weariness and dis-couragement that keys the onset of depression, the easiest response is to plop in front of the TV set and watch "anything." It takes no effort at all. Paradoxically the unintended result may intensify those precise psy-chological and social roots of depression, the unreal expectations and the distance from people. Some psychologists have postulated a sharp link-age between TV addiction and habitual depression; the two feed each other in a vicious circle.7 Even though modern media present many difficulties, we could also point to effects which play a positive role: accurate information of world-wide import, entertainment of the highest artistic quality, and new, essen-tial ways of proclaiming the Christian message, as well as a very valid recreational dimension. St. Benedict probably would make the same kinds of concessions that he did about drinking wine. Certainly we ought to borrow his insights about moderation, as well as recognize that the media are probably here to stay in our contemporary houses. In the long run the challenge will be to discover a sense of com-munity living that binds together the older familial style of community with the newer style of spontaneous and heightened psychological interchange. Both possess strong values: the former, a powerful-sense of ptiysical togetherness in work and prayer, a set of common goals built up through repeated sharing, and the virtue of perseverance; the latter, an Modern Media and Community / 201 emphasis on the value of emotional support and a true recreational element in community. The merging of these two styles will affect all types of societal living today: the family, the social organization, the local parish, as well as the monastery. Unfortunately we have usually tended to oppose the different views in an either/or perspective. Without doubt the quality of community living has changed drastically in religious houses since those first telephones, radios and tele-vision sets were brought in. The wisdom of Benedict suggests that it's doubtful if the monks and sisters of our time can be convinced that these instruments are not good for them. So, at least, let us use them not to addiction, but to moderation. That's an incredible word of practical wisdom that resounds through the centuries! NOTES ' RB 1980: The Rule of Benedict. Edited by Timothy Fry, O.S.B., (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1981), p. 241. The quotation is from chapter 40, vv. 6-7. ' Margaret Miles, Image as Insight (Boston: Beacon Press, 1985), pp. 128-132, 148. 3 Canons 573, 602. Code of Canon Law (Washington, DC: Canon Law Society of America, 1983), pp. 219, 227. 4 Evelyn Eaton Whitehead and James Whitehead, Community of Faith: Models and S~t rRaBte 1gi9e8s0 f:o rT Dhee vReulolep ionfg S Ct.h Briesntieadni cCto, mppm. u1n6i5ti-e1s6 (7N.6e Mw aYrsohrakl:l SMecaLbuurhya nP,r Uesns,d 1e9r8s2ta).nd-ing Media: The Extensions of Man (New York: New American Library, 1964), pp. 57-67. See developments of these ideas by John Culkin, S.J., in McLuhan: Hot and Cool, edited by Gerald Emanuel Stem (New York: New American Library, 1967), pp. 49-57. -, 7 Jerry Mander, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television (New York: Morr6w Quill, 1978). Also Marie Winn, The Plug-In Drug. (New York: Viking, 1977). Vocation Directors and Healthy Sexuality Sheila Murphy Dr. Murphy is a professor of psychology at Walsh College (2020 Easton St. N.W.; Canton, Ohio 44720) and is also Director of the Rogativa Center, an educational/ research facility, located on the campus, which serves the needs of women and men religious internationally. An earlier article, "Maximizing Human Potential," appeared in the issue of January/February, 1979. A vital concern to vocation directors is the healthy sexuality of the can-, didates they interview. Numerous workshops, articles, and lectures develop interviewing techniques, questions to ask, and areas to cover to facilitate directors' attempts to discover, during initial interviewing, the quality of candidates' sexuality integration. While these are all necessary and important, they represent only half of the story; the other half is the vocation director's own healthy sexuality and sexual integration. All persons are challenged to healthy sexual integration, and vocation directors, especially, must respond to this challenge because of the qual-ity and nature of their ministry. As initial gatekeepers of religious insti-tutions, their perceptions, judgments, and reactions regarding applicants determine whether of not, in many cases, candidates progress beyond expressing initial interest in a congregation or diocese. In this vital role, vocation directors need to be very clear about which interview issues are their own and which belong to the candidates. This is particularly essen-tial in the area of healthy sexuality. Healthy Sexuality--A Definition Healthy sexuality reflects the integration of the total person. Not a "separate" area of human development, sexuality is the total expression 202 Vocation Directors and Healthy Sexuality / 203 of an individual's social, intellectual, physical, and emotional develop-ment. In addition, the combination of these is also the individual's spirituality--the person's complete expression of who she or he is in rela-tionship to self, to others, and to God. Everything people do is sexual. Embodied as women or men, people express their femaleness or maleness in all aspects of their beings. As a ¯ female, for example, everything I do is sexual because I do everything as a woman; I do not function as an it, nor can I be a man. This simple yet relatively new concept was not part of the pre-Vatican theology or sociology in which most people were raised. On the contrary, most grew up in a time when sexuality was associated with genital behaviors, the epit-ome of which was heterosexual intercourse, and divorced from all other areas of human functioning. Within that limited perspective, the full gamut of interpersonal interaction, like self-disclosure, affection, and play-ful touching, were either dismissed as trivial or judged to be suspect behaviors employed as a prelude to the "real thing," i.e., genital inter-course. Also in ~this perception, people's social, emotional, and intellec-tual development were believed to be unrelated to their sexual integration. Such beliefs led to personality fragmentation, suggesting to people that they could compartmentalize their beings and their lives as if they were machines rather than vibrant, dynamic individuals. Because people are constantly emerging as persons, so, too, is their sexuality. Understandings of themselves that answered yesterday's questions may no longer be viable for today's. This all implies that a per-sonal understanding of sexuality is nbt a "one shot" insight to be devel-oped in adolescence (another myth perpetrated by the pre-Vatican II the-ology and sociology), but an ongoing struggle for authenticity. Vocation directors, like other religious, have been struggling for years to incorporate these newer understandings of self, sexuality, and spirituality into their religious lives and their ministries. A formidable task, this requires a rethinking and readapting of many teachings and beliefs that were entrenched in childhood and young-adult education. Fur-thermore, not all are in agreement regarding this concept; theologians, priests and religious continue to argue the place of sexuality in human development. As a personal and corporate enterprise, developing healthy sexuality is no easy task! Sexuality as a holistic concept suggests that the overall quality of people's lives is reflected in their interactions. If they are having difficul- .ties with their feelings, then these people will have difficulties with their sexuality. If intellectually confused or agitated, then they will be sexually and spirituhlly impeded. Feeling unaccepted by or alienated from their pri- 204 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1987 mary support congregation or diocese, these people will suffer other rela-tional and spiritual problems as well. Hazards of Vocation Ministry Vocatipn ministry is uniquely demanding, and recent reports and research on vocation directors indicate the importance of personal and sexual integration. Perhaps one of the most telling findings is th~ fact that the attrition rate from the ministry on the part of vocation directors exceeds sixty percent. They leave the ministry altogether either while still functioning as directors or shortly after terminating their positions. This certainly underscores the intensity and problems indigenous to this ministry. Another finding is the high rate of burnout reported by vocation directors. It is not uncommon for a vocation director to wear a variety of ministerial hats simultaneously. Many hold two or more jobs, each of which is reputed to be part-time but which, in fact, requires full-time involvement and energy. In addition to their vocation .ministry, many administrate diocesan offices (e.g., deaconate programs), function as parish pastors, or hold full-time teaching positions. They do many differ-ent things during the day, yet retire at night feeling exhausted and unfulfilled, both of which lead to apathy, resentment, and indifference-- all classic symptoms of burnout, the result of unmet personal needs. Some vocation directors report increased cynicism and hostility ~oward the people they serve. What they initially entered into with enthu-siasm and optimism has become fraught with boredom and drudgery. Another manifestation of burnout, this frequently translates into intropunitive aggression whereby some vocation directors gain an average of ten to thirty pounds a year; others convert their cynicism into increased alcohol and drug consumption. A frequent complaint of vocation directors is the pain of alienation they experience from the very groups they represent. Erratic s~hedules, travel, and workshop demands can preclude regular contact with their base group for prayers, meals, and recreation. Praying and eating alone can be lonely experiences, so vocation directoi's may seek support else-where. Sometimes they request a transfer to another community or diocese; sometimes they look outside their congregations for their primary support networks. In either case, they become increasingly disenchanted with their communities and .their work, all of which contributes to the high attrition rate reported above. Another source of alienation from base congregation and diocesan groups is the updated education most vocation directors receive. As fre- Vocation Directors and Healthy Sexuality / 205 quent participants in workshops, conferences, and regional meetings, voca-tion directors are exposed to the most recent theorizing and research in issues pertinent to religious life. They hear the latest on theological and psychological implications for richer ministerial actualization, and they are eager to implement these insights in their own communities. The base groups, not having been similarly exposed, are often confused over these "newfangled ideas" which seem to come as a shot in the dark. "After all," they reason, "this person is seldom with us. She or he is out and about, breezes in for a day or two, and expects us to change overnight without being an active member in the change process." Mutual recrimina-tions ensue; vocation directors perceive their base groups as closed to new ideas while base group members perceive vocation directors as free-wheeling individuals with their own cars, budgets, and schedules, and who enjoy the luxury of travel and trouble shooting. These conflicts play themselves out as a painful push-pull between the directors' pleas for inno-vation and the group members' refusal to budge. Vocation directors may then conclude that they can no longer, in honesty, represent their com-munities, which they have come to view as narrow-minded and static. Another source of personal frustration and community alienation for vocation directors is the intangibility of results in vocation ministry. Many congregations and seminaries stress the importance of quality candidates, yet when yearly evaluations roll around, actual "body count" seems to loom larger than quality control. Vocation directors have been known to invest enormous amounts of time and energy in candidates who, through such intense interaction, learn that ministry is not their authentic vocation. These individuals do not show up on "body count" charts, and vocation directors again find themselves trying to justify themselves as "really doing their jobs." Candidates who opt out of niinisterial pursuits have truly been ministered to. Yet how to account for such ministry is a dilemma faced by all vocation directors. ,~ Another problem reported by vocation directors is the feeling of "going crazy." Not unique to vocation directors, this symptom is fre-quently accompanied by the fragmentation experienced during normal, predictable, adult-development transitions. A person going through midlife transition while engaging in vocation ministry may feel that life has become too much to bear. Unable to differentiate ministerial issues from developmental issues, vocation directors can come to the premature and often erroneous conclusion that their work is the sole source of all their problems. Further compounding the situation is their perceived alien-ation from community, which leads vocation directors to believe that they cannot honestly voice their concerns to their brothers and sisters. 206 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1987 Taken together, these hazards can leave vocation directors feeling lonely and alone. Feeling alienafed, angry, and perhaps personally inade-quate, vocation directors are ripe for relational and sexual problems. Warning Signs There are many signs indicating that vocation directors are in rela-iional or sexual jeopardy. The following represent a compilation of several voiced by religious and diocesan vocation directors over the past few years. "Using relationships" can suggest poor sexual integration. This means viewing people as means to an end rather than ends in themselves. This occurs when directors approach others for what they can offer or do for them." Referring to others by title ratherthan by name--"my secre-tary," "my candidate," "my brother priest," "my sisters in community"--all are examples; they imply either ownership and/or dis-tance. The personal element is missing, suggesting that others' functions and/or commodities are more important than their persons. Some directors are plagued by pervasive anger, another signal of distorted sexual integration. They find everyone and everything upsetting, behaving as seething cauldrons of discontent. Their inability to enjoy life, to derive pleasure from people or activities, points directly to a lack of personal integration, which leads to impoverished sexual and spiritual expression. The challenge for these individuals is to identify the sources of their anger and to do what they can to rectify the situation rather than to target others inappropriately. Any increase in indulgence signals danger. Most people probably think of alcohol, drugs, or food in this regard, ,but they would be simplistic to end their list with these. Any compulsive indulgence is a warn-ing: compulsive exercise, compulsive visiting, compulsive TV viewing, and compulsive reading are a few examples. These behaviors represent a struggle to impose external controls which, individuals hope, will com-pensate for internal chaos. It is the internal fragmentation that threatens healthy integration, not the lack of food, exercise, or reading in their lives when people carry these activities to extremes. Another warning sign is preoccupation with others' relationships. These people seem to be perpetually immersed in somebody else's sexual/ relational lives. Most often the targets of their concern are family mem-bers~ and friends outside of the primary community or diocesan base group. Living vicariously through others will never substitute for living authentically through personal relationships, yet these people would prefer relationship-atka-distance to 15ersonal risk. They seem to be inter- Vocation Directors and Healthy Sexuality / 207 ested in relationship, yet they live divorced from relationship. Further-more, by attending to those outside of the base community or group, these women and men are avoiding their obligations of presence to and relationship within their primary commitment arena. Curiosity focused almost exclusively on others' sexual behaviors is a clear indication of unresolved personal sexual issues. Vocation directors must be especially vigilant in this by observing and monitoring the kinds of topics and questions that seem to demand their greatest energies. Does the conversation always seem to turn to sex? Are dates reviewed in minute detail? Are sexual histories more detailed than educational or family histories? Affirmative responses to any of these suggest that the vocation directors, more than the candidates, may have sexual problems. It is possible that directors are projecting their own needs and fantasies onto the candidates. A very obvious warning sign is a preoccupation with overtly sexual material. Increased viewing of x-rated films, compulsive reading and/or collecting of pornographic literature, and frequenting of strip bars may reveal unresolved sexual and relational tensions. Here, the problem is not so much one of the preoccupation itself as what it signifies. Marked changes in affectional displays, either noticeable reductions or increases, can be symptomatic of sexual disintegration. Normally affectionate people who become stand-offish, or normally distant people who suddenly need to touch whomever they are talking with,'are sending out pleas for help. In effect, they are demonstrating current discomfort with themselves and are revealing this through their behavior. .In all of these, people have failed to integrate or are struggling to rede-fine their sexual identities. As happens when individuals are agitated, they tend to look to others and the environment first as the possible source of or solution to their difficulties. Until the inner source or solution is dis-covered, these individuals are doomed to look for answers in all the wrong places, frus~trating themselves and others in the process. Healthy sexuality is a personal responsibility and privilege. Developing Healthy Sexuality The fii'st step toward h.ealthy sexual integration is education. People need to learn the basics of biology and human sexual response so they can make informed decisions about their personal sexuality. People in our society too often grew up in a culture where sexual myths outweighed facts, generating fear and inco .mplete information. Many women and men continue to function out of adolescent fears and fantasies developed when they learned half the sexual stor3) from friends who had, at best, about 201~ / Review for Religious, March-April, 1987 one-tenth of the total plot. The sad tragedy is that many women and men religious do not know how to read their own body responses when in intense or angering or sexual situations. Simple, straightforward informa-tion is an available corrective. A sad reality is that men, more than women, are reluiztant to seek solid sexual education. Current research sug-gests that this is because men in our culture have been raised to believe that they must be sexually knowledgeable, and to seek information wo(ild be to violate their masculine image. Credible vocation directors, like all religious and priests, cannot afford to perpetuate that stereotype. Personal sexual evaluation is the next step toward healthy sexual integration. Armed with valid biological and sexual data, women and men must then assess their personal sexual identities. They must ask them-selves, "How comfortable am I with my own sexuality? What does it mean to be a woman? What does it mean to be a man? Do I know when I am sexually aroused, and what can I do about it within the bounds of my public celibate stance? What is my definition of relationship, and where does affection and/or sexual expression apply?" The answers to these and related questions must come from within. Opinions and text-books can guide reflection, but personal response is essential. Along with personal sexual evaluation is the challenge to develop s6me understanding of personal sexual orientations, whether they be ambisexual, homosexual/lesbian, or heterosexual. Since sexuality is con-stantly in process, so also will be individuals' assessment of their identities, but this does not preclude the need to think about and accept where they find themselves at this time in their process. Developing and evaluating personal philosophies of celibacy, sexuality, and intimacy are prerequisites to healthy sexual integration. People must hold themselves accountable to some code of sexual moral-ity. Too many people employ too much energy reacting to and refuting others' definitions of sexual

Issue 3.5 of the Review for Religious, 1944. ; Review :for Religious SEPTEMBI~R 15, 1944 Forestalling Pains of Purgatory . Clarence McAu]|ffe. A#ostolate of the Cross . Robert S. Bten ¯ Sanity and Sa ,nctity . G. Augu, sfine Ellard ~Bur~s~r General of Religious Institute . Adam C. Ellis. ~ Are You Sbrry for Your Sins? . Gerald Kelly~ I~ooks Receiged Communlca÷ions Questions Answered~ D~ci~ions of the Hbly See NUMBER-5 " REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ~ VOI£.UME III ;EPTEMBER 15, 1944 NUMBER CONTENTS FORESTALLING THE PAINS OF PURGATORY-- Clarence McAulit~e, S. 3 .-. ~. 289 BOOKS RECEIVED ',. " 296 THE APOSTOLATE OF THE CROSS Robert B. Eiten, S.J. 297 DECISIONS OF THE HOLY S~E OF INTEREST TO RELIGIDUS366 OUR CONTRIBUTORS . 306 SANITY AND SANCTITY--G. Augustine Ellard, S.J . 307 BOOKLETS ON VOCATIONS . 325 COMMUNICATIONS (On Retreats) . , . 326- THE'. BURSAR GENERAL OF A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTEm Ndam C. Ellis, S.J . 329 , ARE YOU SORRY FOR,,YOUR SINS? Gerald Kelly, S.3 ~.3.3.5. BOOKLETS . 348 BOOK REVIEWS (Edited by Clement DeMuth, S.J.)-- St. Dominic and His Work: Father Tim; The General Who Rebuilt the Jesuits; My Father's Will; A Key to Happiness; The Eternal Priesthood; An ~Introduction to Philosophy; JummariUm Theologiae Moralis ~. 349 QUESTIONS AND ANSW'ERSm 30. Entrance into Novitiate after lapse from Faith .". 357 31. Meaning of "Patrimony" . . 357 32. Excommunicated Persons and Sunday Mass . 35~ 33. Asking Pardon after an Offense . 359' *" 34. Quality of Benediction Candles . 360 35. Position of Candles and Flowers on Altar . 360~ REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, September, 1944. Vol. III, No. 5. Published bi-monthly: January, March, May, July, September, and November at the College Press, 606 Harrison Street, Topeka, Kansas, by St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas, with ecclesiastical approbation. Entered as second class matter January 15, 1942, at the Post Office, Topeka, Kansas, under the act of March 3, 1879. Editorial Board: Adam C. Ellis, S.3., G. Augustine Ellard, S.J., Gerald Kel!y, S.3. Copy?ight~ 1944, by Adam C. Ellis. Permission is hereby granted for quotation.s of reas, onable length,: provided due credit be given this review and the author. Subscription price: 2 dollars a year. Printed in U.S.A. Before writing ,to us, please consult notice on inside back cover. '-~i'~Y GIVING the rock a double strike in order to'prodh(e, v;'ater for the Israelites._'(Numbers 20:11, !2), Moses '~ ~oPAINS OF PURG.~TORY "~" :~. .~, "~Granted these cioOnn d.i.t S, .how~ can e levee ,lm " un- -t~.in21of ~emporaLlSunishment thai: ~asts ,its shado.w upon.,, our lives? First of all, by indulgences. These favors granted ~-" by~.~he-Church aim directly at'the deletion of temporMpuia ishment. A ~in~le ple.nary in.d, ulgence, gained by one who . has,had all his venial sins forgiven, annihilates ,at once eirery ~.-, l~it'of this punishment, r~gar~lless of the ~iumber or grav{ty "of his past offenses. As ~as-pointed out by, Father-Thomas A."~O'.Connbi; ~S.J:, in this RI~VIEW (November, 1942,. ":PP" 3-82~389)~dvery religious ~and priest may: easily gain five such plenary in~dulgen~es every day, ~6qcever, even ~if we n~eglect these opportunities, we. 'very likely ~gain~,~ucfi ~pl~nary indu~.gences perio~dically during the year, for in-~ stance, a~ yhe. c0nclusion.0f our annual retreat and, during .the, Forty Hours. If some past venial sin still lingers on o~r soul so ~;that the. plenary indulgence cannot produce its full eit'ect~, it nevertheless remits a part o,f our t~mporal punish-ment. . Besides plenary indulgences, all of us gain many paifial one~; especi~alfy by~ use. of aspiratiofis. These. accord.i.ng to ;their-designated value may i~emove hs mu~h temporal p.u~n-i~ shrrient as was taken away by fifty dr a hundred or five "hundred days of rigorous canonical pen.ance in the early ChurcH'.° When we reflect h6w, severethese penances:w~ere,. ' W~ must admitthat an indulgence, even of fifty days, must :' make,deVastating inroads on our sinful debt. But indulgences are not the. only-means~at our disposal. t~v~ry _fime.~ tha~t'we approach "the Sacrament'of Pen ask .God., fo~? many other ~pirittial bles,~ings: in i]Sra.y~ers. In the same+ way we may ask this fiivor+and it ;will be'granted. -- ~Finally, we should remember that ~ome other living d> person may be offering satisfaction for us'and so b~ reducing ~" our t~emporal punishment. I~ is impossible, of course; for_. Other p~ople t6 apply their indulgences for us. It is also impossible, for them to transfer to Us the au~om~tic.r~emoval .of tempora! punishment proceeding from their assistance at ~Ma~ss; their;reception of the Sacraments of Penanc.e, and Of Extreme Unction.~ But they may give us the satisfactory ~ 'valge _of their unsough'~ suffe_ring~, of" their "prayers, fasting; almsde~ds and Other Works of piety,", and of all theit other good a~tions,of each day~ We on our part can ~\i-'~e~r~Srm.an act of charity by surrendering the Value ~f so.me of Our own satisfactory works for the °benefit of others.~" " Faced by such an array Of evidence,_, we must co~ncludi~- Ythat.it is quite possible for any ~onsdcrated' .person to die ¯ with all .temporal punish~ment for past' forgiven sins removed. ' In fadt~, it is highlyprobable that many religious' ~do ~o die. It is even likely, that many religious contribute generously-to the~ spiritual treasury of the Church by ~ acquiring much 'more expiatory wealth thin they them: o selves need. These thoughts should non-induce;any remiss-ne~ ss on ou~r-part in ou'r efforts, to gain such wealth, since we do nbt know precisely the size of our sinful.debt. In addi-~ ~. tion, every one of the satisfactory works mentioried also has a-nieritorious aspect, s~o that their perfo~rmance necks_-." sar~ily results-in a greater degree of glory in heaven. Ma,y we then say that rn'ost~ consecrated .persons nearer dday in purgatory at all? Not necessarily. The ~videhce~. ,adduced in this article sirhp!y indicates that Such persons; ;~can escape purgatory.as far as their temp.oral debt for past -~ _ 295 CLARENCE MC ULIFFE °~ ~ forgiven iins is conc~rned~ -But.pu'rgatory. may;open.its doors on ariother score. We may. have on our souls a~ i:leath;~ .many venial sins. ~hat have never been-forgivdn. Sii~cetheir ~uilt yet remain's, tiaeir temporabtSuni'shment will havei6 be,undergone in purgatory,, because temporal punishment may.never be, ex.piated previous to the remission of guilt. N~vertheless, solid evidence could be adduced to prove that ~religious can die° with every t~ace, of sinffil guilt rembved so. that they would enter with6ut any delay into the of heaven. ¯Book~ Received (From dune ZO to August~ 20) B. HERDER BOOK CO. St. LoUis. T~d Philosopht, l of-St. Thomas Aquinas. By Hans Meyer. T~anslated ~b th~ Reverend Frederic Eckhoff. $5.00. The Ascetical Life. ~By the R~,erefid ~ Pascal P. Parents, S.T.D., Ph. D., J.C.B. $2.50. The ,8ouls. By the Reverend Wendelin Meyer. O.F.M. ~nd Others. Translated~by ~he Reverend Andrew Green. O.S.B. $3.00. =Deaconship: Conferences~. on ihe, Rite o~ Ordination. By the Reverend Aloysius Biskupek, S.V.D. $°2.50. Molders of the Medieval Mind: The Influence of the Fathers of the Church ~on the Medieval Schoolmen. By the Reverend Frank P. Cassidy, Ph.D. $2.00., THE- BRUCE PUBLISHING COMPANY, Milwaukee. ¯ A ~,Vorld to Reconstruct:-Plus XII on Peace and Reconstruction. By Guido Gbnella. Translated-by the Reverend T. Lincoln Bouscaren, S;2. ,under the ¯ ausI~ices of The Bishops' Committee on the Pope's Peace Poifits.~ $3.50. ~ The General Who Rebuilt the desuits. By the Reverend Robert G.- North.: S.d. $3.00. THE NEWMAN BOOKSHOP,,Westminster, Md. Humiliql of Headt. By Ft. Cajetan Mary da Ber'gamo, O.F.M.~ap. Translated by Herbert Cardinal Vaughan. $2.50. " Abridgment o~ the Interior Spirit "o~ tb~ Religious of the Visitation of Hol~l Maql. Explained by Saint F~rancis de Sales. Revised translation from the French Edition of 1914. ~ $1.25~ THE MARlST BROTHERS. St. Ann's Hermitage, Pougbkeepi~e, N. Y. "Oar Lafly's Praise. (In poetry'). Compiled by Brother cyril Robert of,the' Marist Brothers of the Schools. $2.25 . _ THE ABBEY PRESS, St. Meinrad, Ind. ~,~Do 1 Reall~l Believe?: Meditations' 6n the Apostles" Creed. By the Re~'erend Henri Lebon. S.M. T~anslated by the Rever'end~Peter Resch, S.M. $2.25. FIELD AFAR PRESS. New York. Mar~kn611 Mi~'aion'L~tters: Volume 1. 1944. $.50. " . , 296 " " heApos :o!h e of Cross Robert B. Eiten, S.J. C~UFFERIN~'andthe cross are bard for all of us. ~ pine u~nder their weight. ~vre are constantly forced to seek ne~w and striking motives for bearing them. ~t : one ,time perhaps the motive of self-preservation or , " "keeping spiritually-fit" made a ~trong appeal t0~us. Agair~ ~we might have turned our eyes to the p?~st and" seen -° ~p.~rso.nal.siffs.~ Right order demanded that these sins. be ~-~ expiated; hence the motive of expiation for our person.ai mental,health is a matter 0f~'developi.ng rational habit~. o- Given~sani_ty and grace, spiritual perfection depe.nds upon '- ~-buiiding up supernatural habits. ,° -. ¯ Analgsi~ of the Irrational Of both'health of mind and ascetical perfection the dbadly enemy is unreason, or better, irrational emotion. .What St. Augustine writes of sin is true ,also of every ,unsound habit. "It is not wrong to say thaLevery sin i's a falsehood. For eve.ry sin is commited only.with the inten- ~ fion that it sh6uld-be well'with us, or that it Should not be evil with ~s. Therefore there is the falsehood that, although . so.methingfis" done that it may b~e well -g-ith us, it is ~hence , really rather evil with us, or that, although something is done that it m~iy be better with us, it is thence ~eally rather worse with u.s" (De CiuitateDe/. xIV, 4).ludas's experi-ence, partkularly his disappointment with the thirty p.iedei -6f silver;, is a good illustration. Accordingly, in "every unwholesome habit, as well as in every sin, there is a cer-" taih sel~-contradiction', ~elf-deception, and self-frustra'tio~. One seeks satisfaction and gets d~ssatisfaction, or at least if /he doesget a certain satisfaction, he also. suffers a greater ~ dissatisfaction. He looks for the truth and finds an. untruth : he'inten~ls good and brings evil upon himself: 'What :is fals~ can be accepted only under the guise bf truth, andevil . .-can-be willed 0nly under the fallacious appearance .of g_oo.d. Bgth in unhe~ilthy and in sinful habits two esi~ntial ,,.elements are discernible: a false judgment,, giving diiec.tibn, and an emotional force, fundamentally go_od., but mis-directed, an_d" moving to action: If there were no erroneous judgment, one would b~ acting ~in accordance ~with trfith ~nd goodness, and hei~ce rightly. If there were no emotion, there would not be any action at all. It is as if a business::" 309 man invested money to make a profit and sustained aloss~_ or astir a sick man meant to t~ke a medicine and ~drank a~ poison. .Thus the scrupulous man seeks to please God anff by his irrational behavior does what is objdctively dis-: pleasing to Him,~ of~he strives.to make his salutation mdfe' secure and~ at the, same time by-his wrongheadedness really' renders it less certain, or he tries to fulfill the tiniest jot and -~tittle, of tl~e.l"aw and violates the fundamenfal principle~o~f la~ that one should 15e sane and rational. Mor~eover, in both~ the psychical and ethi~a,1, spheres it is mogtly t~he same-emotional forces that ~ause'the trouble: namely, the ego-instinct orpride, the sexual urge, fear, and sadness.° "- ~ _. Fivg Wags of~ Meeting Problems Functional psychic- disorders commonly originate conflict with 0some.~u._nplea~sant reality Which frustrates' br .threatens tO frustrate_~one in s6me way. There are eraL possibilities. "Some m~ke the right and in ouk,case; it would b~e the ~religious Yeaction: they face the ,facts -squarely, . see what is to be doneabout them, and then d0it promptly and courageously. Other are not so happy. Some "take to flight. A soldier who is afraid to. fight and also to °admit it, conveniently becomes blind or paralyzed, and is excused; thus he saves both himself and the respett in which. he is held by himself and others. Another man withdrav~s into a dream-w0rld of his own creation. A third over-" ~whelms himself with external distractions: A third group ~ of people [ightltheir dit~iculty, but not in the normal way. ¯ , A man who is overtimid before other men, intimidates a~d browbeats his family, and~thus compensates. An indication . of this t~endency in human nature is observable in the fact that oftentimes the ,less one's authority, the greater.~.the show. that one makes of it. ~A'ma;a who is fearful of his ° ability to rCsist the attractions of women, may. carefully 310 ~ September)' 1944 ~ ~" , ,~ .9 ,SANITY AND SANCTITY -cultivate a dislil~e and ~ontempt for ~ll the fairer h~lf"of the "~hUman r~c~e, and never miss a chance to disparage them. A ~po~ential drunkard may become a rabid teetotalist.'- wh~o tAri efso utor tshe rcvlea stsw oof m paesrtseorns,s c, olrinkper othmeis em wain.~ ihnt htehier ~G doisffpie:l .~ulty. -An ambitious young priest sets out t~make. tinguished career for himself;~dne~that is rather high for limitations. ° Gradually he yields before great flifficulfies. But he doe.s.not give up hi'aim nor,the ~atisfaction that the - thbught of it brings. He concentrates attention ~on all the \~obst~iCii~s in his way, exaggerates them, perhaps adds a few. ~'of his own niaking; and finally reaches the c6mf6rting~ on-clusion that, alth6ugh now he cannot.reach that goal arid thus show his worth, still, if it were not for all those unfor-ti~ nate circumstances, he could have distinguishdd himself. His s~If-'safisfaction~, is saved. The fifth group simply ~ive up in defeat. Then they may fret ii~way t~heir lives in worry 6r anxiety or sink into the dark depths 'of melan- _~choly and despair.- ' The Influence of Habits With organic psychoses and neuroses, that~is, major and minor mental diseases due, foi instance, to an injured '~.o~'dition of the brain, we are 'not at all concerned in. this ilrticle. Functional psychoses and neuroses have rio demonstrable organic basis. It seems to,~be ciuite" true--all .preventive measures and hopes rest largely upon-this pr, em- ~i~e.--A-~tha~ many persons who have c_ontracted these f.unc-tion~ al disorders could have avoided them if they had intelli . gentler and earnestly disciplined their habits.of thinkihg ~ and f~dling, or, in other words, if they had striven to see and e~valuate'things as they_ are and to modem.te their emotiofis accordingly. But they did not; ;ind the cumulative~effect of .lon~-continued carelessness and drifting leaves~ them m_ore "~ -~3. AUGUSTIN~ ELLARD* -or Iess d~ranged. Reoieu) for~Reli~iqus.; There is nobody .who_ is pe)fectly :n6r- , mal, th~ abnormals being like the rest of us, only mor~ So. ¯ Every_one ha~ some habit or. 6ther which he wou~Id, do wel, I to coriect, both for the health of "' his soul. "No excellent soulis exempt from some admix-f~ lure of madness" (Aristotle). It is with these habits that ~-tBis article is ~oncerned, not with those of persons who are. ~ _ al_ready neurotics or woi~se. Extroversisn anal Introversion Before we discuss'particular l~abits,it may be well:oto °notice two general tendencies of attenti0.n and interest, which, if carried too" far, can become very harmful both to personality and to-the spiritual life, namely, extroversion :and introversion. Extroversion, an inclination:to occup~,, "~neself with what is outside of oneself, may lead to ignor ance of self, thoughtlessness, shallowness of character,: and ~a n~glect of all the greate'r and better things. It is naturally apt to end in that excessive giving of oneself to externals which is a'special failing of ma.ny m6dern religious priests and-is so 6ften #ep~)ecated now by ascetical writers. It is contrary i_n tendency to all-that the interior fire'implies. .RecolleCtion would be reduced to a .point approaching zero. Turning to external things is a favorite means of esc.ape frbm the unRleasantn~ss of living with ~3ne's own imperfedt self and from the goadings of grace when on~ is not on the~ best of speaking terms with God. A~y"religious who is so Vehemently and incessantly busy talking o~ working exter-~- nally°tbat he can hardly think of anything else, would "illustrate v(rhat is meant by the extroverted pers6nality. Extreme extroversion as seen in certain demented persons is often termeffa "flight into reality.-" Introversion, a propensity to keep the ~nind turned - inwa'rd upon itself,-involves the dangers c;f-morbid intro 3 12 ~ ~sp~cfion and0f ge~fing to0 far away from-~rhe "real wo~ld.1 ::Th~ Jn~rover~ may be¢6me ~bsorbed or even lost Jn ~labyrJn~h 0f ~is ow~ ~hou~h~s, fe~1~ngs,. ~nd fa~cJ~s. ~He ~s more apt ~o be brooding, m~dy, and anx~0us: Morally, " be ~S ~n grea~er danger ~f being too self-centered, a~d of'all. ~e.evts ~ha~ go wi~h ~ha~ m~d~fion. He ~ends ~o become unfi~ m l~ve ahd, work w~h o~hers. ~he worst form Jn~r6v~rsJon Js exemplified by ~ose pafiems Jn asylums ;~o~ completely w~dr~w Jn mind from all external reM~ Jry. The Jn~e~rare~ person, ~nd ~be good relJ~Jou~ will Cs~ve r~ S~rJke a ha~py balance ~b~ween extroversion and Unwholesome Intellectual Habits '. ~Am~ng particular bad habits that-call for. discipline, as the psychologi~ would say, or for m0rt~cation, to u£i ~. the ascetical term, the ~oll0wing may. be instanLedf Those . ]in_which self-deception seems more prominent ,will be con 3jdered first, and then those in which the emotional element " has a certain predominance, Of the many ways described ]-by psychoJogist~ in wIich'people deceive, themselves, these'-- ~-~ five seem to be the most significant for our pu~ose. , ~ ~ -: Since sanity consists in contact with reality, it is evident" , thht:~vasion of unpleasant tr~ths is, no part of it.- A certain .amofint of evasion is Vffy.-comm0n'and ~ithin th£.timits of . "the normal. But it.tends to grow from bad to worse,.?nd hence it is excellent material ~or disciplih~ or mortifica[ion. ._. ThoSe who evade disagreeable truths are the persons whgm - ~e hear likened to ostriches hidin~ their heads in the sand~ . .:Simply ~urnin~ away may bring relief for a time;, but :may also ha~ten disaster, ._ . " One may dissimulate or suppress the truth of a dis-tressing fact inone's situation or condition. Fo~ instahee, a man is told by his.physiLian.that his blood-~r£ssure is -=313 Gi AU.~3USTINE ELLAR~. ~ . . o Reaiew t:or Reiigi6us" gettifig. too',high. In.stead'~of a~ep'ting th~ diagnosis an~ r~gulating his life according!y:, ~he thi'nks as little-as pbssi-ble .of the matterYand acts all the more strenuously as if in an efforl~ td prove to hi'self ahd to others that there is nothin°g~ ,wrong with him, and. least of all; high blood-pressure. Similarly, a devout .man is wa~ned by his confessor, pos-sibly by a succession of confessors, that he is s~rupulous." ~.Not only does he not ac,quiesce, but he goes on to do all thSt he can to convince himself and his confessor that he is noi~ scrupulous. If he fail~with one, he pro.ceeds to anoth4r. And meanwhile he is.getici~g farther and fa~the} awffy from reason and religion. . - -~ , . Sometimes people dissemble to themselves the fhct that~ great obstaclds stand in their way. Before they meet them, - they dc~ r~ot lose their courage, but neither do ~they take~ the necessary steps to cope; with them. Thi~y seem to think-that ~ by shfftting their eyes to tlSem, minimizing them~ or, as .it were. laughing them .off, they will-somehow overcome= them.Lady Luck may take care of them. A pious rnan~- -might. say "Providence!' will do it.Sr. X's difficulty is a -qUick and Sharp tongue. Instead.of considerin, g her prob-lem., understanding it, arid seeing what is to be "done about it~ she givesherself up to a va~ue hope that somehow'God's "grace ~vill solve, it, and thinks: no more about it. There~a-re others who manage, to blind l~hemsel¢c~s ~to their Failures-or at least to acknowledge them to thee least-p6ssible extent. "D6n't worry abgut spilt milk." ~ommon and idjurious mode of evading the.truih about. ¯ ,one s deficiencies is to blame .other persons or unfavorable circumstances for them. They are like the football fans-who gladly take all the credit for victory when t~ir team wins, arid who, whenever~& loses, have a multitude- of~ excuses and explanations, ";without, - however, ever gi~ing credit to the other'side forsimply being superior. A teacher 314 Septer~Ber, 1944° ~- "- .SANITY. AND SANCTITY "whose w0'rk is n.bt,tip the-the mark m~y explain~i~- all by refe~rring to the poor qUali(y of the class,~interferences fro~ the principal, un.satisfactory textbooks, a noisydassroom, and so 6n--anything; in fact, except personal deficiencies. - Akin to evading unpleasant truths is-the d~d~lin~.l ?esponsibilitie~. When a man frankly, that is, without_ ielf-deception, refuses to do whavhe knows he ought, to do~ t.he fault is moral. When the mind is so deranged, that therb is no lor~'ger an.y moral imputability and one,shirks~a the fault is merely psychic. .In between these two extremes there ar~ infinite gradations-and combinations of both moraband psychi~ failures, 6f illusions arid bad will. of the corrimonest means of escaping a disagreeable dUSty ._ .and of avoiding embarrassment at the same tinie is to develop, more or less-unconsciously, Or to ~magnify~ a-~'- physicid disability of somekind. No doubt every-ieligious superior"who ,has had much.experience, knows of subjects ~who shirked disagreeable obligations or assignments on the ,plea.of illness or incapacitati_on'that was psychic ratherthan physical. Recourse t6 prayersometimes appears to,be an. example Of dodging, a practical i~sue. Sr. Y comes t6 rea~lize tha~. fhere is a considerable degree of disobedience in-her life. She recalls tl~e magnificent promises of results to those-who pray. Then, instead of clearly formulating to her~ self-what is wrong, what She should do abou~ it, why. she ~boul.d do it, and _by what means, she plans a novena, to :St: 3oseph, so m~any Memorare~s to ~he Blessed Virgin, ~ _such and such prayers to,the Little Flower, and so on. Thus she distracts herself from what she ought- to do. hdrself~ P~ously and comfortab_ly she goes on; so.does the disobedi-ence, !ess piously, but comfortably.- , Rationalization is the proce.ss of making action_that :is unreasonable seem reasonable. PrObably it is thecommon-est- of all the mental distortions pointed out in these pages.- 3.15 G. A~2.G'USTINE ELI~ARD -~Retyiew,[or Religious There is hardly a humah being who d~es not resort to it at times aiad in some measure. Vdry.powerful and ~ersistenk urges impel, us todo thirigs that are r~ot quite right, and at the same time twist our thinking just sufficiently~toenabl~ u~ to feel more or l~ss justified in doing them. On the one hand, those impulses are extremely:strohg, and on the oth.er, we ekperience a certain necessity of being,,or at least -of, appearing to be, rational/both in our own eyes and~.~ .espec.ially in the.estimation of Others. Rationalization su~-~ plies the way out of the difficulty. '~The"rationalizer dab- 6rates- convenient and reassuring, deceigtions,° for himseli~, and Often. alsd deludes-himself into believing that other~' do not see throtigh his fiction. Extreme forms of rationaliza~- -tion are found in. the insane.Rationalization is probably exemplified every day in ev~ery religi6us house. It is the favorite meahs of-taking the edge off the exacting principles of asceticism and the int~rnvenient obligations' 6f the rules,. -and~of making life under them more agreeable. ). One of the worst forms of flight from reality-is day-~ . drearning.~ - It octurs in all degree~ from that which is nor-mal. to that of the utterly insane. It is especially liable to develop "in persons who are inclined 'to remain shut:in within them.sel, ves, whose surrou;adings are dist~ressin_g, and .who have lively-imaginations. If. things are painful "~Well, at least," one may say, "I. can create a world 6f my own where there will be some sort of satisfaction for me. In" fa~t, there, in fancy, ! can have any pleasure that.I Wish." As daydreaming grows.,-it takes one further and furthe~ from real life : hence, its evil aridHanger. Idle reverie in a r~ligious is at best just so miach energy, a;ad, time diverted from his own sanctification and tlse accompffshment of the task ~ assigned to him by God~- M6rtifying the" propensity° to,it would contribute to integration of personality, .to greater holiness, and to haore, efficient usefulness to others. 316 "Septembir~,',1944 - " ~ - - SAIqlTY AND sANcTIT-Y ' A, marked tendency.to, suspiciodsness is- not,a'good stgn. df rob~st~and depe_ndablehealth of mind~ .it'involves~:fte,°o q{aerit~ deceptions of self, engenders e'ver'y sort of dhrk.affd blister fe£1ing, and lessens ol{e's fitfiess to live and work w.i~th -~others. In a religious,, suspiciousness 0fsuperiots can gb so far a~ to become positively pathological. There are religious who easily ,develop a martyr- omp'lex. Brother X, a man of v~ry good ~will but poor 'judgment, has often had to be corrected bj~ his shpefio~s. He is fully conscious of his good faith. After~a tim~, he notices that although behas beentrying very earnestly.to°~ d9 the right thing, he has-ndt met with approbation and "_erfcouragement, but rather, as i~ seemed, j~st the contrary. He ~recalls. that God often allows His l~est servants to b~. persecuted. Finally,. he concludes that be'must be-in that class. ,From then on every unpleasantness met in his rela- - tions~with, others and particularly every admonition given~ by superiors is'interpreted'.as one m6re indication that he is beingperse~uted and thathe_ must.be a ,great°favorite-wi~h 'Heaven.~ . Wha'tever i~ done ~o make him see~the light ts taken to be so much more molesfation. ' Another bad habit of mind is found in many people ~. ~ who, are b0tl~ered, with irisistent,, umvelyome, .thoughts. Some of the best igeople are distressed in this way with the~ ~orst thoughts: - Ideas of the most repuls~v.e:nature force-fully~ obtrude themselves into'.the mind, even at the most-sacredo- mom(nts or places. They are utterly out 'of keeping~ ~Twith the character of the person whom they aftlict, and are felt, as if by some external force, to be imposed upon one "-._ They are not ordinary temptations, hnd should" not ~be ~resis~ed as ifthey were n~tural movements of resentment:o'r. o~ncupis~enc.e: Fear and autosuggestion may be factors in b.ringing;them ~ibout. .Recognizing them for what they~ are, avoiding fear of the~, ignoring~them, andan effort tO 3i7 .~- ~. o ~-" --. ~ ~. ~ L~",,~- ~.~ '~ o ~t ~AUGUSTINE ELLARD~ ~ , "~ ~, R~ie~ for'R~ligious remain indiff~)rent ~toward them ¯while preserving ~;ne's, self- 'possession, a~e more effective, o_ -~_~ Unwholesome Emotional Habits The se'cond, and perhaps the more'important,-eleme~t in every,irrational, and also every irreligioud, reactign,., is ~affective or emotional. It is this that adds power, some-times compell'ing pdwer, to them, and leads to action. Cer- ¯rain cases, out- of many, will be indicated in the f611owing ' paragraphs ~ Nowadays we.are always hearing about int:eriori't~t [eelings.,and their injurious consequences. Obviously, sense o]~ inferiorityis humil!ating and.embarrass!ng: B~- sides, when not-well borne, it begets depression, fearful-ness, discouragement, and a disinclination to exert orieself. --So may fal~e humility, tn these dispirited states of soul. some people~ m.ay stick: But others undertake io do some-" o rising about it, though they are not in the.best condition-t0 judge what should be done,, and then dissatisfaction with ~ "- one's !nferiority and the desire to.be rid of i~ or even to-secure a certain, elevatidn over othe_rs, may lead to a great ~. garie.ty ofpersonality.fa9lts. ~These efforts may be of two general kinds: disguise or compensation. ~ Attempts. to con-ceal ohe's inadequacy .involve; falsity ~and duplicity, not 0co, nducive to the unity thatcharacterizes an integratedper-son. If they be kept up for long,.they may ,bring about~ stra!n and unnataumrOacl~ a.h.t.y. Moreo~'er, the cha_nces.are' that-they~ v~ill be °unsuccessful, and ~leave the~hypoc.rit~2 feeling more inferior than ever. Unsound.forms of comp~fi sation that occur are, for example, exaggerated aggressive- -.ness, fan~aticism, blustering, excessive reforming ze.al: unrea~0n~ble c.ritic~ism Sf others, extremes of conduct, d~: ~" matism, rigorism, tyrannical domination, and a hos~ - 31'8 September, 194'~I~ ~" ~ " " " SANITY,ANI~ SANCTITY A~sense of .l~ssene~d worth neednot,.bemJ.U. rzoys" ' . ~' to one's pers0n~lity. Of all p~ople?the Saints felt thifir worthless- -. ness~'most keenl~ and acknowledged it most Openly. CerZ tainly some of them r~garded themselves as-the wo]:st of all fiu~an beings. But their ge~nuine, not false, humility, t.oge.th'er :with other virtues which balanced and Suppl"e- ~mented it, was an antidote that prevented them fr0m~ °requiring a psych, iatrist~s attention; in fact,~it-became one of[the foremost reasons for their superior exci~llence.- The "healtlSy-minded and sensible man will take himself as he is,. , acknowledge 14is,,limitations, and,,intelliger{tly and courdge- 0usly make the mo~t of his potentialitie,s. He will not 6v~errate himself and thus. deceive himself, nor b~y. futile at~empt~ to rise higher, render himself_, still more inferior than he. really is. True Christian humility, accompanied l~.y~ confidence in-God and magnanimity, is the sovereign remedy fgr a depressing sense of inferiority, Sex is. also a most fertile hotbed of psychic and moral troubles.° Here especially the right ideas and the right attiv ifudes of will are of supreme importance for those Who would advance in sanity.and sanctity. If one's views are too broad, the'moral life ~it least will suffer, and the mental "may. If they are too narrow, too puritanical, the tumul-tuous currenl~'of"sexual, impulse may demolish the :dikes unnafurally restraining it and wreck everything~ As Horace remarked long,ago, you may.chasenature out with a fork, , ut it v~ill alwa.ys return. This is true in a special way of/ sexu~il~nature. If it is unnecessarily repiessed, sooner or -,later it ~ill emerge again, perhaps in a ,disguised,,and mor-bid form. and with.increased .~violence. Too mueh repres- 1. s~on:would involve the danger of making one a neurotic,. and then What about his chastity?~. Temptations would be multiplied and at the same time one would have less than the normal ability to cope with them. - 31~9 G: AUGUSTINE-EI~LARD - " ° ? R'e~ieW ~o~ Religious The right ~iew of se~ di+ine view of it. It would not .regard ~ everything aboat se~ as bad and ugly. Nor would it ,be-too negative. the contrary,, it would-look upon sex as an integral element in human nature and a divine+creation, and as such, g~od:'. . In the practice of cha+~ity, whether conjugal or celibate, a person would seek, by the e~pression.oP all that is noblest . in him rather than by repression,-to achieve the pbsitive +purpoSes of the law, to develop and perfect one'elf, to beg~t offspring, whether ih the literal, or .the m~taphoric~ ~ense, and to increase o e s love for Him who~ is qnfinite -loveliness and beauty. The.-sexUal instinct, whichr as?a matter of fact, is so destructive to divine love[ can-and~3 ~hould' be integrated with it, ~nd become a most .~o~n~ ~promoter of it. Lack of su~cient instruction can haye tragical" ~onse~ quences. These days there seems to be need of much information in such matters than in the good old Victo~ian~- d£ys, especiall7 from books or the spoken word, The amount that one -should.have will depend upon individual needs find the hature of one's work. Suppression of the desire todearn wfiat one ought to know[-or legitimately might well know would seem to be a good example of the kind of.ihe sup--~ " ~ression that is injurious; beside~;,it .would be a persistent source bf. unnecessary temptations, .anxiety, and strain. Instruction shoul~ extend b6th to the facts and.to one',s obligations. The minor mental disease of scrupulo~F~,~ often thrives on sex-ual ground: .-,_ .An exaggerated conception or ideal tity may mislead .some. Properly-speakifig, the highe~ .chaptiF~ that-is possible for us is-human,, such as, for example, is exemplified in ChriSt or the Blessed ~irgi~ Even they, since they did not experience temptations, can- 320+ ~not be~prox~ma~e mo~ls ~n thi~ ~espect. But'marly of t~e ~rg~n and confesso~ saints went through furious and pro- ~ 1onge~ sie~es ef temptation w~th an inviolate lustre of purity. -~here is mhch in the ~h~story of religion ~and mys- .[~cism to confirm the saying of.~ascal t~at one who unin-telligently seeks to become an angel becomes~a beast. After self-assertiveness and sexuality, f~ar seems to be the most deleterious emotion. ~ople whose personality is ~ore or less maladjusted b~ reason of~fear or anxiety are very numerous. One manifestatio~ ~f it t~at we can con~ s~der briefly is Scrupuios~ty. ~A full treatmenL~how~Ver, of this Specifically religious ~ental malady is quite impossible~ here. Profane analogues of scrupulosity are seen in per-sons who can hardly assure themselves su~ciently that they have, ~or instance, turned off_the gas, or locked the door; or written an address cor[ectly. In a scruple, that is, an irra- ~tiofial fear of sin, the emotional' factor, anxiety, seems to ,be'mu~h more important than the error of judgment. ~hiS~ can be ~emoved efisily by-instruction,~but the anxiety is stili ~here, and not so easily expelled. The first and most e~ca-cious rule for the scrupulous is, according to all huthorities~ to seek competent direction and tO follow it most exactly, ~' li.ke a docile patieht obeying the doctor's prescriptions. - If ~ this is done, the fear will Vanish, or at least gradually a~fophy. Additional means of dispelling it are: not to yield to it by actin~:tq obtain greater security, heartily t~ 59cept the assurances gixen by one's director, .to consider his-judgment safer than ofie's ~wn .disordered fancy, to duiti-vate insight~ into the groundless~es~ of one's apprehen-~ sions, to proceed ~irectl# to do what is feared, to notice that it does not hurt other people, to be careful, not to n~glec~ one's .real obligations, like the Pharisees who strained gnats and swallowed camels, and. finally to ~develop that filial trust and confidence in God which He desires. Cultiva,tinig . ~3,21 G. ~AUGUSTINE,ELL.~.RD, ~ ° ~ " ,~ Revietoffor; Religi6u~ ~ a sense~of-humor nd.the abit of seeing the ridiculdusness- Of one's'sc.rupulous fear is also.an effectiVe remedy. - - A neurbsis that is not Unknown in religious communi-tiesis h.qpgchondriasis, tha( is, a morbid anxiey about~ one'S h(alth. The patient, is perpetually thinking hboul~ it, -noticing.and magnifying in imagination all possible~symp-toms, anticipating_the worst, seeking and using remedies ~alLsorts, watching for their effects, ~comparing his condition today with yesterday, and so on. Meanwhile he is really-making himself.sick, or :aggrav.ating any reaFailments that he. ma~y have. He could cure himse.lf, of his unhealtl~y~ worry if he would follow a course like that recommended o for the scrupulous: or if he would concentrate'on the major, things in life, espe.cially in the spiritual' life. Distracting work-would bep~irficularly good for him.' If he Were more.~ solicitousabout his mental and spiritual well-beiiig, his "health of b~dy would take care of Jtself. " ¯Depression ¯ --Another emot~bn that iblays havoc with the minds an~ :.~ :souls qf-many i~ "sadness. It~ran~es all the way frog"slight ¯ and ~ransi~nt low. . spirits in nbrmal person.so to a leffdi~ag "symptom in some of,~the psychoses. When. due to physi~a!: -conditions that cannot-be remedied, it-should be bo/ne. patiently, like the re~t of'one's cross. Insight into i~ho~e °causes will help to relieve it, and'for the rest, of all people_ the good religious has the least reason for being depressed.~ ¯He should kriow a~d realize tha(God's wh91e plan.for him, ~hough it does'contain 'suffering, is from beginning ~to end_ - ,~ d.esign for'peace and ineffable beatitude. ""W~ know that -o-forthem that love God he worke~h a.ll things toge}her unto, : g0b,d" (Romans 8:28). .find it enlightening and -322 Some depressed religious might encouraging to: read a ~chapter September, 1944 SANITY AND SANCTITY "_"eXplaining St. Teresa~;s ,psychiatry of. melancholy i~ l~er- Foundations (chapter VII). Ps~lchotherap~l o " -- To cure an unwholesome habit (people who have developed neuroses are referred tb the psychiatrists), three .general methods are available: psychagogy, analysis and synthesis, and a combination of both. Ps~tch.agog~ First, one can simply go to a competent counselor,. explain one's case. and carry out the pres~riptions~ as ,a patient does with his~physician. Besides efllight~ening,, per-suading, and using suggestion, a'~counselor can give a~ .troubled p~e~son a, good 6pportunity to talk. It is a fact that in some cases a man caff talk himself out bf a neurosis. No doubt the explanation is that thus the patient sufficiently= clarifies his own mind, gets insight, and reaches emotional" equilibrium. A, nal~/sis arid Sgntbesis Secondly, one may, preferably with the.help of a court-s~ lor, take the~ following procedures. - , . I. Inoestigation. What are;the origin and" nature of the trouble? When and where did the faulty habit begin? ¯ ~What elements in one's external situation or in one's inter; -nal condition could have given rise to it? What factors in one's experience (for example, shocks or frights) or in one's training, help to explain it? What ideas have been guidi_~l~ one?- What emotional forces have been at work? What has one been seeking orshirking? Wil~h.what results? II. Insight. If the investigation has been-successful, insight should follow,.but it may need to be deepened, broadened, and heightened bY much reflection. A maia has " '-'.insight" y~hen, say, he has an irrational notion or impulse~ 323 for ReHpiou_ s ~ _.and recognizes~it as such. W~iters on the discernment spirits would say that he i~moved by an. evil sp!rit, ,hUman of diabol, ical, and realizes that fact. If he can understhnd~ how it came about and its nature,~ so much.the better." If the insight gained be dear and f~Ull, he will then be prepared to treat the notion or impulse as if'it were a sffggestion~ from a ocrazym~in or'a swindler. Insight can ,be suflicientfy--clehr and strong to effec't a complete cure at once: It does awa.5; with the false ideas or °illusions at least. "III. Release of Em'otional Tension. Next one must see ~and feel by all' possible considerations, and work aL it till one really does see and feel, the fol, ly, futility, and:frus-trations of what he has" been doing, and this in,contra~st to the val~uds, positive and negative, of thecontrary rati6nal ~-~,~abits. He must bring himself to realize, .for example, that he hasbeen fearing ,where. in finality there was riothing, tp fear, or desiring what really was-not desirable. Thus the perverse inclination will dissolve like ice before the hot,sun. The secorid element of the irrational, namely, misd~rectedl emotion,, i~s thus remedied. Other means of. reducing unsalutary hffectivet~nsions are i avoiding the.objecys-that~ stimulate them: eschewing thoughts of those objects; ~ expelling~a lesser fear or love by agreater fear d'r love, fear of,h!an, for instance, by- fear of God; arousing in oneself the" contrary emotiori, fbr instance, hbpe against despair; throwing oneself .int~o some absorbing.~external, action; pro-ceeding tO do what. One fears, or to-do the opposite of what, one. feelsimpelled tO.; quiet and rest. Even if a man c~n- ¯ not discover b~r analysis why he has this or that inclination, he is ~ti11 free, if his mental integrity has not been damaged too-much, not to adt on that impulse.~ The a~m is always, not to darri up'the forces of human nature, but to give ttiem wise direci:ion and .wholesome outlets. Here ratib'nal com- 'pensati~n-and:sublimation, that is,:guiding one's instinctive 324 ~ Sep~ember~'lg~ ~ ~ ~" ~, ~ . SANI~ AND SANCTITY "urges toward somethifig equally good of better, ~are emi-nently in~place. 0necould, for-example, seek" eventual ex~ftation throughhumility, ot the grat~cations of love in ~divine charity. IV. Re-educa?ion, Rd~te~ra~ion. 1. Specific }emedial habits are to be ascertained, their adavantages adequately" apprefiated, and then put into practice. A scrupulous per- :son for instance, should avail himself of what. are called ".th~ privilege~ of the ssrupulous." 2. The basic defects in the.personality-which are at the root 6f the diNculty sEould be uncdvered if possible and treated in ~ore or le~s thesame_ wag, with a ~iew to building hp that unity and fullness,; and balance which constitute intdgration of personality. In a scrupMofis)erson.the defect ~ay be a deep-seated timid- ~ To conclude, insight into one's unbalanced emotional p$opengities and control of tbem will give one sanity; a high degree 6f such insight .and~self-control will add sagac- -itE; and, if supernaturalized by graqe, it will bring sanc-" ~tity~ and thus ultimately a rich participation ~n the beat~c .~ision and love arid ~njoym~nt of God. ¯BOOKLETS ON VOCATIONS Halt! Hearken to.the C~{/ of the Children. A PamPhlet of 28 pages, by Fathers Rumble and Catty. The pamphlet was written originally by an Australian nun for Australian girls." Its purpose is ~to give an appreciation of the. work of the tegching Sisterhoods. Price: 10 cents. Write to: Radio Replies Press. St. Paul 1, Minn. "What Would You Like to Be? Aft interesting brochure explaining the-life the Marianist Pries-t, Teaching Brother, and Working Brother. Contains well-chose~ pictures and clear explanations. Write to: Rev. Father Superior, Mount -St. John. R. D. 2, Dayton 10, Ohio. ¯ The Making7 oF, a Man: A pocket-size pamphlet, explaining in general'the ~ ,-vocation'of the Mhrianist, and in,particular t_he life of the "postulate" at Maryhurst, ~ Kirkwodd, '/v~issouri. The "postulate" in this instance is not merely th~ postu~ lan.,cy which immediately precedes entrance to the novitiate, but an entire high school course for~prospecave candidates fo~ the Society of Mary. Write to: Maryhurst~ Kirkwood, Missouri. Reverend Fathers: , When I give a retreat in a hospital-convent, I decidedly do not wish to replace the chaplain H~ may need a vacation: but thai is. no reason why his work ~hould be-added ~to.the burden of the retreat~ master, who must give pe_rhaps four conferences a day, hear confes-sions, keep himself available for private con.sultation, and perform his own spiritual exercises, besides. If.the chaplain must go away just at that time, why not engage another"priest to take his place, so thht the. retreat master can restrict his attention to his own exacting work? I am w~illing to have, and even insist on having, the cgmmunity Mass in the morning and the Benediction in the evening for the retreatants. But I,wa~t nothing more of the chaplain's regular wgrk. Imagine distributing Communion to who l~no~s" how many. patients befor~ M~iss; then, :whewhardly back in the chapel with the Blessed Sacrament, being called to administ_er the last rites to'-a dying persoff~ while the community waits: then after Mass, while ~akiiag the thanksgiving, being called out in a hurry to give Extreme Unction to one who has" suddenly died in a ward; then, after a hasty breakfast, going to say the ritual prayers for the ~lying over a patient; and then rushing to the chapel to give the retreatants theif morning con~er-- ence!' Or imagine.a Sister rushing up to the table in the sanctuars; whil~ you are. giving-a~ consideration ~nd asking you to "Come. quickly; somebody is dying!" But it isn't as bad as alFthat, some may objest. , Oh, but it often is. I. ha.ve experienc~ed it. And. if it isn't, you know that it can be at any moment. A Priest , Reverend Fathers: After each of the three annual retreatS, we discuss the various, points that have been, noticed by different novices. Here are a few. We don't like to have the retrea.t master tall~ right past us to the .few.older. religious who are also on retreat. They've heard mostof it, anyway. The retreat master ought to talk so that we Who have. not passed twenty can get something out of it. .326 ¢ " " CO~UNICATIONS ._- "Let'-tl~e~,~etreat master leari~'something, about our community. "before talking on the "Holy Rule': in general arid making com~ments -on prescriptions_that aren't even in our rule. " We are poorly impressed when tile retreat master comes up the aisle.with a strong scent of perfUrfie trailing after him. He ought t~ let us see ~hat hi~ actions and bearing correspond with 'what he is telling us to do. Let him forget the affectations of speech. Even thofigh he talks ~oorly, a re-all~" good religious priest (you can see the hdliness of his life) is far better liked than an easy-going but powerful speaker. The former is a sermonin himsel£the latter is, too, but in a different way.~ We have a copy of the text of St. Ignatius' Spiritual_Exercises; too. If we want to read it, we can do so; and we do not" like to have a retreat-master me~ely read th~ text and a.dd_ practically nothing of his:own. We0never like to be read at; even .when the retreat mas-ter begins almost every conference or meditation with the words:_ "St. Ignatius next says . A little story once in a while helps .to keep things alive and nbt all fire and brirristone tales, but something practical and forceftil. ~ We're young; and we enjoy a joke .wrapped up in the conferences o now and then, But not one that is completely irrelevant. Brother Novices Reverend Fathers: The foll~wing remarks on tiae retrea~ question ~epresent th~ result ¯ o~ a question~naire.given a n.ur~ber of Sisters two years~ago: Desirable length ~of retreat: 6 full days. ~ Desirable length of conferences and medi~ations: 40-45 .minute_s. ~'uggestions for Retreat program: 1) Have four or five conferences daily. 2) Allow sufficient ti~e after dinner for a rest,-so thfit retfeat-aiats will be better able for mental exertion. ~ 3) Allow time at 11:45 for exame~. 4)'Have commun!ty prayers (espedally the Office) said p~i- ~ately, so that the retrea~ants will have more time for private reflec, tion. : 5) Begin confessions" no'later than the third day. S[zggestions concerning sequence of subject-matter: 1) Have a definite sequence, so that one conference is.a prdpa_r.a-tion for~ the next. ~ "COMMUNICATIONS " " ~ ' 2) But- do not" follow th~ Ignatiansequence so'closely tha~ one " will know exa~tly~what meditation is'to follow. ~u~gestions concerning subject-matter: -1) Give practical examples illustrating 'the ideals of re.ligious life, rather than a vague generalization. 2) Make examples positive rather than negative. 3) Center the entire retreat around a certain virtfie, such as conformity to the Wi[l of God or lo~;e of God. - 4)"A~zo[d relating personal experiences and stories of scandals in other communities. ' 5) Arrange the subject matter so that, if some I~roups are men-tioned, all will be mentioned; for example, superiors and inf.eriors, or nurses, teachers, and house-sisters. .6) Repeat a definite theme again and again d~uring the retreat. 7) Give conferences on the methods of. mental prayer and have. the meditation on prayer early in the retreat. 8) Give practic.al meditations on the love of God, emptying ~of ~lf-love, etc. 9) Stress" the Indwelling and" the Mystical Body, as means of living in uniofi with God. 10) Discuss the three ways in the Spiritual' Lif~, putting special emphasis on the unitive way. 1 1) Develop the life of Christ according to the mysteries of the rosary. ~ , Other .points: 1) Be straightforward and s'~ecific in the treadnent of the reli-' gious life. 2) Conduct the retreat in the presen'~e of the Blessed.Sacrament. 3.) Use simple and cleat, ratlSer than flowery, diction. ~) Ask of each penitent in the confessional the subject-matter:. of her particular examen, or question her on prayer. 5) "Talk" the conferences instead of~ reading them. 6) Avoid throwiffg jibes~ at women. Z) Use tile word "Sister" frequently for emphasis. 8) Put the Sister at ease in the donfessional by givilag l~er time, showing an interest in her spiritual advancement, by encouraging her in her good resolutions, etc. A Sister .~ ~ - -~ _ . _ ~ ~ ~ " ~ T~-~ ~ a Religious Insfi u e _ Adam C: Ellis, S~J.- .]:o~r al! p~ovinc~s, houses; and m~mb~rs of th~ insti-~i. . ~ tut~ (canon 502).- H~nc~ it is obvious that h~ has. authority owr th~ t~mporal affairs 0f tfi~ institut~ as wall as o#~r'spiritual and disciplinary matters. But sinc~ it imp~ssibl~ for on~ p~rson to car,-for all th~ d~tai~s of"go~-~ ¯ ernment by himself, the law-of=the Church pr~yides for 'helpers 6f various kinds-who are to assist the superior in ¯ ~hi) government of the institute. Thus canon 516 6f the Code of Canon Law provides for couficillors and bursars for~ all~)eligious superiors. The pu~ose of the present grticle is"to definet~e duties o(th~.bursar g~neral of'a r~li- ~gious institute. .- Appointmen~ "1~ ~h~.¢~nsfi~u~s nre ~ilen~ ~n ~he mnHer ~ deefin9 ~. The Code alloGs the constitutions to determine hdw the ~-.~ursar general is to be chosen. Usually the~:pro~ide forhis =election in the general chapt~. ~ It~i~ oMg whe~ the constitu-tions are.silent in the matter t~at the=superior g~neraI ~s gwen the power to appoint the bursar general with the consent.of his council. No definite term of office is laid down in_the Cod~ for. bursars~ They may" b.e reappointed-or elected again indef!-i nit~ly. Nor is'the office of bursar general incomp_atible.with. that of a general councillor as far as tile common law of the C]aurch is concerned, but to unite~ the~e offices in 6ne pe.rso11.i~ usually considered inexp_e°dien, t and is not infrequently for: - bidden by the.constitutions. .o 32.9 ADAM C. ELLIS :, ~ ': -- " Ret~iqto for Religious -_ r - Limitations of Power~ ~: ~° "They are t~ exercise .their office under fhe°d~recfion of their respec-tive superiors" (canon S 16,§ 2) but "the superior himself may net ,d!schargb. tl;e office of bu~'sar 9eneral or provincial 'bursar" (canon SI6, § 3). By forbidding the s~perlor genera) to act as bursar and by ~subjec~ ting the bursa'r general to the direction ~f.~the SUl~e- -rior, the law providhs a safeguard against maladminis~tra-tipn. " The superior must exact an. account of'hisadministra-tion froth the bursar, who cannot dispose of tempor.al-goods withoutthe permission o~ i0is superior. Nor may the sup.e: rior grant him unlimited permission. Us.ually the details of these matters ar~ determined by theconstitutions. " Constitutions sometimes provide forthe appointment oi: sev.eral administratorS: one for the general care bf the; teinpor.alities of-the ~nstitute or" province, others for . t.icular kinds of work, such as the administratiQn of pub-, lications, printing presses, and various offices. ., Whateqer the relations may be, the funds of each indi-- vidual mo'ral personality--institute, province, house "mFst be keptseparate; and are not to be heaped into 6he common% fund. Extent of Powers "Besides the superiors, those officials also who are so empowered b~ the constitb'tions can, within the limits of their office, validly incu'r expenses. "and perform juridical acts of ordinary administration" (canon 532, § 2). Normally, then, the bursar has the power to incur' expense~ and perform theoju~idical .acts of o;dinarg "admini~- ~tri~tion: ~ By ordinary administration is meant everyth'ing which p'ert.a~ns to the everyday needs of the i.nstitut_~;e~. or community. Such Would be the purchase of food, clothing,- - and fuel, the repla.cement of things worn out. or brdkeh. ordinfiry repairs on-buildings, and"the like. To.sell the~ ~superfluous products of the farm, dairy, and poultry yard,, 330 ~@ September, 1944 ; THE BURSAR GENERAL~OF,A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTE w~ould~iikewise come und~:-the head of.o'rd~fiary adminis-~[ tration. ' It,is" customary to entrust this ordinar.y administratioq~. ~ entirely~ to ,the bursar and' his )issist~nts. Hovgeve~r,~ sup~-~ -.riors retain their own powerl of juridica!,administratiOn; ~ : hffd°if they ~place any acts of such administration, these acts~ ~ ; are valid.~ ¯ , Qualities.of Good Administration '-'~'~" Canon 1523~ lays down rules for all administrators, including religious. It .Begins by telling them" that th@,° ~, should fulfill their '.office With the diligenc9 of a good, -'"paterfamilias" or head of a household, which implies two qualities: care and. prudepce. ~ It then descends ~o the ¯ ~ ~ following details: ~ -- - 1. Vigilancelest any temporal, goods spoil" or per.ish. The superior may prescribe certain defini~te ways of,pro2- ~ ~ture, andmay forbid others:, : " " " Z :'~ 2.-Observance ,o~ th.eprescriptions of bo~h ~anon and~ ' civil law: It is evident that the p.resc'r, ipt~ions of Canon Law ¯ : must,, be observed/ especially those of canon-~534," which govern the alienati6n of goods belongi.ng to religibus com-munitie~ s as .well as the incurring of debts. Th~ prescrip-hans of the civil law Sh6uld also ,be observed, lestthere be ~ darigerof losing 3uch gob_ds thro~igh neglect of, the requiie- " men.is of the civil la~. This applies especially to all kinds '"~'Of contracts'and the i.ncurring.of debts, because th~ Code tias "canonized" the civil law in ~his matter:, "Thb presc~';pfions of the civ.il law of the place r~garding contracts b~th ~n cjen~ral and°in particular, whether'nomlnate o~ ;nhominate as well as recjardin9 payments,'shall be obse~rve'd by the same right in. eccles;astl-cal matters, unless they. are contrary to the natural law'~or special pre-. scr;pt~ons are found in canon law" (ganon 1529). ., ,3. Incc~me of goods ghoutd be accurately demar~ded "at ° [egular intervals:. Income thus collected should ,be care- fu, lly,. guarded and (i-n:~s~ ~,~bf foor~lations)o sh~ould, be .expended according .to th,e mind ~f the donor. 4. Income sho~tld-, be invested for the benefit of.' the, Church." The',,term "church" in the gener~il canons ,,on temporalities-means the individual moral personality of who~se, temporalities there is question (canon !,498). For~ us it means the religious institute. " -_- All income acquired~from temporal goods is considered - as.free-capital until it is invested. Hence it may for ordindry _expenses and for the payriaen.t ,of debts. °'But ifit is not needed for these purpose's, it should be inves(ed. Once i~avested, it becomes "capi_tal" or eccelesiastical goodsTM and is subject to, the" norms of canon law regarding aliena-, I~ion. 5.~ Books of mon&s received and expended should~be-cqrefully kept. This is sound business sense. It is*also, -iequired-in" order that the administrator may give that _ periodic account to l~i~ superiors required b~r the canon law. 6. Documents and business papers, should be kept in order and karefully gtiarded. This includes all kinds of- ~documents and p.apers, such as deeds to property, founda-. _ tions, donatibns,, contracl~s, and so forth. Canon -375',/ § 2 obliges bishops-to see to it that an inyentory or cata-logue- Of all documents in the'diocesan arcl-iivesbe mad.e. This inventory' includes a brief synopsis of the-content-~f,, each documen[. : Such a catalogue.- makes it e~sy to._find documents and-lessens,the danger of the.ir being lost. Reli-gious i~dministrators will do well to observe thi~ canon. °-. Such, in gener~il, are the ordinary powers and duties of. an administrator of ecclesiastical goods; in ourcase, of the-bursar general with-regard to the goods of his instltute. . Superiors should not interfere in the ordinary" administra-tion of the bursar, but should receive reports from him-and o examine~his accounts from time to time. The ~ao-rmal func-" 332 ~pternber, 1944 ~ ~ THE BUI~$AR~(3ENERAL OF,A RELIGIOIJS INSTITUTE ti6n;of the si~perior inthisregard is ttiat of~direction. The iminediat~ and" actuM ordin~ar~r administration is generally ~tenied to superiors by, the Code, and should be left to the bursar and his assistants subject to~ the direction 'of the superior. Thee coristitutions usually,, pr~scribe in detail 'the rela- ~ tions between superiors ahd bursars in regard to. temporal-administration, and should be' faithfully observed. " - " Extraordinary.! Administration -~y .acts of extraordina.ry admin.istration a~e m~,ant ~hings which are more rare and.of a more important- nature,¯ Such as the inv_estment of-money, excha~nge of securities, buying and selling of real estate, exti)aordinary repairs of 15uildings and equiPment, and the building of a °new stru~-. ture~, Fo~ all such actions the bursar must obtain the vari- "ous pe~rmissions required by the common lawa~s well as by the constitutions of his instittite. According to the general law of the Church, '~not only every .institute, but e~very p~ovince, and every house is capable of acquiring and possessing property w, ith fixed ~r fotinded revenues, unless the capacity to do so be excluded or restricted by its rules and constitutions" (canon 531). Some constitutions provide for" but one subject of. owner- ,ship, in the entire institute, so that there is only one.a~lmin-istration of temporalities. In this case it is usual for the constitutions to prescribe that the bursar general ~keep ~eparate accounts at least of the income and.expenses of the ,iridiiridual ho(~ses. This will show whether or not the ~individual houses are self-supporting. .: When each house has itsown~ local'administ_ration, it is 9sually prescribed that a certain portion of,the net in, come remaini_ng at the. end of the year after all bills liave" b~en paid,should" b~sent to the'motherhpuse foXthe su~pp0rt of .333 o~. ADAM C, ELLIS th.~:novices, Sisters in studies, and the like.~ The' N~cmae of 1~901 pres(ribed that well-to-do houses should-con, tribute one third of the .net~.cash on hand year, after all bills had been paid presen.t, practice of the Sacred Congregation ~f Religiou.s is t6 allow th~ .constitutions to prescribe that the genei~al c~hapter wiil decide the amount that should be ~contribut~d annually to the motherhouse .for the needs of the institute a whole.' The amount may thus be increased or lowered in each general chapter, according to the needs ~f the times. It "is" the dhty of the bursar general to collect t.hese contribu-tions at the pr0i3er time, as Well as~o examine the-financial statements of t/fie individual l~6uses which are sent to him periodically, according to the consti~utions. If these accounts are-not satisfactory, he ~should report the °det~- ciencies to ~the superior, whose duty it is to rePrehend those responsible. , To vindicate and defend o-rie's ~:ights in court is an act oFnormal adm~nistration: but religious superiors may not go to courtin the' name of their community excep.t in con-~,~ fo.rmi.ty'with theconstitutions (d~anon 1653, § 6). - " 'Conclusion ._ Administrators,of church 15roperty, b9th~superiors and other officials, should., remember° that they-are not the owners of the property which they administeL hence_they. ma.y riOt dispose of the temporal goods of the institute'as they please; but only in accordance with the prescriptions of canon and civil law. All administrators are obliged to give-an account of their stewardshiE~th~ .bursar general to-the superior general, the superior general[to the Holy See in the quinquennial repb~t in the case of mstttutes approv.ed by-the Holy See, to the local Ordinary in .the case of a~ diocesan congregation. . # 33'4. ' ~re:~ou Sor~yfoi YOur-Sihi? Gerald Kelly, S.J~ ~HE.Council of Trefit oNciall~-declardd: that true con- ~.~ ~rigion consists in a detestation o~ one's sins, .with grief ~'of soul, and a purpgse~0f sinning n0 more. According to~ the same Council; contrition is so-necessary that God never 'forgives any persona~ sin, even in the Sacraments of~ ~ Baptism and Penance, unless the sinner genuinely repents. ~ Perhaps it is this doctrine of the necessity'of contrition that makes the subject ingeresti~g. ¯ At any rate, it is inter, .~sting. Anyone who has taught th~ Subject, whether in ff ~theology elass or .in an advanced religion class, knows that. ~And we all know it from personal experience, too.; We want to b~ rid of our s~ns; therefore we want to be sorry for ~t~em~.and we wan~ to be sure we are sorry for them. Perfect Contrition ~' Per[ect,contrition is a. subject of .special intereit because .it sometimes happens that perfect contrition affords the~ "only possible means of saving o~e's soul. The baptized person who is i~ the state of,mortal sin and is dying with~ 6ut the oppor~unity.of~going to cdnfes~ion or ~f receiving E~tre~e Unction is faced ~ith the grim alternative of making an act of perfect contrition or of going to hell. The unbaptized sinner who is dying w~thout th~ opportunity -of receiving, actual baptism faces a similar alternative. No one can sa~ that ~eff~ct.contrition will neve~ be a matte'r of ~trict necessity for him, becau~ ~ortal sin is ~ ';possibility for.everyone, and death ~ithout a pfiestqs ~Is~ a possibility: Yet, even if it were never of Strict necessity, ~the,act of perfect Contrition is a beautiful prayer and should be £afd often. It i~ certainly.the best kind of contrition?for".-" ~ .~. ~ ~ GEI~LD KELLY - Revievd/or veni~l sins;-and,, withr~eg~rd to m~rtaI~in~, it hdst~e spe.~ ~ .cial p~wer.of restoring sanctifying grac~ to the sodl imme: diately,-thus makin~ it unnecesary to wait. ~or the oppor-tunity of gging~,to~cgnfession .in order~to 'regain God's friendship, to be able to ~erit eternal life, and to.be pre; pared for suddeh ~eath, ' InstrUcted CatholiCs usually know the ~adt that ~er: fect contrition immediately ~lots out mortaI sin, but not ikfrequently t~ey misunderstand "the reason for this special power of p~rfect c6ntrition. In fact, only recentlE,' ih'a bbok otherwisd sound and excellent, thd statement was madd.that in the case of a baptized person who has com-mitted a mortal sin, perfect contritionrestores grac~becausg. it"contains a desire for the Sacrament of Penance. Thii' is-,. not.the correct explanation. It is true, 0f cogrse, that, in~ the case ~eferred to, perfect-Contrition must cbntaih at ldast an.~ implicit intention of, going tO ~onfession; otherwise it would be a means 0f salvation entirely independen~ o['the sacrament and would excuse us entirely from God's pre-. cept. of confessing ,the mortal sins committed after baptism. But this intention to receive the sacrament is not th~'dispp-sition that gives perfect contrition its'special ~cacy. Even i~pe.rfect contrition must contain such an intention. ~ The real reason~ ~hy perfect contritign instantly re-~ stores gr~ce to the soul, even before we go to confession;- is to Be found,in its motioe. Perfect contrition is motivated gy charity. The sinner turns to God with peifect~ove; and God repays lord with love. As ou~ Ldrd ~old us, God takes up His abode with those who love Him. " ~e are often asked if it i~ di~chlt for one who h~s~ s~nned mobtally to make an act o~ perfect contrition. .In -an~werifig the questio~ We must h~ve regard for.several points. !n the'first place, ndith~ p~rfect nor imperfect trition ca.lls for a definite degre~ of intensity or r~quiies-any~ Septerr~ber, 1944 " ARE YOU SORRY FOR YOUR SIN~? certaln amount of time. ~n t~e o[her han~, bo[h kinds~of. con[rifion mus[ con[ain an app~eciaffon or~ p~eferenc~ of God which entirely excludes the w~ll to commi~ mortal sin: In" 0[h~ words, ~he con[rile sinner mus~ prefer God [o ady~ p~rsgnal_safisfac[ion [ha[ would con~ic[ ~ith God'd ~riend-s~. This disposifion~is required in all contrition for:mor- [al ~in; and i~is enough, even for perfec[ contrition. emphasize the fact that it is enoUgh, because I believe th~ ~'the.~mpress~6n is.'somet~m~s g~ven that .perfect contrition must exclude all attachment to sin. This impression is not a~curate. Perfect contrition admits of degrees. lowest-~degree contains the ~ preference for God "over any~- .th~ng that conflicts .with h~s friendship; and th~s does not necessarily exclud~ a~t~chm~nt to venial sin.- In assisting-- d~ing sifiners, it seems advisable to begin w~th the lowest degree. After g~v~ng them ~h~ motive for perfect co~tr~- t~on~of which we shall speak in a moment~get tBem to repent of their mortal s~ns and to,resolve never again to s~n mortal'ly. If they have this disposition, ~h~y have what ~s strictly necessary for "loving God above all things," for lov~ng God "with their whole heart, their Whole soul, and .~their whole mind." Having, helped them to th~s essential d~spos~t~on, one can then try to "go higher,"~that ~s,~ to. ~instill sor~ow.fo~ venial s~n and even to incite a desire~ fo~ ~erfect.conform~ty to the will of God in all thin~s. Under manyaspects, therefore, an act of perfect con-tntlon is notmore di~cult than imperfect contrition. The di~cul.ty, in so far as there, is a di~culty, lies ih the one ele~ ment that distinguishes perfect contrition from imperfect: namely, in the motioe. Perfect contrition springs ~from ~eharity ;" ond charity is the love of God "for His own sake" ~an unselfish, disinterested love, To 10ve God for His bwn sake should not be~ di~cult for anyone who reall,y ~know? God: that is, for one ~ho has cbme t6 appreciate 33~ ~ER/~I~D KELLY" - .Re'uie~ £or ~eh'g'ious ~h~ough prayer that°God is go~d and !ovabie; but "~or those_ Who have given little'thought to God, the case is proba.~l~ different:-They need to make some consideration" thal~ will sh~w ~themthat God is really worth loving for His own sake. A ra.ther simple.;ccay of l~elping a sinner to arrive at the -motive necessary for perfect contrition is to g.et him to ,reflect on Christ Crucified. In the opiStufe of our Lord on the Cross we have a very .graphic portrayal of God'os love for us. AppreciatiOn of this fact-begets gral~itude soul;, and it is an easy step from gratitude to perfe~:t love, that is, to the love of charity.St. John, the great apos.tle of charitji,, told us to foll6w this path. from gratitude to charity when he said.:. "Let us therefore love God, .because~ God first hath loved us" (I ,John '~: 19)~. St. Paul's.gr~eat --personal love ol~ our. Lord sprang., from an appre.ciation of the tremendous fact expressed in his Words: "He loved rile and deli~rered himself up for me.'.' St. Francis Xavier's° great prayer of love (0 Deus, Ego Arno Te) is a poeti~. expressio.n of the words of St. John and of St:Paul.~ S(. Ignatius, in his. "Contempla'tion for Obtaining Love," uses. the same psychology: he takes us 'from gratitude perfect, unselfish, disinterested love. First we count the_ ~ gifts of G6d to us, and, seeing their iaumberarid.their val~e, we are deeply grateful;,then, thriju.gh the gifts, which are so good, we rise t6 the consideration of.the infinite goodness. _ of the Giver. -When we say that perfect contrition is motivated by charity, and,that ctiarity.is the love of God forHis'~swn-sake, we do not mean. that perfect- contrition exclude~ all other mot.ives. It is_quite Eroper:for us to be grateful fO God for his benefits, to ~desire to enjoy the happiness of" heaven, tO fear the punishments of hell, and so forth. iuch truths furnish motivation for sorrow for sin; and the} _ 338 -- September, 1944 _ " " ~ " ~ "ARE YOU SORRY FOR YOUR SZNS o~", ~an exist'in the soul together .with the motive for perf&t ¯ : ~ " Imp'effect Contritidn Perfect dbntriti6n "isindeed e.xcellent; but we should -. not overlook the value of imperfect contrition. Imperfect -x6.n.trition is not enough of itself to do away witl~' mortal sin; yet eveh for those in the state of mortal, ~in it is very~ - . profitable. It disposes them togo ,an act Of perfect contrition, and in confessionit is a suffb cient disposition for absolution. ; As for. venial sins,~ theologians commonly, teach that ii~perfet~ contrition is enough for their remission outside ~ ~. of confessibh.~ Hence, those who. have only venial sihs-on their s0ul nee'd not be particularly solicitous about their motives-when, they make an act of contrition;any one of the many possible supernatural motives for detesting their sins will be a suffi'cient basis for a fruitful act of contrition. Elements of All Contrition "It is:of little' ~vai[ to consider the necessity and kinds of ~ontrition, if one's notion of contrition itself is not clear; hence it will be worth our wb~le to return to the first sen-tence of this article. I indicated there that, according to ¯ the Council of Trent, all contrition contains three ifi~red.i- 'ents: detestation, grief, and purpose of amendment. And, of course, as a prerequisite to any act of contrition, there-must be tbe~realization that one has done wrong. -Hence, ev,ery act of contrition.includes in some way, four psycho-logicalsteps: owe realize t~at w~ have sinned; we detest w.hat'we did; we grieve ove~ it; and _we.resolve to amei~d. I should not want to encourageanyone to be technical . in l~is prayers; yet I think that we can all profit by occa- . .sipnal.ly taking apart an 'act of~c~ntrition by thinking over" the me,aning of each of-these psychological steps, and by 339 1. ~GER/(LD KELLY' ,_ ~, Review for Reli~l~ous oactu~i!ly mfikirtgthe'steps-slowlyand prayerfully. In the -subsequent paragraphs, my purpose'is to offer some explg~ _nations and sugg.e, st!ons that might be an aid to one who wants to m~ke ~n act of contrition meditatively. Perhaps I ought to preface .mY ~ema~ks with a brief statement con~cer.ning their doctrinal val~e. Tl'ie Church_ -has mad_e it quite clear that an hct of contrition must t~in-c~rtain elements; but she has let~t the detailed explana-tion of these elements to her theologians. I have drawn rny~ _explanations f.rp_m the works of eminent theologians; yet I realize that on some points the theological_literature is, somewhat obscu.re and that differences of opinion~are pe'~- missible. In all cases of obscurity or uncertainty, I have aimed to limit my sugges.tions, to what is safe and prac-ticable. R~alization When v~e make an act of contrition we have .to be c~a- "scious of the fac~ that we ourse.lves have done evil. This ° ~upposes, of course, a speculative appreciation of the evil ., of sin; but.it does~not stop with mere speculation. The ~ purpose of the realization which precede~s and motivates the act of contrition is to get the sinner to turn away from his~ ow_n sins, with grief and a purpose of amendment. There-fore, it is well to begin a meditative act of contrition with .a conscx0u.sness of one s own sins. This d~es not ne.cess_arily" mean a detailed examination of conscience; but it does imply at least ~i general recalling of one's sins. -- In our catechism books' we say that an ~ct of contrition~ must~ be suoerna.tu~al: th_at is, it must be made wi~b God's grace and. it must be based bn a motive drawfi from~ ~-evelatiori. We may takefor granted that God gives",the grac.e, but we ourselves, have to,s,upply the supernatural motive by considering our sins in the light of some revealed 340 ,State'bet, 1944 , ~ AR~ YOU SORRY FOR YOURSINS~ [ruth. Am6ng,t~e many [~uths t~a~ h~Ip to show,us the e~i!;0f~our sins,, I might suggest the following. Tbe jogs of beaoen, or tbe oai~s~of bell: These are directly applicable to mortal sin, because mortal sin depr~ves us of' our righ~ to heaven and makes us deserving of hell. But the thoughf of heaven can als0 be abplied venial sin because, after all, the/e are degrees of ~lory~in heaven, an~d venial sin kdeps us from attai~ng a higher ~ degree'of glory. EVen the thought of hell can be used as a motive for repenting of venial sin,' because by. commitdn~ ~ vernal sins we might form habits that would lead to mortal ~ sin or_ we might lose certain special g?aces that would at _,times be. necessary in order ~o overcome serious temptfi--~ ,tibns. And, of course, a consideratibn of purgatory,, especially as a painfu~ delay in reaching~ur heavenly h6me, ' "is directly appl:icable to venial sire Tbe Olories o~ sa~ati~i~g ~tace: Grace makes our Souls ,,.beautiful in the ~yes of God; it makes us His adopted chil, .~dren, tharers in His nature, heirs to His happiness. Mortal sin loses this priceless possession for us; venial sin, though - it does not. affect the grace in our. s6uls, represents a~ lost opportunity to grow in grace. Tbe Passio~ o~ 6at Eord: This furnishes fine motiva- ~i0n ~or sorrow for either mortal or venial ,sin. And the same ma? be said-f6r any aspect of our Lord's life, because . everything we know about Him is~ calculated to. increase our admiration andlove of Him and thusshow us by contrast ~. the mefinness of our failure to live according to ~the pattern "'He has given Us. Tbe~doctrine of tbd Redemotion and of our Oa~f i~ itS" God has united us in such a way that_we can help one another ~n the w~y of sai~ation and sanctification. ~n ap~reciafion of this~'truth and of its tremendou~ imp)ica-tion~ gives us a new light on sin:- it.is n0f onlE harmful to ,V ourselves; it is a:refusal.to cooperate ~n~a glOrious-cause.-:,. ~, The ~divine wis~bm hbd2~ood~:~ Prdp~rly~under-stood, ~ this is the most all-embracing and fundafien:tal ~afid, ~I-might ~d, the simplest of motives for ~ detesting sim~ It ~ takes us back to the ohe reason why we and thiswhole world exist at all: namely, to share in the divine goodness"~ according to the ;nfihitely wise plan of God Himself. - By Sin~ we do what we can to thwart His plan; we voluntarily prevent Him from ~iving Hi~self to us as He wishes to ~do~" Ddtestation The whole purpose of meditating on~ ohe of the~ fore-going ~t?uths, or on some similar revdaled truth, is to pre-pare the soul for a~ act of contrition. In~the actor con, trifion itself, tb~ first step is detestation. ~. ~ ~ ~ ; ~ Theologians generally agree, I.believ~, that, as a distinct element-in~ the act of contrition, ~detestation refers.~to the~ p~st. The sinner goes back, so ~o speak, on the a~t that h~> peLformedtand deliberately, chooses to do just the opp~sit~ from what he did when he sinne~. In sinning,,he chose.hi~ o~n will to God's Will; now Ee turns away from his for-mer choide and unites his will to God's will. - " E~idently we cannot undo an act that i~ dong. ~ We;an ,make reparation fdr it; we can.pay damages; we can some-. times ~top it~ effects;, but the fact that" act was performed cghnot be changed. The best that we~can do ~ith~regard to the past act-is to wish we had not done it. "And'that seems~to be-the most apt way khat'we can deScrib~ detesta- 5ion of sinf it is a deliberate wish:that the act'had not been p~rformed. ,- ~ _". " It'is probabl~ not advisable, in making ~ meditative act of contrition, to spend a great deal of time on tgis point. There~ is no direct way of testing an ifiterio~ disposi;tidn such as'detestation, and we are likely to be disturbed, e~e~ _ ~ ~, . - _ T~ ~,S~p,~ember0 1944 ~. _ '-~'ARE YOU ~0RR~ FOR YOUR SINS? . ' ~:ofrightened',~ ,by our, sen~-tove and'- self=love. ~For-'th'ese o " Causes of sin are just asstrong a.s the were. wiaen the'sin ~ "was performsd and they keep. telling us that they liked the sin and.that,they are glad it happened. Hence, if we'dwel[. ~,= long oh this point, we areapt to think that we have no con- ~trition, at all. It is better to make a simple act'of the will: ';~ " ,,"BeCause I n6w see the evil that I did, I wish I had not --~ committed it"; and then. go on to the ndxt point. In prac-tice, we can~ take for granted that we have the )equired " - --~ ,--~d~testation if we have the realization, grief, and purpose ¯ "of amendment. . Grief of Soul ¯ ~" ~ Tile blessed, in heaven can detest their sins but they can-not griev~ o~er them. "i~he reason for this is that grief .Supposes the presence of an evil, and the sins of the blessed-are merely past acts, ttie evil effects o~ which have all been ~emoved ~= With us, th~ case is different." For instance, when a man co .mmits.a mortal sin, his ~oul immediately becomes an, . ~'~ Object of re, proach before God. .This is an evil effect of sin "~ ~over which he can certainly grieve. After the man makes a o""~ood confession, he can have a reasonable assurance that he~ has regained God's friendship, but h~ is not sure that'a11 effects of his sin are removed. There may be some tern, ¯ poral ptinishn~ent~ to ,undi~rgo; there mas} be some weak~: : "hess in the sofil, Some special liability to sin, thaf results ~ro~ his former sin.Because of the possibility that such ,._e~il effects may continue, we~,can griev~ over our sin~all t_hr0ugh our lives, because this possibility keeps the sins ~)'present to us at least in some sense. . ~. Perhaps the best way to describe the grief of soul which constitutes the second element of contrition is to"say that. -o jt'il a desire to get.rid of, tO shake off, the effects of our sins; ~ERALD KELLY " ' + ¯ " -Rem'e t+o °/: "o +r Religious. b&ause-- we- realize that m these effects our detestable +sins sti+il:cling to us. , We have~ to remind good people again and again that grief over sin-is not fiecessarily a matter of feeling. To~ u~e - an illustration, let us suppose that two men get, their hands:.,+ and arms cgyered with.m, qd. The firs~ man likes mtid ahd lqeenjoys being covered with it; the secon'd man does .like it. Then suppose that +while.they are covered" wi+~h~the+ ' mud they find oul~ tha(.this particular mud is very harmful to ttie skin." Both of them immediately try. to wash it bff, _ The example illustrates the difference betw+en acci~ dental grief and essentialgri+ef. On!y one of. the.men had a ~ +feelin9 of' repugnance for tlhe mud, yet both of+ them" tried to bedrid of it when they fbund it wa~s harmful. Sb Jr'is with+ Sorrow for sin. To feet-grief over the effects of sin is good, and may even be called an accidental perfection of dontri~" tion'; but theessential thing "is.to want" to be ¯rid of the.e~,i]. ¯ The besl~ exl~ression of grief, therefor)e, is'n61~ tears, but the sincere will to go to confession, to make.an act ~of per-fect contrition, to gain.indulgences, to repair an. injury dorfe' ~, .~to one's neighbor, to accept some hardship willingly in+ re16aration for one's sins, to¯ do some voluntary penahce' for the same purp?se, and so forth. ' These ale the means of: ~dbing away with the effects of our sins; hence, the will to ~do ~uch things is a tangible, way of showing ourselves that we are sorry, no matter how _we feel. Purpose of Amendment ._ ++. Purpose of'arr;endment, though by no mean~ the whole - of contrition, is 'a very important part of it, and probably~ tile best practical proof of it. No_one can have real contri-~ tion unless he intends to "amend" his lifd, but as" ~hi~ "amen "ament~ can have diffeient meanings for~ differefit ~cases; it may be well for us to consider some examplesdr ",8el~(ember, i944 . k ~ ~ ARE YOU SORRy_ FOR YOUR SINS-t these var"ia t"ions. Suppose .that a man who ha~ committed mort.ai gins sinc~ his last confessibn now wants to regain the state of "grace. W~hether he goes to confession, or makes an act-of perfect contrition with the intention of'goirig to confession, he must' certainly be besolved to "amend", his life. And ~ince ¯ his~c0ntr~tion concerns mortal sinsl hispurpose of amend-ment must be really absolute: tha.t is, he~ must intend to - avoid all mortal sin in the future. He would have tohave the same uncompromising r~solutidn, even if he had. com-imitted~ only one mortal sin. The "purpose of_sinni.ng no .more" applies quite literally tO the'case,of mortal sin. On the other hand, suppose the case of a man who has committed only venial sins since hi~ last confession, but . W.ho now- wishes to make an act of contrition for all h~s venial sins because he wants to'gaifi a plenary indulgence. .What kind of purpose.of amendment'must this man have? "The question is not easy to answer with perfect satisfac- ' tionf but it seems safe to say that it is sufficient for him if fie~.retains no attachment'toany venial sins (in the sense . that he intends to continue to commit t/'2ose Sins) and that he has at least a general intention to improve, for example, o' "~ by reducing the number of his venial sins. We mighi add that it is generally recommended that °such a man should -center his purpose of amendment, on the correction of some-~. thing definite. This recommendation is given ~becausel .experience teaches us that a general purpose o~ amendrfient ~,~is likely to prove ineffective "and that the act .of iontrition ih such' a case is ap.t to degenerate into a mere fobr~ula,~,a bit of wishful thinking, and.nothing more. ~, ~ ' ~ ~'A third case: A man has committed only ve'nial.sins since his last confession,, and he knows that be really" is not contrite for some of these sins: yet be'does wish to make a fiind~re act'of contrition" for 6ne kind of sin: for exa.mplq, 345 ~ ¯ GERALI~ KELLY ~ - ~i~iew ~br Religious iying.~ What must be this man's p~rpqse of amendment? ~.- Again, the case is not~asy fo s01~e with perfect satisfactions: but it seems Safe to give this practical~ rule: Ifthe man's lies -are of the ~ull~ ~libecate kind, he ought to'be resolved avoid them entirely; bfit if-the lies are rather.qn the~semi~ deliberate side~. ~he ought at least to have the good will try to reduce their number. In ~he'foregoing cases,-"amendment, of life'~ was used in. its ordiflary, everyday sense: tfiat is~. ~s an impfove~en¢ over one's recent Conduct. 'There is a fourth case, in which the expression,.e~idently has a different, meaning.: sj[der, for example, the holy K~ng David. _He offended God~ seriop~ly; then_he repented of that sin, was_forgiven, as far as we know, lived many years in the friendship, of God. Yet he continued to recite his Miserere for his past ' lapse fr6m grace. I.t would be absurd to think that this Miserere was-not a good act of cpntrition; but if it was " an-act ofcontrition, in what- did the amendment cod~ist? It ~eems obvious that "amendment"-. in such circumsta~e~ .has a wide meaning:~ that.is, it refers to the renewed pur-pOSe of continuing the reform that had begun Years ag6> The case of David is repeated week after-week iK our confessionals throughout the world. People sin~ mortally in their youth; they confess the~e sins, and then live.for-mony~ years without'furthe} serious lapses. Yet these peo- , p1~, can certainly make acts. of contrition for the "bld": mortal., sins;' in fact, they are e~n advised to i.nclude t~ese -sins in their.confessions io that they may benefit more and more by theabsolution. In their case, as ih David s,.the ~ purpose of amendment-for their mort~l sins d0~sno~ redan. :~ an_ intention to correct their present .lives, but" rather- the. renewed purpose to persevere in the amendment.th#t has, 10rig ~ince beefi brought about. The examples illustrate the various aspects ~of and 346 " ,'~':. September, 1944" - - ARE YOU SORRY FOR Y~)UR SINSt ~ requisit~ for ~u~pose of amendmefit. In our own case, ~when we m'ake an act-of contrition, we shall-, generally find a combination of these examples. We have sins of the past, "for .which it is sufficient to.renew our purpose of amend-r~ en~, and°retent sifts which" call" for real amendmen, t o and '~"~ defiriite resolutions. ~" " _ ~We sa~ that the, f.eelings sometimes present a p~ycho-.- °logicaldifficul~y in estimating detestation and grief.- Some- ~"°~hing ,~imilar can happen .wi.th regard.to purpSse of amend- "-~ ment, parti[ul~rly when ha,bitual sins of frailty are in.- '~yol~red. The sinner realizeshis w~akn~ss and, e~ien-.when he makes~ his act of contrition or goes to con'fession,, he "'~feels,sure" that he is going to sin again. Because of thi~, ,.he wonders if he really has a purpose of amendment. . ~"fh~ ,solution to the difficulty lies in a.proper under- ~- standing 6f~a purpose of amendment. I~ is not an act' of ~' the ~ind, but_of the will. It is a sincere.intention to try to dmend; and to take the means necessary.for doin~ that. .::'" ,The"'f.e~ling ~hat one will sin again" may result, not from any" ill~ will, but from the consciousness-that one is weak -~ and that this weakness has expressed itself again and again. Nevertheless, there is no weakness that cannot be Overcome by.serious effort and the grace'of God: Even the most habitual sinner can,,,resolve to make the effort, and he may 'il~ei iure that GSd will give ttie grace. And ,he should not "be ~li~scou.raged if he ~does fall again; ,this may simply be a -~ sign that he h~s not 'yet discovered the proper means for, correcting his particular bad habit. Sometimes people think, that all .they need to do to°~ oirercome bad habits is to go to the sacraments frequently. This'is only one. aspect of the solu[ion. It will ne~ver work unle.ss the sinner ~akes the more obvious means of avoiding "-occasions of sin, of exercising himself in self-control, and~ ~ sd forth 347 K~:LLY~,. ¯ ~ .,. ~ GERALD . . :- ~ " My afialysis of the act of contrition has been lofig.-Yet I.hop-e it ~cbntgins some helpfUl.suggestions. "~In pa~?ticular2 I think that many would find it fruitful to make a medi-tative act of contrition o~casionall) for example, ,during the morning'meditation on confession day. ~The Cl~urch evidently wants us to draw gre~t profit from frequent fe~ssion; and for.this there.is no m~ans more. effective tha~n~. an increase in contrition. ~" o BOOKLE-rs H~cmn and Psalm~ to Our Lad~l is the title of a: handy little, pamphlet containing "an, English translktioa of the Te" Matcem De/ Laadamus and the "5 Psalms" honor Of Ou~ Lady. Readers who are interested tanget the booklet fr,6mothe erend d,ude Senieur, O.F.M.Cap.0 Capuchin College, Brookland, Washington D.C. The pamplet is sold for the cost "of printing and mailing: individual copies 5 cents each; lots of 25 or more at greatly reduced rates. MV Particialar Ex~men Book is a tiny pamphlet containing many~helpful sug-.,.~ gestions concerning the pa,rticular,examen.and a.numbeE of ruled pages.for marking th~ examen. It is published by- the Franciscan Sisters of the Perpetual Adoration.~ ~t. Rose Convent, La Crosse, ,Wisconsin'. The, booklet began ~s a prtvate com-munity project, but the Sis[ers are now offering it to-other groups of religiotis prac2 tically at cost ($3.00 a hundred) in order to stimulate the use of the particular~ -'xamen as an important nieans of spiritu,al advancement. "Anal~lsis of the. New Testament, by. Cyril Gaul. O.S.B. An excellenL booklet. the fruit of m~ny years of teaching Scripture at St.~, Meinrad's Seminary. In accbrd with Pius X's Qaoniarn i~ re Biblica, the author has provided seminarians with an analysis of the various New'Testament books which all priests and ~he laity will welcome. 77 pages. Price: ~40 cents a copy, postpaid; 4 fol $1.00. Address: SL Meinrad Historical Essays, St. Meinrad. Indiana. ' 348 ~XINT DOMINIC,.AND HI~ WORK. By fhe Reverend Pierre Mandon-net, O.P~ Translated by Sister Mary Benedic÷a Larkln,.O.P.~ Pp.~xvlll ~- 487. B. Herder Book Co., Sf~ Louis, 1944. $S.00. -~ : According to a contemporary account, "the Blessed" Dominic w~as of medium height and of slight build. His Countenance was;hand-some:, of fair complexion, with light auburn hair and beard and. lt~minous eyes. A~kind of radiance shone from his br6~. inspiring love and reveren.ce in,all. Full of joy, he seemed e~rer ready to smile, unlesS, moved to ~pity by the affliction of his neighbor. His hands were long and shapely; his voice itrong,, noble and sonorous. He n~ever was bald, and his corona was complete, sprinkled with:~a few white hairs." Along withthis ratherpleasing exterior; he possessed al,so ver, y exceptional interior gifts of'mind, heart, and Will. And if to this~be added,his life-long faithful correspondence with "so many extr~ordina~ry graces, even.mystical ones, we have tl~e man of action Of whom Pierre Mandonnet, O.P.,-a historian df repute, could say: ]'You may quote'me whenever you wish. I consider Saint Dominic as a religibus founder the greatest o~ganizer that ever trod this earth after~the Lord Jesus Christ." To decide whether, or not that jUdg-ment is true requires a careful re~ding of this volume. It is a little~ Summa of Dominican brigins. ~" . P~re Mandonnet once jotted down on a slip of paper: "T0.re~d." :jo.y; to think, delight; .to write, torture." The last three" wor, d.s may be a par~tial explanation why the present work was far from com-i~' le}ed" when he'died in 1936.- But'he had done ~he reading and'the thi_nking, indeed, a. great deal of both: and he had outlined the chap-ters unit had written,some of them. Fortunately, he had competent ¯ disciples and co-workers. Orie of these, Marie-Humbert Vicair~e, O.P., ~ orghnized the .copious material gathered over many.years, and' sup-plement'ed it with critical notes and studies of his own. Anotpey,. Reginald Ladn~r, O.P., contributed a.do~umentedt.background chap-teron the plight of preaching in the twelfth c~ntury. The result is a book, pi~blished in 1939,somewhat lacking in unity and coherence, but substant~ally P~re Mandonnet s, both as to content and arran~e-~ ment. The contributions~.of Vicaire and Ladner are signed by-them, gut this is not noted in the'table of contents, as it should be. , 349 BOOk KEVIEWS _ . ~ Review.for Reli~.lio!is - ¯ Tile~bobl~-is d.ivided into tWO parts. The first part'presents the bis.~orical .setting, sketches tl~e iife of Saint Dominic, and develops at "length .his arduous l~bors in~fgunding and organizing the Order of. ¯ Preachers. Ciearly seen is thehand of Divine Providence, raising up a new Orderto meet the p~culiar religious needs of the times. In the early'thirteenth century,, the gradual coll~p~ of the old feudal s~rstem an~l the growing prominence of the towns a~ad communes brought about a changed order of things. The lower clergy, for the ~ost p_art ignorant and untrained, was too slow adapting itself to the altered situation. T, he bishops were more occupied w~th temporaht~es than" with tlSeir apostolic duty of preaching the .word of God: 5As-a ~ cdns~quence, the faithful, especially in the towns, began to drift away "frOm the Churchqnto heresies and schisms of various kinds. There,. ~was pressing need for an instructed clergy and for preachers of the Gospel. Saint Dominic, the zealous and learned sub-prior~ of the ¯catl~edrai'chapter of O~ma in Spain; was the man of Providence. was chosen~by Innocent the Third to found an Order qf poor priests~' -whose task would 15~ to preach to the people and to teach theology to ~ti~e clerics; in~brief,~"to contemplate and to give to others the fruits of contemplation." It was Dominic's Order that v/as to play such an important and successful. ~ole in carrying out the objectives ~of the- -Fourth Lateran Council~"the reform of the Church, the refor.rn of morals, the extirpation of heresy, and the strengthening "of the" Faith." Ma.y we not say that the Friars Preachers have never ceased ~_ doing, just that? ,The" second part of the book is" concerned with the Rule of Saint Augustine and its relation to the Rule of Saint Dominic. P~re.Mari~ donnet se.edas to have proved .his point: namely, that the Dominican riales and. constitutions,are, an organic development of the second. the,three 'rules of:Sainv Augustine, and. not, as-wfis though_Ufor,~a ~ ¯ lpng time, of the tliird, the famous Epistle.to certain religious women. The .second Rule is that primitive.Rule followed by a com~mentary" .which gaint,)~ugustiiae drew up in 391 for his first community~ of men. This study reveals, the'hand of a master,historian aiad is the most valuable section of the whole work. COncluding the~book-by way of appendices are five important "h'iDstoomriicnai lc astnueds,i"e s",w .aotnceh doof gwsh oicf hth dei sLcoursds.e's.' t Fheiv oer sigimini loafr tshteu deixeps~re~s sbiuotn~- of'a.more restricted and technical nature, l~ave been omitted from the., Efigl~ish e~liti0n. There_is

Issue 42.2 of the Review for Religious, March/April 1983. ; Trends and Issues in Spirituality, 1983 The Service of Religious Authority Negative Feelings--Positive Growth Volume 42 Number 2 March/April, ~983 R~v~J~w t:OR Rt~l.~(;~otJs I ISSN 0034-639X). published every two months, is edited in collaboration with the faculty members of the Department of Theological Studies of St. Louis University. The editorial offices are located at Room 428:3601 Lindell Blvd.: St. Louis, MO 63108. RJ~v~!v,' t:o~ R~qt.~(;IotJs is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus. St. I.ouis. MO. © 1983 by R~v~t~w FOR Rt-zl.~t;Iot~s. Composed. printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis. MO. Single copies: $2.50. Subscription U.S.A.: $9.00 a year: $17.00 for two years. Other countries: add $2.00 per year Ipostage). For subscription orders or change of address, write: Rl.:v~l.:w ~'oR R~:u(;tot~s: P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Daniel T. Costello, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Book Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor March/April, 1983 Volume 42 Number 2 Manuscripts, hooks for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to REv~v:w I,oR RELIGIOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. Questions for answering should be senl Io Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; Jesuit Community; St. Joseph's University; Cily Avenue at 54th St.; Philadelphia, PA 19131. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from REVIEW I-'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 Arbur, MI 48106. Priorities for Religious Pio Laghi Archbishop Laghi is Apostolic Delegate to t~ae United States. His delegation is located at 3339 Massachusetts Ave., N.W.: Washington, DC 20008. This article is the text of his homily at the joint meeting of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and the Conference of Major Superiors of Men, held last August in San Francisco. With great personal interest I have been looking forward to this opportun-ity to lead you in eucharistic prayer and to reflect upon priorities for specially consecrated members of the Christian community. Today's readings provide an indispensable framework for this reflection. While they speak of priorities essential to any form of Christian life, they tell us in.a special way of the priorities of religious life: to respond wholeheartedly to God's call; and to respond by word and witness, equally without reservation, to the pressing hunger--the "famine"---for God's word which is as real today as in the time of Amos. Total Includes Permanent Religious !ife is essentially a total gift of self to the plan of God and to the service of his love, so that it is properly called a total "consecration." You know this well, but you know also that your commitment is renewed and strengthened by reflecting constantly on its meaning. What, then, do we mean by this total consecration which is sealed by religious vows? Everything great is final. All life-determining commitments are irrevocable. Not because they cannot be taken back (plainly they can) but because, making such commitments, we define ourselves as persons and so establish the parameters of success and failure, of generosity and selfishness, not merely for our lives but for our very selves. One of the worst aberrations of our times is the idea that one can be a religious--or a priest or a spouse--for a time. This is the very denial of the gift. 161 162 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1983 Those who adopt this attitude lend themselves but they do not give themselves. "What is essential in the religious vow," says Father Danielou, "is precisely that, by a definitive commitment, you are expressing this profound desire of being totally in the service of God in regard to all the eventualities of radical doubt, of questioning, and of temptation." One might say that in totally handing over his or her life to God, the religious makes with him a permanent bridge, a stable pact, a perpetual alliance. Total Includes Detachment and Attachment The words of Jesus make it clear that this total gift of self involves a two-fold movement: first, setting aside--detaching oneself from--whatever is an obstacle to the girl; second, a continuing act of positive response to the invitation--"Come back and follow me." The rich young man balked at the first step; many do. But it is possible to take this step, yet hang back from the second--"Come back and follow me." It is a permanent challenge for each religious, as for each priest and each Christian, always to renew in the context of daily life this determination to entrust one's destiny and one's self totally to God. Pride hinders us, but there is a more subtle hindrance than pride: the belief, of which we may not b'e fully conscious, that our own insight and discernment are superior--because seemingly more efficacious or even more virtuous--to the imperatives of Christ's summons as mediated to us through the particular way of life to which he has called us. Beyond detachment, one might say, lies abandonment. To take the first step but not the second is to travel only part of the way God wishes us to go. Religious Life as Witness Another fundamental point:the first function of religious life is to wit-ness- Znot to what men and women are capable of, but to what God is capable of. There are many ways of expressing this. Pope Paul Vl, in Evangelii Nunti-andi, put it with special beauty: All evangelizers--and therefore all religious-- he says, are called to be servants of the truth, not merely by speaking of abstract intellectual truth, but.by living and witnessing to God and the things of God "as if they could see the invisible" (Evangelii Nuntiandi, 76). How else, in times of spiritual famine, shall we respond to that hunger of which Amos speaks, the "famine. for hearing the word of the Lord"?. One cannot give what one does not have. "At the deepest level of their being," Pope Paul tells us, "[religious] are caught up in the dynamism of the Church's life, which is ~'hirsty for the divine Absolute and called to holiness. It is to this holiness that they bear witness" (Evangelii Nuntiandi, 69). Men and women are capable of much that is admirable: of courage and generosity, for example. But what is unique to sanctitY--and to religious life in its role of giving witness--is that it is not the work of men and women, but of the Spirit of God. Sanctity is not humanity at a high level of excellence. It is a radical leap, nothing less than our participation in divine life. Because it is not Priorities for Religious / 163 humanly ostentatious, it speaks all the more powerfully. "Being a challenge to the world and to the Church herself," Pope Paul remarks, "this silent witness of poverty and abnegation, of purity and sincerity, of self-sacrifice in obe-dience, can become an eloquent witness" (Evangelii Nuntiandi, 69). Priorities for Religious It is a joy for me to verify the presence and the dynamic activity of so many religious, men and women, in this country--all together about 160,000. They dedicate their lives, not for a time but forever, to God and to the People of God. They are "authentic witnesses of the Gospel," irreplaceable "workers" of evangelization, the most powerful "sign of total availability to God, to the Church, and to the brethren" (Evangelii Nuntiandi, 69). Prayer Among the priorities that 1 see for religious in this country, then, is the effort to ensure that prayer is an attitude toward life, so that prayer and life mutually enrich each other. This implies that prayer will lead religious to involve themselves in real life, while real-life experiences call .for intense moments of prayer. Today, as we know, along with the necessary quest for personal prayer, there is a strong concern for community prayer, for sharing one's experience of the faith, growing in one's insight into the evangelical imperatives dictated by one's circumstances, applying the events of the history of salvation, as related in Scripture, to the events of today. How important, too, that religious remain faithful to the sacramental life in its totality. There is no religious life--as there is no sanctity--apart from the Eucharist. Religious life is the expan.sion, the living out, of those energies which the Eucharist develops and nourishes in us. Our prayer must further-more be, visible and a source of encouragement to others; and this is possible through the liturgy, well prepared, well conducted, and well shared. The Social Dimension Another priority arises from awareness that the message we profess and communicate has not only a theological dimension but a social dimension. We preach a Gospel which frees men and women from sin in its roots and manifes-tations. We therefore preach and promote the human dignity and divine filiation of every human being. Preferential Option for the Poor This points to still another priority: the preferential option for the poor. Today religious increasingly find themselves in difficult, marginalized situa-tions: caring for the sick, helping those in need, promoting the rights of victims of discrimination, carrying on humble and self-sacrificing labors of many kinds. This option does not imply thb exclusion of anyone--the spiritual 164 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1983 poverty of our contemporary counterparts of the rich young man makes that clear--but it does call for a preference for the oppressed and victimized, and a constant effort to draw closer to them. This preferential option has led religious, and not only religious, to reex-amine traditional works in order to respond better to the requirements of evangelization. It has also shed a clearer light on the relationship between religious life and the poverty of the dispossessed. Beyond interior detachment and community austerity, it implies solidarity with the poor, often expressed by sharing wi~h them their conditions of life. At the same time, while adhering to this option, it is necessary to avoid certain dangers--a lack of adequate preparation, a lack of personal maturity, or a lack of evangelical motivation. At the very least these can imperil the preferential option by causing it to be misinterpreted. Hispanic Involvement There is another priority about which I also feel strongly. It concerns the presence, already substantial and rapidly growing, of so many Hispanics in the United States--their large number (almost twenty-five percent of our Cathol-ics), their religious and human values, their need for full acceptance in the Church and society. In their recent joint pastoral letter, th~ Hispanic bishops of the United States spoke of the "constant rejection" which has been "part of [the] daily life" of their people. Nevertheless, they said, "our parents taught us to love the United ~tates, although the struggle has been difficult. Our people have always struggled to improve themselves. We love the peace founded on truth, justice, love and freedom . We have not taken up arms against our country but instead have defended it. We have fought to eliminate the injusti-ces that rule our lives. The road has been long and difficult, littered with many obstacles, but we have made progress and will continue ahead with firmness and determination" ( The Bishops Speak with the Virgin: A Pastoral Letter of the Hispanic Bishops of the U.S., 1982). Yet, in the words of a Spanish-speak-ing priest of Texas, "there is a certain tendency to look upon the Hispanics as an unavoidable problem. But rejoice and appreciate us. as God's life-bear-ing gift, not only for the enrichment but even for the salvation of our Church and of our world." I recall something T.S. Eliot once said: No one is truly educated unless he or she knows a second language. These are wise words. Only then can one know what it means to be laughed at as one gropes for the right word or stumbles over its pronunciation. Truly, to know another language--in this case, Spanish--is to work for the coming of the kingdom of God and for the service of our brothers and sisters. Integration of Religious into Local and Universal Church A final priority concerns the integration of religious into the life of the local churches and the universal Church. Here, of course, a balance is essential. It Priorities for Religious / 165 was once said that religious life "has no other end but to be at the service of the priest." Plainly, however, religious must defend the specific character of their vocation against attempts, however well intentioned, simply to use them for fulfilling the immediate needs of parishes and dioceses. At the same time, though, there is another side to this coin. Individual religious, as well as their communities, must take special care to be in deep and sincere unity with the Vicar of Christ and with the orientations he gives, especially those which concern religious life or interpret the charisms of the founders of any religious institute. The same applies to their relationship with bishops. As a matter of priority, the norms contained in the Holy See's document Mutuae Relationes should be implemented in order that religious life be fully integrated into the life of the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church. Conclusion Permit me, in concluding, to quote words of Pope John Paul II which draw together many of the themes upon which I have touched. Speaking last May to religious men and women of England and Wales, the Holy Father ob-served that although "to most people you are known for what you do," never-theless "your true greatness., comes from what you are," and that can only be understood "in the light of the 'newness of life' revealed by the Risen Lord." "At some time in your lives," he said, "the call of the Lord to a special intimacy and union with him in his redemptive mission became so clear that you overcame your hesitations. You put aside your doubts and difficulties and committed yourselves to a life of total fidelity to the highest ideals of the Gospel. Your free decision was sustained by grace, and your perseverance through the years is a magnificent testimony to the victory of grace over the forces that struggl~ to tarnish the newness of. your life in Christ . "'l~oday there exists a wid~pread~mptation to unbeliEfanddespair. You, on the other hand, are committed to being men and women of deep faith and unceasing prayer. To you in a particular way may be addressed Saint Paul's exhortation to Timothy: 'Fight the good fight of the faith: take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses' (1 Tm 6:12). "Believe in the Risen Lord. Believe in your own personal vocation. Believe that Christ called you because he loves you. In moments of darkness and pain, believe that he loves you all the more. Believe in your mission within the Church. Let your faith shine before the world, as a lamp in the darkness; let it shine as a beacon that will guide a confused society to the proper appreciation of essential values. May the spiritual joy of your personal lives, and your com-munal witness of authentic Christian love, be a source of inspiration and hope" (Address to Men and Women Religious of England and Wales, May 29, 1982). Religious Life in the Young Churches Jan Snijders, S.M. At the end of 1981, Fr. Snijders finished his term in the general administration of his congrega-tion and has enjoyed a sabbatical for the past year. Presently he is lecturing in philosophy at the interdiocesan seminary of Papua, wfiere his address is: Marist College, Bomana: P.O. Box 1101 ; Boroko; Papua, New Guinea. ~n a periodical that aims at providing a forum for theological and spiritual reflection on religious life one does not have to underline the importance of religious life, and the case of tile Young Churches is not so different as to warrant an exception. The entire Church has become missionary (or should have). The contribution of religious to the mission of the Church and espe-cially their religious consecration itself are to manifest in all churches, young and old, that "the kingdom of God is at hand" (AG, 18; LG, 44). While pontifical and conciliar documents are eloquent on the subject of fostering religious life in the Young Churches, they are prudently vague on how this should be done, on who should do so and on the forms that religious life should take. Religious superiors too are probably very wise to keep things out of the limelight. Growth and adaptation are processes of a delicate nature. Premature publicity and interventions could easily do more harm than good. All of this may explain why so little is being written by private observers or scholars on the~ founding of local re!igious institutes and on the spreading of international institutes in the Young Churches. Still these things are taking place everywhere and a few general remarks can be of use to people trying to make responsible decisions. Are Local Foundations Preferable? Among the many connected questions there is one that especially observers in the "old" churches often bring up: ls it not better to leave the field to local 166 Religious Life in the Young Churches / 167 foundations so that religious life from the beginning can be thoroughly Afri-can, Indian, or whatever the case may be? Before proposing elements of a possible answer we must note that, as a matter of fact, local sisterhoods have been founded nearly everywhere and many are flourishing. Local lay institutes of men are much less numerous, and rare are those that can be said to flourish; in fact, one does not have to be very widely informed to know of several that after the first generation of members have ceased to exist. Practically nonexistent are clerical institutes founded in the Young Churches, with a very few, but notable exceptions. If the long-distance observer's concern for the "contextualization" of reli-gious life is praiseworthy, the assumption that it has a better chance in local institutes is debatable. For every case that substantiates the assumption there may be one that disproves it! Admittedly, a local community is never under pressure from faraway higher superiors to conform to rules and customs that originated in different cultures. But, even so, their first models of religious life were necessarily expatriates and the spontaneous desire of local religious communities to imitate foreign patterns may be a more effective force against what outsiders might conceive of as "contextualization" than pressure of higher superiors possibly could be. Conversely, local members of an interna-tional group are just as likely to carve out an identity of their own by insisting on local adaptations. In any case, those distant higher superiors who sup-posedly insist on foreign rules will in many cases prove to be either mythical figures or memories of a past that has disappeared many years ago! There are good reasons for local institutes, but "contextualization" is a doubtful one. A recent Roman document extolled (and perhaps exaggerated) the value of international religious institutes.~ In any case their importance cannot be doubted: they are able to respond to needs and opportunities across the globe; they provide spiritual renewal where local means fail; they form a network of communion and unity where local Churches become excessively particular; they carry a rich spiritual heritage and have the resources to revitalize it. If in the older churches local communities successfully work alongside of local branches of international ones, it would seem a little patronizing to doubt that this could be so in the Young Churches. Moreover, international institutes allow the Young Churches to take part in fbreign missionary activity (AG, 38). ¯ Local communities have advantages that 1 shall mention further on, but they also have to cope with disadvantages. It is not fair to .demand that local ordinaries (such communities usually are of diocesan right) always manage to strike a perfect balance between rightful concern and respect for internal autonomy. But it means that especially small lay communities at times suffer under interference from one bishop, only to be neglected by his successor.2 Local communities often were founded by a missionary or a bishop to respond to immediate and urgent needs. One cannot expect all founding fathers or mothers to be saints or spiritual giants. With the passing of time needs change and the initial inspiration dries up. For institutes to be flexible 161~ / Review for Religious, March-April, 1983 and to retain spiritual vigor they need somehow to stay in contact with one of the great spiritual traditions of the Church. For the large orders and congrega-tions it must therefore always be a sacred duty to assist small communities without infringing on their autonomy and identity. "Planning" For The Spirit Much more complicated are the questions that arise when we look at the implantation of international religious orders and congregations. Granting that, in principle, there is a place for them in the Young Churches, one still has to ask whether it is opportune to do so, and under what conditions. But before tackling those questions a more basic one must be answered, namely whether such,matters can and must be "planned" at all. Shouldn't one leave things entirely to the free movements of the Spirit who calls whom he chooses, where he chooses? The religious vocation is an indix~idual gift of God and the receiver has an inalienable right to follow the call of the Lord. The task of superiors, ecclesias-tical and religious, can only be to discern, to respect and to encourage the movements of the Spirit in the hearts of people who feel themselves called. Granted this point of departure, it still remains a fact that God's call usually leads the receiver to ask admission in a particular community, and then the superiors concerned have a right and a duty to decide whether it is for the good of the candidate and of the community to accept her or him. And, in a place where that particular community is not firmly established, that is bound to be a delicate question, especially if it concerns a single applicant, or a very small number. Unless a community is going to be firmly established among the people from whom the applicants come, accepting them carries the risk that they will pass their religious lives as strangers, either permanently in a foreign country or as the lonely locally-born among foreign fellow religious in their own country. Of course people may be called to do just that, but it demands a high measure of psychological balance, of personal maturity, and of spiritual depth. Unless these gifts are clearly present, superiors may have to conclude that the candidate is not called to such an exceptional life. The fact that candidates ask for admission may lead the community to attempt a permanent foundation in their country. Conversely, candidates can be accepted, and even sought, in view of a planned foundation. Whatever the case may be, the decision to establish the order or the congregation in a new country is distinct from the decision to accept a few individual candidates, even if one thing will eventually lead to the other. We have two separate decisions, each to be made on its own merits, and not necessarily by the same people. For one thing, accepting candidates is the responsibility of religious superiors only; starting a foundation needs the agreement of ecclesiastical superiors. My conclusion is that, while we must respectfully follow the movements of the Spirit, we cannot abandon prudent "planning," i.e., weighing changes and consequences whenever candidates are to be admitted and foundations in the Religious ~fe in the Young Churches / 169 Young Churches are considered. The Spirit also asks responsible decision making. Reasons to Hesitate I have started from the assumption that it is not self-evident that all religious orders and congregations should attempt to begin foundations every-where in the Young Churches. I have argued that the matter must not be confused with the question of eventually admitting a few individual candidates but also that, on the whole, there is a place for international institutes within the Young Churches. So why, the initial assumption? Foi several centuries missionary activity Was organized around the so-called ius commissionis whereby missionary territories were entrusted to a missionary or religious institute. This means that usually only one clerical institute was present in a given area and only a very few lay institutes, often in some way related to the ~lerical institute to which the mission was entrusted. Naturally, local candidates to the religious life would usually enter either a local community founded on the spot, or the international institute working there. Now, the former mission territories have gradually become dioceses in their own right, the ius commissionis has disappeared, and a healthy diversifi-cation of missionary and religious institutes has taken the place of the earlier "monopolies." It can now no longer be self-evident that a religious institute will found itself wherever it helps founding the Church. And there can be very good reasons why in certain cases it should not do so. The main reason for this view is the one discreetly hinted at by the Bishops' Conference of Senegal and Mauritania in a Declaration on the Vocational Apostolate of 1978.3 The bishops ask that "in a spirit of generosity, dispersion be avoided." Let us look at this idea of "dispersion." We must admit that life in an intercultural setting is demanding. Generally speaking, people can be expected to feel and to function better at home, and to show a healthier growth among people of their own culture (one advantage of local foundations!). The prob-lems of intercultural communities are still not rod difficult if the "mixture" of cultures is balanced but they become more serious for a small minority in a group that for the rest is solidly of one race, nationality or language. Especially for young people the problems this poses can be nearly insurmountable. The consequences are obvious wherever one is dealing with small Catholic populations. ! do not know of any study that has come to firm conclusions on the question of how many vocations can reasonably be expected to come from a given Catholic population. The variations according to country and period of history are considerable, but clearly there are limits. If the religious voca-tions of a small Catholic population are spread over a disproportionate number of religious institutes, then many of the locally-born religious will for-ever be minorities among the foreign missionaries. "171~ / Review for Religious, March-April, 1983 Will those religious be able to cope with the stresses of this situation? Will, in the communities that have such minorities, the groups of local people ever grow large enough to reach what could be called "critical mass," i.e., a group large enough to spark creativity and lead to genuine indigenization of religious life? Finally, what happens if the international institute has to withdraw from the country, for lack of vocations at home, for political reasons, or whatever? Will the few locally-born members leave with the foreigners? Will they be left stranded by themselves? The situation is far from imaginary. One example may illustrate what dispersion can look like. Before the war eleven clerical religious orders and congregations entered Japan. In 1981.all but one had Japanese priests among their members. Between 1947 and 1958 sixteen other clerical institutes followed them into Japan and in 1981 twelve of those had Japanese priests among their members, in the following proportions and absolute members:4 Entered Before the War Entered After the War 87.5% = 21out of 24a 71.1% = 4 out of 7 84 %= 21 out of 25 31%=9out of 29 82.6% = 43 out of 52 28.5%=4out of 14 78.9%= 15 out of 19 25 %= 3outof12 50 %= 4out of g 21.4%= 3out of 14 44.8% = 78 out of 174 20.8% = 5 out of 24 43.3% = 39 out of 90 20 %=2outofl0 43.1%=41 out of 95 19 %=8out of 42 33.8% = 91 out of 277 17.3% = 4 out of 23 9.4%= 5outof 53 I1.1%= 1 outof 9 ai.e. 21 Japanese priests 6.6% = I out of 15 out of 24 priests in 3.1% = 2 out of 64 Japan In all but one of the pre-war set the Japanese priests are in the majority or form substantial and viable minorities. In the post-war set the Japanese members are, both proportionately and in absolute numbers, in far from promising situations. It cannot be without significance that.for the same year the institutes of the first set mention that they have together 83 members studying for the priestho6d, respectively (in the same order as above): 0, 1,9, I, 0, 8, 19, ! 1, 25, 9. The institutes of the second set register together eleven students, spread over four institutes. The other eight have none at all. It is not reasonable to expect the picture to change substantially. Already the vocation rate in Japan is "exceptionally high (but going down): more than 850 Japanese priests (diocesan and regular) in a Catholic population of about 400,000. The rate is still higher if we take into account the preponderance of Japanese women over men in the Church. Similar dispersion could probably be registered among lay religious in Japan. The clear division between pre-war and post-war entries is perhaps particu-lar to Japan but it must be far from the only place where serious dispersion is taking place. Unfortunately very few places have such splendid publications as Religious Life in the Young Churches / 171 the Japan Catholic Directory and reliable information is scarce. A Matter of Criteria If there is a place in the new churches for international religious institutes but not everywhere for all of them, choices must be made and criteria are needed: What factors constitute reasons for or against an eventual foundation? Firstly, we must take into account what has already been said about the danger of dispersion: What is the size of the Catholic population and how many institutes already exist among them? Is there room for more? Or is the area "saturated"?. One does not need hard and fast rules to make a prudent assessment. Secondly, an institute must take stock of its resources for the formation of eventual candidates. Wouldn't it be presumptuous to admit candidates if one does not have the personnel and the means to offer them a good spiritual and professional formation? And it cannot be assumed that a solid formation can ordinarily be given by sending young people to a foreign country, or by entrusting them to formators who are not familiar with the candidates' culture. The fact that this has been done in the past and that it has been known to succeed does not ~jusify doing it on a general scale: The failure of those experi-ments cannot be overlooked. Faced with the decision whether or not to seek and admit candidates, an-institute must honestly ask itself, especially today, if it has the personnel to maintain an adequate presence in the host country for a long enough period of time. A careful look at how long it has taken new provinces in the past to reach "cruising speed" and assure self-sustained growth can help to make an intelli-gent guess. By way of target figure l would propose that a clerical institute must reckon with a good twenty-five years before the local religious can reasonably be expected to carry on withou( substantial outside support. Lay institutes may not need that much time. The already mentioned Declaration of the Bishops of Senegal and Mauri-tania says that an institute should have a substantial presence in the country. But what is "substantial"?. I am inclined to think that their presence can just as easily be too big as too small. The founding community must of course be large enough to show diversity of talents and personalities. Each person's weaknesses must be balanced out by the strengths of others and candidates must be presented with an ample range of models. But if the founding com-munity gets a little too large then the chances are that it lacks buoyancy and that it has too many other interests besides founding. Especially important is the minoriO, effect. In a large group of expatriates the locally-born religious remain for too long a minority; the foreigners' ways remain normative; locals waste their energy fighting for room and their creativity is not given enough scope. The last point varies with the way the founding group is composed. If all are of the same home country, the minority effect on the locals is all the more stifling. Any group of people of the same background, living together in 172 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1983 a foreign country, tends to cultivate their common memories and cultural traits more than they ever would at home. In spite of the most noble intentions they often are, unwittingly, quite intolerant of local ways. An international group on the contrary that has proved to be able to function together has great advantages--the locals soon find their own niche. The minority effect is mini-mized: everyone is a minority, thus no one is. A religious community that believes in its spiritual heritage naturally seeks to expand. This general framework however can carry incidental traits that provide important indications as to the viability of an eventual "implantation" project. A missionary group actually engaged in one of the Young Churches, seeing that no replacements or reinforcements can be expected from the home province or the order as a whole, turns to local vocations in the hope of ensuring the continuity of its works. But this complex of attitudes must raise doubts about their ability to take in local vocations. Are they not too much preoccupied with their past achievements? Does the search for security not play too large a role? ls the specifically "religious" commitment central enough in their lives? Religious communities and superiors in the older churches that see the former flow of vocations dry up can be tempted by tales of plentiful vocations in some faraway place (even if true). Add a touch of cultural romanticism about our "decadent Western civilization" and about "the spiritual youth of unsophisticated people" and the scene is set for another unfortunate experi-ment. It may sound harsh but the general rule should be that religious who do not project their enthusiasm at home and who do not attract young people of their own culture to follow them, should not attempt to do so either among young people of another culture. This is not a matter of inviting negative comments on the motivations of religious either at home or in the foreign missions, but simply a matter of objective appraisal of their suitability to undertake a particularly demanding task. These criteria add up to a formidable list! No situation is ever going to be hundred-per-cent perfect. Still, the community that accepts young members in a new country takes on a grave responsibility. The picture as a whole must be fairly favorable to justify going ahead. It is not the kind of project that asks for bold ,risks: The generosity of young people and the future of religious life in the emerging churches is at stake. Conclusion Religious institutes belong to the life of the Church. They provide their members with ways to follow Christ. Religious discover in their own lives and show others that the kingdom of God is at work here and now. Every culture, like every individual, is in need of conversion.5 Therefore religious institutes should be present in all the churches in the diversity that is part of their charism (PC, 1; ND, I1, 12, 29). But unless this program is implemented with great care, we risk defeating our purpose and Religious ~fe in the Young Churches / "173 people of good will would suffer the consequences. This article does not pretend to have touched on all the aspects of religious life in the New Churches. It will have attained its goal if the problems involved receive a little more attention and, when choices are to be made, problems would be discussed in realistic and open exchange. NOTES ~ Directives for the Mutual Relations between Bishops and Religious, 23rd of April 1978 signed by Paul VI. Quoted as "ND.". -'See REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. 1980, pp. 122-123. ~ Dbclaration des Evbques du Sbnbgal et de la Mauritanie sur la Pastorale des Vocations, Dakar, 13 July, 1978, p. 4. 4These figures are based on information contained in the Japan Catholic Director.v, 1981, with minor adjustments where different tables did not quite agree. 5Cardinal Pironio, Message aux Religieux et Religieuses d'Afrique, Informationes SCRIS, 1978, II, p. 279. NOW AVAILABLE From Tablet to Heart: Internalizing New Constitutions land II by Patricia Spillane, M.S.C. Price: $1.25 per copy, plus postage. Address: Review for Religious Rm 428 3601 Lindell Blvd. St. Louis, Missouri 63108 Currents in Spirituality A God for a Dark Journey: Trends and Issues in Spirituality, 1983 George Aschenbrenner, S.J. This is Father Aschenbrenner's fourth annual survey of the field of spirituality. He now resides in St. Alphonsus House, a residence for Jesuits at St. Joseph's University. The address is 5800 Overbrook Ave.; Philadelphia, PA 1913 I. This is the fourth in a series of articles--appearing annually--which the editor asked for with a view to exploring and reflecting upon currents in American spirituality. Last year's articlO gave extensive space to a description of the larger context and environment within which, in my judgment, the spiritual trends an~d issues discussed were developing. That major influence and context, within which all American spiritual life is being lived, was seen to be secularization--rapid, continuing secularization. The lengthy first part of last year's article sought clearly to distinguish between what it viewed as a necessary and very healthy dynamic--seculariza-tion- from its pervasive and very destructive alternative--secularism. This present article is, fundamentally, a continuation of last year's perspective and approach. It directly assumes and builds further upon that reflection on secu-larization and secularism. I would suggest, then, that the reader may be helped to read the opening sections of last year's article. I take this approach because I remain persuaded that, from many different angles, there continues to be a concern and struggle in American spirituality to balance on the tightrope of this secularizing trend in our contemporary faith life while avoiding the easy missteps that lead, whether gradually or abruptly, into secularism. Besides the overarching theme of secularization, the concrete, specific trends and issues themselves which are reflected on here also relate this article 174 A God for a Dark Journey somewhat to last year's reflections. This is so--not surprisingly--because our important experiences, and what we manage to make of them with God's grace, are generally in continuity even while, at the same time, our spiritual life really grows and really changes. In some cases, therefore, trends and issues treated here are obviously direct developments of topics discussed before. In other cases, though the trend or issue 1 am writing about now may appear new, reader's closer reflection will show that, whether explicitly or implicitly, the matter actually relates to the same basic theme: our spiritual struggle as American Christians to incarnate the life and love of God in our rapidly secularizing world. 1. The God of Darkness and Suffering Our rapidly secularizing and highly technological world can be very decep-tive and misleading. In most of the world we have available light of whatever color and intensity we choose all through the day and night, No more dark-ness. Computers, cameras, radios and recorders seem to promise constant companionship and communication. No more isolation. And yet, together with all this garish light and constant talk, there is a lingering and growing sense of darkness, of alienation, impoverishment and loneliness. For a while this past year we could read of three actual wars in the papers each day: in the Falklands, in Iraq, and in Lebanon. Though the inevitable destruction and carnage of those wars was disguised and muted temporarily, gradually the terrible details came to be revealed. Slowly but stubbornly our troubled economy has been squeezing not only comfort and convenience, but hope and life out of many of the jobless poor in this country. Most of the world events and concerns mentioned in last year's article continue to be active among u's.2 This suffering and violence often visit a despairing darkness and sense of emptiness upon the human soul. To find God in this darkness and emptiness is a growing challenge. Because, for most of us, God is more obviously associated with light, fullness, wholeness, with the beautiful richness of being, people today have more of a sense of forsakenness and abandonment in their experience of the empty darkness. Nor will the immediate future, of our secular world bring a sudden evaporation of this darkness and alienation. Rather than attempting to escape the darkness, therefore, we must learn to look deeper into it, to find God present everywhere--and always a God of personal love and intimate care. The negative, or apophatic, element in our experience of God, then, may be taking on more practical importance today in spirituality. As David Rast has said: "Only if we can know the God whose transcendent greatness allows him to be 'no-where,' can we gradually experience our God as always 'now-here.'" This is the approach of Pseudo-Dionysius, of The Cloud of Unknow-ing, which leads beyond the surface light of God's love into the depths of a darkness of faith where the God of loreand light is experienced in a great 176 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1983 simplicity of presence and faith. The experience needed here is the one I described in last year's article as the protection against secularism. Now l~think we are facing some specific implications of this experience of God. If we do not settle for a God who is too small, then we can find a God of light, fullness, wholeness and beauty in the pervasive darkness, emptiness, fragmentation and horror of our world and of our hearts. A God whose greatness and majesty can make human hearts tremble in awesome wonder is also so inextricably involved in this world that the intimacy of love in Jesus can quiet human hearts even in the most fearsome and trying situations. As events in our world and in our personal lives shock and strip us to the very core of our being, we must, rather than despairing and falling into an unreal world either of denial or of naive optimism, learn to plumb the depths tofind the God who holds all being, and so each of us, in existence. In the depths of a heart experiencing pitch-darkness or crass evil or chilling emptiness, there is present a God without whom being and existence cannot be. And this God, our God, is always love. It is the God whose love and care were always present to Jesus on Calvary, even when he sensed a chilling absence. We are now struggling, and we will continue to struggle, to find what Louis Dupr6 calls The Deeper Life.3 We need to discover the God whose pervasive and intimate love is finally revealed more fully through the negations of an apophatic spirituality, that same love which, like a quiet flame at the center of all being, is sometimes experienced.like a torch for great zeal, at other times like a white heat apparently consuming while actually laying bare the divine center of our true identity. Dupr+ describes the attitude involved in this pro-found experience of God: "Unconditional trust without knowing what it is we trust, willingness to let go without knowing whether anyone will ever catch us, preparedness to wait without knowing whether we will be met.~Total looseness and unconditional trust are the virtues negative theology teaches us to culti-vate. There could be no more appropriate lesson in our time.TM 2. The Temple of the Human Heart In a rapidly secularizing world, public life provides less and less of the genuinely religious. Shrines and temples seem useless. The decay of their buildings speaks of a dead past. Christendom, it would seem, has long since died and does not offer even a desirable ideal any more. The world and society are no longer built or structured according to a Christian vision, nor, for that matter, according to any genuinely religious vision. For many people, this seems no great loss. But for the person of faith and religious sensitivity, the situation presents a great challenge. Realizing the futility of trying to turn back contemporary developments, to return to a past age's forms of public religious expression, we see that we are being invited instead to enter the temple of our own hearts. It is not enough, though, that the ontological reality of every human heart makes it actually a temple of God. We need consciously to app.reciate this, to cooperate actively A God for a Dark Journey / 177 with the adornment of this uniquely personal temple. Without a sense of itself as this personal religious temple, the heart's faith can die as it falls prey to secularism. This temple of the human heart, however, cannot be wholly an inward reality. It must find some appropriate externalization. The inner sanctuary, of course, mus~ be highly personal and intimately religious--a profound meeting of God and of our truest self. And yet, while profoundly personal and inti-mately unique, this inner temple ought not promote a closed individualism. The human heart where God lives and is adored and loved cannot become a church unto itself. The God who is known and reverenced in our own hearts is at once the source of, and the invitation to, community, the community of the human family and the community of the Church.This religious temple of the heart, if its air is to remain healthy and invigorating, will require, especially in a secularistic, religionless world, some appropriate external aids, like the desig-nated chapel of a religious community or a special place in one's own room, and a special time set aside for regular prayer. When the human heart has thus become a carefully provisioned temple of the Lord, the person has also become capable of an inner life of quiet intimacy and peace everywhere, whether it be in a bustling subway, or in the solitary confinement of a jail, or in the dangerous crowding of a refugee-boat or on the death-bed of a cancer patient. At times our hearts will be temples of bright light focusing on a God joyfully imaged and named in Jesus. At other, catas-trophic and confusing times, this temple will be darkened, housing a God temporarily nameless and unknown. In either atmosphere, this templeis a place where we bend low in quiet awe and in reverently trustful abandonment to a Love that fires ministry for God's justice in our world. This profound inner life o~ personal religious experience will be increas-ingly necessary as we move to the future. And it is always available, because of that God whom Jesus spoke of as seeing and rewarding all hidden gestures of love: "Let it be a secret between you and your Father. And your Father who knows all secrets will reward you.'~ Karl Rahner, in an article entitled "The Spirituality of the Church of the Future," sums up this trend and its issue: "It has already been pointed out that the Christian of the future will be a mystic or he will not exist at all. If by mysticism we mean., a genuine experience of God emerging from the very heart of our existence, this statement is very true and its truth and importance will become still clearer in the spirituality of the future.'~ 3. To lk Peoplg of the Church Many people continue to grapple with the role of the Church in their Christian identity. Whether these be earnest novices in a religious congrega-tion, serious students in a seminary or college, or young people just returned from some volunteer service and about to enter into a parish, the issue is always the same: in living a genuine and generous love for God, how much 171t / Review for Religious, March-April, 1983 must one be a person of the Church? And the issue centers on the institutional Church. Can I stand for, and identify myself (maybe in some necessarily special way) with this international institution that is the Catholic Church? It is a matter of conscience for some whether they can identify with some of the practices and policies of the Church. Many, while believing in God and living generous lives of service, either explicitly reject membership in the Church or effectively live their religion without any real relationship to the Church. This is a complicated matter, but one that must be ~faced by the whole spectrum of Church membership, from pope and bishop to parishioner in the pew. A specific cause, or combination of different causes, can raise the issue critically for different persons: a domineering clerical attitude encountered; monotonous, uninformed preaching; a successful remarriage after divorce; the prohibition of women's ordination--or maybe even the prohibition of their service as lectors; and many other reasons. For an increasing number of people, practices within the institutional Church which they perceive to be unjust are making membership in the Church more and more painful and questionable. To the query as to how much one must identify with the institu-tional Church, answers would range far and wide. Some would almost identify the Church with the institution, while others would play down the institution to almost no significance--and thus would think the entire question otiose. A "sense of Church" must be reclaimed for many people. For the fully Christian mind and heart, the mystery of God in Christ Jesus, and therefore the mystery of the whole human family, is incarnational and communal--and universal. All this says community. And not just sect, either--but Church. But we must all be concerned that it be a Church that is attractive, inspiring, demanding, inviting. The development of such a Church that others can believe in will continue to be the task of us all. The Church on all levels of its membership must continue to struggle for a more genuine following of Jesus in our world. Some gather regularly into small groups to share life and faith and find support in community. This can begin to provide an experience of community which is at the core of Church. But it does not, in the long run, suffice. To see the glory of God in a weak, human Church, struggling in the Spirit,'is never easy. It requires a stubborn hope, the hope of a genuine love, sometimes, surely, critical, but always a lover of the Church.7 4. An Expansive Ministry Born in Forgiveness Especially iri religious life, but also throughout the whole Church, it is getting more and more difficult to find people competent and willing to under-take ministries of difficult responsibility. In religious life, some major superiors speak of a crisis of leadership. They speak of a lack of available and suitable men and women for the challenging roles of leadership either in the religious community itself or in the apostolic works of the community. It may be a formation director; the pastor of a new black or Hispanic parish, a third-world mission assignment or a superior in a larger community. But the issue is always A God for a Dark Journey the same: men and women to fulfill these challenging tasks. We have renewed our concept of the role-model for a religious superior and for the leader of our apostolic works. But it is difficult to find men and women suitable and willing to undertake such missions. Among the consequences of this leadership crisis, paramount is the inter-ference it is causing with the service that religious communities could otherwise render in the world. This leadership need is not to maintain past, outmoded structures, but rather to inspire and facilitate more unified and effective service in response to new, serious challenges facing the Church in today's world. Is this leadership failure a result of faulty formation? This is a question worthy'of reflection on the part of all of us. And it must be answered carefully. The profound renewal of contemporary religious formation has involved a necessary development in a direction quite different from the past. The stress on individual responsibility and careful respect for the gifts and talents of the individual has correctly tailored formation programs increasingly to the strengths and weaknesses of each individual. But while moving in this person-oriented direction, we have not, perhaps, maintained or developed as well as we might that healthy sense of self-abnegation which would allow an individ-ual to be truly available for more of the service-needs of the religious group. This is a necessary correction/refinement of contemporary formation that we now recognize and can implement. In an earlier article, I called this the devel-opment of a more refined Christian personalism which would help us recog-nize and transform the very real, though subtle, self-serving tendencies in all our hearts,s ° As we ponder the difficult ministries facing us now and in the future, we must remember that all genuine ministry is rooted in devotion. Ministry is neither something carelessly superimposed from above, nor somethifig nar-rowly limited to an individual's comfort and convenience.Devotion here is not some emotional pietism. Rather, it is the experiential capacity to find God-- something that runs much deeper than emotion and feeling. Formation pro-grams should provide a great diversity of experiences, in order to stretch the person's capacity for devotion far beyond what might have been originally expected. If an individual's ability to find God is too narrowly limited, that person's lack of availability for service can easily become a future liability. This trained, experiential ability to find God in various ministries and situations always involves a kind of self-transcendence. This transcendence is made possible thrbugh an abnegation of self which is motivated and inspired by an experience of the greatness of God's love for me, The goodness of God's love is exhilarating and expansive, attracting the human heart beyond nar-rowly self-centered concerns. Heroism for God is born here. But without a growing mortification, one that is not destructive but revelatory of our true self in God, the devotion of finding the expansive joy of God's love in many future ministries simply is not possible. Another aspect of this crisis of leadership for ministry is our ebbing expe- 1~10 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1983 rience of forgiveness. Forgiveness is meant to be the birthplace of great zeal for ministry. God's gratuitous forgiveness sets off a dynamic which turns the heart outward for service. To be forgiven beyond one's wildest dream is not some-thing to be kept to oneself, but becomes a life of service of others. The greater the sense of forgiveness, the greater and more expansive will be the zeal of devotion for finding God in ministry. But a trend I mentioned three years ago continues to haunt us in this whole matter of a vigorous availability for ministry which is essentially rooted in the religious experience of forgiveness? and it is this. We remain timid and con-fused in our admission of personal sin. As we continue to grow out of an unhealthy, Jansenistic, legalistic sense of sin (especially in the sexual realm), we are left with a vacuum, since we have not yet properly assimilated a healthy sense of social sin or personal sin (also in the sexual realm). Fears of self-hatred and unhealthy guilt still dull our sensitivity to the healthy guilt and shame that are always part of the grace of a forgiving God seeking out the sinner. But so long as our past leaves us confused and quite unresponsive to our present sinfulness, we cannot experience the full dynamic of God's forgiveness in our hearts. And it is only an acknowledged sinner, humbled in the truth of forgive-ness, who receives.from God an expansive zeal for ministry. The effect of a shallow experience of forgiveness finally registers in minis-try. If one is not driven to ministry through forgiveness, one can fabricate one's own ministry in too selfish a manner. Rather than receiving a ministry from God in the devotion of forgiveness, a person can cling to a ministry with an angry arrogance and impatience that often speaks of improving and aggrandiz-ing oneself rather .than serving the needs of others. Further, this experience of being humbled in the truth of one's sin and God's forgiveness is always an important sign distinguishing a true prophet from a false prophet. In these days when prophecy is a more noticed phenomenon among us than before, and when we are in need of the inspiration of true prophets, we cannot forget that the true prophet is forged in the zeal and humility of forgiveness. 5. A New Way of "Making" Catholics Any remedy for the deficient sense of personal sinfulness mentioned in the previous trend will require much more than our renewed rite for the reception of the sacrament of reconciliation. This renewed rite, in practice now for about eight years, though it is an improvement, has obviously not by itself renewed the experience many people have of God's forgiveness. What is needed is a whole catechesis to help people recognize in their own hearts the dynamic of receiving God's gift of forgiveness. This raises the issue of how Catholics are formed and trained, raised in the faith these days. It is a matter of how people over a lifetime continue to enter the Church. There seems to be a great change occurring here which will have tremendous implications for the future. Most of us were raised in a Catholic school system where we had drilled into us the essentials and practices of A God for a Dark Journey / 1111 Catholic life. But things have changed. There are not nearly as many religious serving as teachers as before. Many parish schools have closed. And besides, many of those simple, clear essentials of Catholic life are not so simple and clear any more. As formal Catholic schooling becomes less and less available, CCD and other methods of religious education take on greater importance. Often in the past CCD was not very effective. It was.perceived as a definite second-best to the parochial school. But that view is slowly changing, and it must continue to change. As the whole procedure and atmosphere of formal schooling become less and less the way of handing on faith, new replacements must be instituted. Genuinely Catholic believers will never sprout fully grown from the ground. Besides learning the doctrines of faith, young people must receive a feel for the faith life. They must be allowed to admire it as they see it lived and shared by others. As Michael Warren, an expert in youth ministry, claims: Young per-sons need the fidelity of adults who care for them.~° The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults has received very good press. Some have called it "a revolutionary document" as it ritualizes a process of initiation into the Church which "gives first priority to the mystery of God's love for us.TM It can also be used as a guide in the baptism of infants.12 While this document expresses a better view of Church and ritualizes much better the process of initiation into the Church, its effectiveness will very much depend on the proper attitudes of priests and laity, and the availability of enough competent, generous, committed adults. Only in this way will the words of the document come to life as an ongoing process of initiation, a real catechumenate, which can help transform both how we "make" Catholics and what genuine Catholic life will look like in the future. RCIA, then, over a period of years, can play a large role in the formation of Catholics, but it cannot dispense us from the serious experimentation needed to discover and develop other forms of religious education that will be effective formatively on persons through their young years and on into their adulthood. I do not want to be misunderstood. I am not calling for the abolition of all Catholic schools. 1 am, rather, reflecting in the context of the actual situation that faces us now. The cos( of private religious education continues to escalate even as we struggle for tax credits to cover some of the expense. And the number of parochial and private schools continues to decrease. In this situa-tion, we must find a viable replacement for handing on Catholic faith, for helping our young people to grow up in that faith. Both in the schools that remain and in new religious education programs, the role of competent, enthu-siastic lay people continues to grow in importance. And this brings us to our next trend. 6. The Growing Vocation of the Lay Person We need to broaden our understanding and usage of the word "vocation." 182/ Review for Religious, March-April, 1983 One Often hears the worried question: "Do you think we'll have enough voca-tions?" The question clearly limits the concern to priestly and religious voca-tions. In breaking out of this past narrow understanding, we need to help others to see that living a serious faith life involves for everyone a vocation to service in the Church. It is not only priests and religious who have a vocation. Again, the lay vocation itself can be viewed too narrowly, as Archbishop Bernardin has cautioned: "Sometimes the impression is given that if a lay person wishes to become involved in the Church's mission, he or she must always be specially trained to become, in effect, a kind of professional within the Church. This view of lay ministry, I believe, is too narrow.''~ As a broader sense of vocation develops and spreads, I think we will never know exactly how many vocations (in the narrower sense) are "enough." But we will cooperate much more in all sorts of Christian ministries--and so we will feel much less shorthanded. Attitudinal changes, however, among some clergy especially, and among some lay people, too, are needed before that older limited view of vocation is transformed into a vision of great collabora-tion on all levels of the Church. Both the need for and the supply of well-educated, committed lay men and women continue to grow. More and more lay men and women are needed both to share and to implement the religious vision that must shape the curriculum of our Catholic schools, as well as to exercise other ministries in parishes and dioceses. A growing number of competent people are available for all these posts. And, increasingly, they are men and women who are hungry for an adult, inspiring and integrating spirituality. If these people are not to be forced to search for this spirituality even outside the Church, we must find ways of responding to this hunger. And this assistance must be largely centered in the parish. In no way does this exclude the use of special spiritual centers, retreat houses, or programs that are outside the boundaries of the parish. But these mhst always be complemented by a lived sensE, within the parish, of the presence of spiritual growth and challenge manifested in things like the quality of homilies, small discussion groups and a strongly collaborative response to the missionary needs both within and beyond the parish. Dolores Leckey, executive director of the U.S. Bishops' Secretariat for the Laity, lists among the primary needs of the laity: "a place to tell the truth, the experience of being listened to with respect, a chance to minister in ecclesial or designated ministry, and affirmation of the secular lay vocation and support of that vocation through theological education and in-depth spiritual formation." She sees these needs calling forth three needed attitudes in the ordained priest: com-mitment and community, interdependence in ministry, and willingness as opposed to willfulness.~4 For many of these lay men and women, the fundamental vocation to which they are called is the noble and glorious one of raising a good Christian family. I have written before on the precarious state of the family and the challenges with which this situation confronts us.~ Without repeating all those A God for a Dark Journey / 11t3 points again, my concern here is simply to face and restate the need for holy, self-sacrificing men and women to give themselves to raising a family. In a culture tending more to self-centered comfort and convenience, this ideal of raising a family tends to lose some of its glow. In fact, how many young people, once they finally decide to marry, actually plan on having a family? It is hard, though, to know how pervasive this attitudinal-shift away from raising a family really is. The vocation of a mother and father, with its own unique suffering and sacrifice, ought never seem "ordinary." It is a great, glorious vocation, and one vitally essential to the future of the Church and of the human race. Talented and dedicated young men and women must be helped to see that raising a family is truly a "vocation" in the Church. A theology and spirituality of the family must continue to be developed for the contemporary world and Church. Only with continuing reflection and careful cooperation on the part of husband' and wife can their raising of a family become integrated with, and be a powerful, creative means for furthering, their own profession and sense of self-worth. And the legitimate, essential struggle for women's rights .must not be allowed to create a condescending scorn for the women whose life, for so many years, is spent at home raising a fa'mily. To co-create with God, and daily to reveal God's love to children, is an exalted vocation--one that gives profound joy and binds parents in deeper love through sacrifice. 7. Public Witness to a Gospel Spirituality Which Prescinds from All Political Ideology The Church has been taking more and more stands on social questions over the past three years. A quick review of the weekly issues of Origins would show how often the National Conference "of Catholic Bishops has testified before various congressional committees over this same period. Some names of church men and women have almost become household words on various social issues, in this country and beyond. Nuclear disarmament, international concern for human rights, aid to El Salvador, an anti-abortion amendment, ~nd the abolition of the death penalty are but a few of the issues that have drawn public statements from various bodies within the Church. I would guess that, as the Church's social consciousness continues to grow, there will be need in the future for even more public stands. There is a serious danger here, though, something that could corrupt the Church's whole approach to social issues, both in this country and throughout the world. Some of the stands that the Church is taking and will be called upon to take may well coincide with the stands of different political ideologies and parties, whether Marxist or capitalist, Democratic or Republican. But the Church's stands must always clearly be and be seen to be conclusions of a gospel spirituality which prescinds from any and all political ideologies as such. One can, these days, hear someone speak strongly for international human rights or for nuclear disarmament, or for any other social issue, but 184 ] Review for Religious, March-April, 1983 who does so in such a way as to become clearly involved with a specific political ideology. When people hear such talk, they often, and quite reason-ably, wonder how a speaker of another political view would address the same topic. When the speaker's viewpoints are given in such a partisan manner, any gospel vision, if expressed at all, simply has to lose much of its force. And so the gospel witness is blunted for the listener. A specific political orientation of the speaker can, therefore, distract from the power of a position which he or she sincerely intends to incarnate gospel spirituality. To be identified too closely with a political ideology, rather than to be and act as a person of the Gospel, distracts people from what can be the power of various public stands of the Church. To be ready to take such stands requires that the individuals involved in these issues continue to take the means necessary to grow in and live more profoundly a gospel spirituality. In its first version of the pastoral letter on peace and war, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops claimed that "war, especially the threat of nuclear war, may well be the central problem.of our age." Within the past two years much energy and effort has resulted in a gradual development of sensitiv-ity and consensus, not 0nly on the part of the bishops, but also, though more slowly and perhaps less perceptibly, on the part of the Catholic faithful. How extensive this consensus will become, and whether it will prevent a serious division among the faithful at the publication of the final version of the pastoral letter, perhaps this spring, are hard to predict. But the different titles of the first two versions of the pastoral letter do manifest some of this devel- ¯ opment: "God's Hope in a Time of Fear" becomes "The Challenge of Peace~ God's Promise and Our Response." Some commentators have seen the first version as inviting Catholic theologians to develop a true theology of peace, and the second version, in response to an avalanche of helpful criticism, as an actual contribution to such a theology. Joseph O'Hare's words seem very sound and sensible: "In the end, the process may prove more important than the document it produces."16 The dialogue, debate and honest confrontation of different positions, at times quite heated, seem a work of the Spirit painfully forming a clarity and consensus that can challenge not only the consciences of Catholics, but also the difficult decisions of those responsible for the peace policies of our country. This complicated issue of the use and even possession of nuclear weapons must be both carefully scrutinized and evaluated, ultimately, in terms of an explicitly gospel vision of reality. The bishops must speak, and must be seen to speak, from a different vision than those who simply work within "liberal" or "conservative" ideologies or categories. The seriousness of the issue, which may be honestly summarized as the very survival of the human race, deserves the most careful s~arching out and testing of consensus within the American Catholic community. It must be a consensus based on our richest moral consciousness. To settle for any minimal, least-common-denominator position would be to default on the spiritual leadership that is required of the bishops A God for a Dark Journey by their position in our faith community. In many different ways we can be instructed by this process. It can teach the bishops, and the rest of us as well, about appropriate ways of reading and facilitating the Spirit's formation of a faith-consensus within our community. It can instruct us about what shall have to go ihto the future meaning of an internationally accountable, authentic patriotism. It can help us learn expe-rientially about the essentially important matter of unity and division within the American Catholic Church in the face of a great public issue which is moral as well as utterly pOlitical. Religion, and not just moral perspectives, shall have to be part of what we are taught. A profound and comprehensive peace, which God's love as revealed in a crucified Son can bring to human hearts, is what alone makes possible genuine conversion and love within the whole human family. This peace of God is the heart of the matter. And Jesus is God's victorious promise of this peace. Iksides this crucial issue of peace and war, there are other aspects of our concern for justice to be mentioned here. As we continue to increase our concern for justice, there can be a tendency to become too narrow in vision and even to exaggerate the justice issue--even though it very rightly continues to grow in importance. And again, lest 1 be misunderstood here, let me reassert that I do realize how very far many of us have to go in developing a true sense of justice, letting it influence the dedication of our Christian lives,t7 However, as can happen with almost any issue, we can so stress orthopraxis that our concern becomes chiefly the need for immediate action on behalf of social justice rather than with developing a vision which can enlighten and invigorate all the works of the Church, and not simply her social works. For example, in the work of a professional in higher education, besides direct social service when this is possible, there are many other means for inculcating in students attitudes for service and long-range social change. Professors who do not manipulate or dominate, but who serve their students by staying alive to their subject, who keep their classes well prepared and challenging, are very directly promoting justice. A view which would suggest that direct social service is the best, if not the only way that higher education can serve God's justice in this world, would seem a far too narrow, and therefore false, position on what is involved in the "integral promotion of justice." A similar exaggeration of the justice issue can overlook the spirituality that is needed to give force to any social concern. Though most of us still have a long way to go. in sensitizing our hearts to God's call for justice, I wonder whether, for some who have decidedly moved their center of gravity in the direction of their own social involvement, the challenge now is to find and maintain a viable spirituality within the new central thrust of their lives. A flurry of social work is not enough. Christian commitment to the works of justice must spring from a profound sense of God's love always at work and most dramatically promised in Jesus' Calvary experience of dying into a full- 11~6 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1983 ness of life and love. Among religious, an extreme tendency can yield to the temptation of settling for what Johannes Metz has called the political dimension of each of the vows, without a struggle on the part of the religious to integrate the mystical with the political dimension so as to develop an organic life of con-cerned service.~s The struggle for justice can also become unfocused and lose its gospel foundation if it forgets the mutual interaction between those internal, individ-ual, more personal dimensions and the external, social dimensions in our human world. This struggle for justice must always involve the careful balance and interplay between the evangelization of individual hearts and the forma-tion of a just-world society. Concerns about stealing, cheating, abortion and sexual immorality must always be carefully related to concerns of international human rights, nuclear disarmament, politics and economic justice. Some indi-viduals, some religious communities and other Church groups who are labor-ing nationally and internationally for justice and liberation, must be careful lest they seem caught up in liberal causes for the day which claim to pursue a systemic social justice without enough concern for the conversion and sanctifi-cation of individual hearts. A just society will always require more than any mere political and economic system. The justice and liberation we are con-cerned with here is Of God. It is God's sanctification and liberation of human hearts in Jesus.~9 But this is a liberation that can only be incarnated in our world through humanly cooperative analysis, planning and action. The sense and grace of its being God's work through us can never become empty theory, but must always throb in the veins of the apostle for justice. Liberation ~heology must always be energized by a spirituality of liberation?° This difficulty of keeping the ihdividual and the social, the internal and the external in proper balance runs deep in the modern mind. The issue is too extensive to be treated here and will surely not be changed overnight. But it needs urgent, serious attention. In a world overly interpreted by scientism there is, of course, little or nothing beyond the physical. Metaphysics has fallen on tough times. What you see is not only what you get, but it is all there is, in this modern view. This development of modernity has a long philosophical history reaching back at least to the sixteenth century, and developing through the Enlightenment. It is an issue of huge proportions,.far beyond any possibility of more than mention here. But it should not surprise us that this issue insinuates its way into our struggle to understand and to integrate "that justice without which faith is incomplete," that justice which .demands not only social action but moral conversion of soul. 8. Brldgebuilders Besides a growing need for prophets in the Church today, there is an equally great need for bridgebuilders. The pioneering prophet always calls and A God for a Dark Journey / 187 leads a people into the future. The builder of bridges is needed to keep the body of the people together and not let them be separated. In many areas polariza-tion is not as severe, or at least it is not so obvious as it used to be. But on all levels of the Church there is need to bring people from different viewpoints together in a genuine unity beneath and in and through their differences. The work of the bridgebuilder is creatiVe, patient--and very difficult. It is creativity that prevents community from capitulating to the least common de-nominator. In the face of certain impasses the ingenuity of an engineering feat is called for to bridge the gulf. Bridgebuilding is also messy work: you have to be willing to get dirty. To dive underwater and survey the depths, to lay foun-dations in muddy ground and to set steel and cement are never easy. It is very patient work, work that stretches a person. One must be able to live on both shores, to recognize the gulf of difference and to have a genuine desire and hope for bridging that gulf of difference. The builder of bridges learns to listen compassionately, though not uncritically, to the good of both sides and doesn't become trapped on only one side. Bishop Cummins of Oakland, when talking about the changing relations between bishops and theologians, called his brother bishops to "be wise enough to consult not just those theologians with whom we are intellectually comfortable, but even a wider group so that we will have the sense of the broader reflection and experience of the community.TM Bridgebuilding is a priestly work in imitation of Jesus who is the great high priest, Pontifex (which means a bridgemaker). It is a priestly work we can all practice. Just as Jesus' priestly bridgebuilding is best revealed in his salvific suffering and dying on Calvary, so our own bridgebuilding ministry will involve a passion of patient suffering which will always be creative for unity. Today, we all need to develop some of this creative, paschal charism of bridge-building, if we are not to settle, on all levels of the world andthe Church, for a shallow, easily disrupted communion of minds and hearts. 9. Ongoing Monastic Renewal Three years ago, in surveying the decade of the seventies, I mentioned the matter of renewal in monasticism.22 During this past year, the issue has been brought home to me again with even an intensity. Some members of monastic communities obviously feel it is time for an honest, thorough evaluation of all the experimentation of the last fifteen years. They sense that communities too easily presume the validity of too much of that experimentation. Though this issue is somewhat removed from my personal experience, I sense in certain voices, not just a traditionalist tendency, but a healthy call for evaluation before monastic communities move on much further with planning for the future. In the midst of the worthwhile development which recent experimentation has brought, are there some changes that have weakened rather than strengthened the monastic experience of God in the Church? How, for example, do the sisters of a renewed contemplative community resolve their growing unease about whether they have lost too much of silence in their 11~1~ / Review for Religious, March-April, 1983 life together? How does a monastic community recognize and reject the newer versions of a tendency to rigidity, legalism, boredom, self-satisfied compla-cency- signs always antithetical to the Gospel~3 These questions, and there are many others that monastic communities could formulate far better than I, are not easy questions. But they could provoke stimulating, life-giving evaluation. In the long history of monasticism, it has always been a complicated matter to determine the appropriate "works" of a community. Merton has reminded the monastic community that it "does not exist for the sake of any apostolic or educational work, even as a secondary end. The works of the monk are not justified by their external results but only by their relevance to his monastic life alone with God.TM Louis Dupr~, in a powerful chapter on "The Poverty of God," while commenting on the monastic life-style, says that "the monk avoids looking ridiculous by refusing to take himself or his work more seriously than they deserve. Measuring them against the backdrop of eternity he rightly judges human concerns to be less than all-significant."~5 The traditional "work" of hospitality continues to bring many people into touch with the powerful monastic witness and source of faith in God. Perhaps it can be an extension of hospitality today to be involved in explicitly spiritual ministries, such as direction, or other temporary services which can be ren-dered to tile local civic community--often right in the monastery. Of course the details of such determinations can only be known in the light of prayerfully careful study of the spirit and writings of the founder or foundress--and by planned, scheduled evaluation. It will always be a challenge for the community members themselves to believe in the monastically apostolic style of being and to resist any inappro-priately active style of doing. We speak here of more than a rearranging of schedule or works. It is a matter of renewing an attitude and a vocation of men and women called to witness to God, our eternally faithfiil Lover, called to do this through who they are and how they live together, rather than through what they "do" and "accomplish." As some monastic communities try to evaluate the developments of recent years, they may be helped by re-reading Thomas Merton's "Memorandum on Monastic Renewal'~6 and by looking at Louis Duprr's conferences to the monks at Gethsemani,27 and a hosi of other writings on the monastic life today. And if, as some suggest, this issue requires further attention, perhaps the Association of Contemplative Sisters in this country could facilitate a prayerful evaluation. Monastic life is at the very heart of Christian faith and justice. In a secularistic world so hyperactive and quick to identify and evaluate people according to what they do and have, the joyful witness of men and women whose basic identity is to be in apostolic contemplation before God, while always difficult to maintain, becomes ever more important. 10. Developments in Religious Life New religious groups continue to appear in the Church. One meets new A God for a Dark Journey / 189 religious communities that have broken off from older, better-known congre-gations; some impasse could not be resolved and a new group was born. There are other new groups that are not offshoots of any previous congregation. Some of these groups have canonical and ecclesiastical approval; others do not--and some are not interested in such approval. There is much vigor, value, variety and novelty in all of this. All these groups are responding to some need but often in quite different ways. Some are permanently formed groups, founded in the permanent covenant of final profession. Others are bound together much more temporarily. It is important to acknowledge the valuable service rendered by these groups, when they are not dominated by an ugly reaction to a past difficult situation. Can all such groups be classified as religious life? Are there new forms of religious life appearing in all of this? How far can the traditional understanding of religious life be stretched in new directions? It is still too early for this observer to be sure about any answers to these issues. My personal conviction is that we must be careful that religious life cannot come to mean almost anything. Otherwise words lose meaning. It would seem clear that the Spirit is breathing new types of groups into the Church at this time. And it is not necessary to force all of them into the framework of religious life. 1 myself incline to think that religious life will continue to be a life of total consecration to God, specified in terms of celibacy, poverty and obe-dience, lived in community,28 and with explicit ecclesiastical approval. In the light of this understanding, though there can be much renewal of forms of religious life, there probably are not any wholly new forms. But there are, and will continue to be, new forms of communities that are not formally part of religious life. And this, rather than being a problem, should be a welcome addition to ways of serving in the Church. To be mutually understanding and to serve together in building that Kingdom of Jesus' Father in human hearts, as it grew and was revealed in Jesus' own heart--this is the most important gift to receive from God and to share with each other until time and experience give us greater clarity about this issue.29 Another development in religious life, and for various reasons a cause of sadness and discouragement for some, is the continuing departure of men and women both before and after final profession. As I mentioned in my last article,30 evidence seems to support the belief that the number of departures which decreased in the end of the seventies is now picking up again in the eighties. Such a phenomenon needs to be pondered. It can contain a call to keep renewing the lived witness of religious life. But, it seems to me, here we have a phenomenon different from the sixties and early seventies. People realize more and more what the truth and demands are of a religious vocation ¯ in the world today. The immediate reason for many who leave seems to be related to celibacy. Fo~ them, celibacy does not seem right and good, if pos-sible at all. But to settle for this as a final, adequate explanation seems too simple. Investigation and reflection upon many of these cases reveal, for instance, that the observance of religious poverty had stopped and at least the "1911 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1983 attitude, if not the execution, of religious obedience of mission had also weak-ened or even stopped before celibacy also lost its gift quality and began to seem a burden too heavy to bear any more. Though celibacy may be the more immediate and obvious final crisis, it cannot be separated from religious pov-erty and obedience, both of which buttress and give expression to the interper-sonal, unique companionship with God which, at its core, is what celibacy is all about. 11. Openness to New Non-Western Ways of Seeing Reality Over this past year, missionaries have brought to my attention this final trend. As the Church continues to grow in Africa, Japan, India, and other parts of the Near and Far East, the faith of our universal or '~world" Church3~ can be enriched by openness to the very different ways of perceiving reality in these countries. But it wil! .~'¢quire a flexibility that is not always easy for us. My-own liinited experience and reading in this area prevent, me now from writing about the obviously vast and important implications of this openness for our Christian future. But I feel the truth of the witness of 0these missionaries at least to want to mention the matter here--with the hope that both reader and writer will ponder this further over the coming year. Conclusion As I conclude this fourth article on currents in American spirituality, two reflections come to mind. They may be stated very briefly. They are both, I think, very obvious. And very important. First, 1 think it is necessary, in a rapidly shifting, changing world and in a Church whose future we are called upon to choose in the Spirit, that an informed believer have a sense of con-temporary spiritual trends and issues. Second, it is necessary to recognize and to choose, again and again, precisely within these shifting, changing trends of our time, the one perennial truth and beauty of God's revelation in Jesus. This is the great and difficult, but exciting task of the believer. A God for a dark journey. The Letter to the Hebrews speaks to the stead-fast center of the enterprise: "Christ yesterday, today and the same forever.'~2 And Hopkins catches splendidly the variety and difference of that journey, common to us all, our journey into God: "Christ plays in ten thousand places, lovely in limbs and lovely in eyes not his, to the Father, through the features of men's faces,m3 A God for a Dark Journey ] 191 NOTES WTrends and Issues in a Secularizing World," March/April 1982, pp. 186-206. 2Ibid., pp. 186-187. 3The Deeper Life, Louis Dupr6 (Crossroad: New York, 1981). 41bid., p. 46. 5Mt 6:18. 6Concern For the Church, Theological Investigations XX, Karl Rahner, tr. Edward Quinn (Crossroad: New York, 1981), p. 149. 7Avery Dulles, S.J. is always a helpful and carefully creative guide in this whole question of the Church. See his Models of the Church (Image: New York, 1978) and his most recent book, A Church to Believe In (Crossroad: New York, 1982). 8"Trends of 1980: Some Themes and a Few Specifics," Review for Religious, March 1981, pp. 238-239. 9"The Past Decade," Review for Religious, March 1980, pp. 200-201. ~°"The Dimensions of Care," Origins, Jan. 28, 1982, pp. 520-524. ~tTad Guzie, The Book of Sacramental Basics (Paulist: New York, 1981), p. 85. ~2Ibid., pp. 97-103. ~3"The Future of Church and Ministry," Origins. May 6, 1982, p. 750. ~4"What the Laity Need," Origins, May 20, 1982, pp. 9-16, esp. 14. ~See art. cir., Review for Religious, March/April, 1982. pp. 202-203. ~6America, November 13, 1982, p. 284. Since we are in the midst of a process with regard to the pastoral letter of the bishops on Peace and War, it may be helpful to the reader to know that these remarks of mine were written in December, 1982. ~TArt. cit., Review for Religious, March 1980, pp. 201-202. 18Johannes B. Metz, Followers of Christ (Paulist: New York, 1978) esp. pp. 41-44. ~gThe Social Teaching of John Paul II, No. 4 "The Theme of Liberation," presented by Rev. Roger Heckel, S.J:, Pontifical Commission on Justice and Peace, Vatican City, 1980, esp. pp. 16-17. Heckel shows that John Paul 11 does not use the word liberation very much, and when he does God and Christ are the subject and content of the liberation. ~°Art. cir., Review for Religious, March/April, 1982, pp. 193-194. 2~"The Chahging Relations Between Bishops and Theologians," Origins, June 17, 1982, p. 70. 2ZArt. cir., Review for Religious, March 1980, pp. 197-198. ~See John C. Futrell, S.J., "The Monk and the Apostle," Review for Religious, May/June, 1982, p. 409. 2~Thomas Merton, The Monastic Journey, ed. Br. Patrick Hart, (Image: New York, 1978), p. 213. ZSDupr~, op. cit., p. 43. 26Merton, op. tit., pp. 213-217. ~TDupr~, op. cir. ~sSee art. eit., Review for Religious, March/April 1982, pp. 199-201, and James T. Burtchaell, "The Future of Our Fellowship," Commonweal, June 18, 1982. pp. 364-368. ~See Richard A. Hill, S.J., "The Community and the Option of Non-Canonical Status," Review for Religious, July/August 1982, pp. 542-550. The author treats the issues involved in a congrega-tion's moving to non-canonical status. ~°Art. Cir., Review for Religious. March/April 1982, p. 200. 3~1bid., p. 195. ~Heb 13:8. ~From the sonnet, "As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame." Conversion and Conflict John Navone, S.J. Father Navone writes of the pres,~nt article that it "develops the idea of the previous article ['Conversion Expres~d in Dialogue and Story.' Sept/Oct, 1982] in terms of the Synoptics' conflict stories and their implicit meaning for Christian conversion." Father continues to teach at the Gregorian University, where he also resides: Piazza della Pilotta, 4:00187 Roma. Italy. The New Testament is an external expression of the internal reality of Christian conversion. It brings to expression the mystery of God as a history of transforming love in Jesus Christ and in his community of faith: "No one has ever seen God: it is the only Son, who is nearest to the Father's heart, who has made him known" (Jn 1:18). The "conflict stories" of the New Testament imply that God's word of love will encounter human resistance.~ The adversaries of Jesus give expression to the various forms that human resistance takes to the grace and demand of God for our truest and fullest life in his love. His adversaries represent the mind-sets and heart-sets that oppose the event and the process of Christian conversion-- the personal and social transformation that results from the surrender of oneself to the love that is God. The synoptic gospels contain a number of episodes prior to the passion narrative in which there is a verbal exchange between Jesus and his contem-poraries on some crucial issue, exchanges in which Jesus and the other parties are adversaries. In these episodes, the crucial issue generally arises because of some action of Jesus, or of his disciples, which is unacceptable to the other parties. Some-times they arise because Jesus (or someone else) asks a question which pro-vokes conflict? There are three parts to the formal structure of these "conflict stories": 1) an introductory narrative: 2) the opponent's question or attack; and 3) Jesus' reply--the so-called "dominical saying." 192 Conversion and Conflict / "19:3 These stories are always preceded by some narrative. This narrative func-tions not only as a transitional link with what has preceded~ but it also estab-lishes the setting in such a way that the reader is prepared for the inevitable conflict. Thus the narrative stages a polarity or tension, with speaking and acting persons as the poles of the tension. Except in Mk 3: I-5, the conflict stories begin with a question or accusation that is usually directed toward Jesus or his disciples. In two instances, however, the questions begin from Jesus himself (Mr 22:41-46 and Lk 14:1-6). At times the silence of Jesus' opponent (as in Mk 3:2) can have the significance of a statement in the ensuing dialogue of question and answer. All materials of the conflict story are organized to stress Jesus' reply--the dominical saying--which brings the dialogue to a close. This pronouncement of Jesus has some bearing on an aspect of Christian belief or conduct. It implies the need of understanding, and it explains both the grace and the demand of God's word of love in Jesus Christ that calls for human transforma-tion in the process of Christian conversion. These conflict stories were formulated at various stages in the process of formation of the gospels, and in diverse circumstances.3 Some were shaped within the living context of the early Church's apologetical concerns in response to Jewish criticism. Others were shaped in the context of the catechet-ical concerns of the Church in its response to the need of teaching converts and regulating" the life of the believing community. Central to all conflict stories, however, is their focus on the person of Jesus, on his words, attitudes and actions. Christian conversion always has as its object the interpersonal life of Jesus Christ: his relationships to God, and his relationships to fellow-humans--his relationships to divine and human per-sons. This interpersonal life of Christ is the prime analogate for the Christian community's experience, understanding and judgment of its own interpersonal relationships with divine and human persons. ThE object of Christian conversion, then, is not just a set of truths, nor an ethical code. It is participation in the interpersonal life of Jesus Christ as this is itself rooted in receiving and giving the Father's love, in knowing and being known. The gospels' conflict stories imply the difficulty with which the mystery of God becomes a history of love in the actual life-stories of Jesus and of his followers. These stories imply that Christian conversion, both as event and as process of maturation, must have a dimension of conflict at both the intra-and interpersonal levels. "Not my will but thine be done" itself tells of a conflict relationship with the self that is always to be transcended in the individual's response to the grace and demand of the serf-giving love that is God. God's coming into our lives creates the transforming tension between his grace and its demand for an ever-greater selflessness which brings about a lasting communion with God's own self--and thereby with one another among his followers. Jesus Christ's "way of the cross" represents the "costly 194 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1983 love" of divine and of human self-giving and self-investment. Christian conversion, then, is the new life which derives from our accepting for ourselves God's own life of boundless love for all. The Cross expresses the suffering, that the acceptance of boundless love must entail--even for the sinless Son of God. It makes manifest that our acceptance of this love will inevitably place us in a conflictual relationship with others: If the world hates you. remember that it hated me before you. If you belonged to the world. the world would love you as its own: but because you do not belong to the world. because my choice withdrew you from the world. therefore the world hates you. Remember the words I said to you: A servant is not greater than his master. if they persecuted me. they will persecute you too . . . (Jn 16:18-20). If the conflict stories of the gospels are an expression of the interpersonal life of Jesus Christ, of his receiving and giving his Father's love for the trans-formation of all, they imply also that Christian conversion, our participation in his life, must inevitably entail conflict at both the intra- and interpersonal levels. At both levels it must entail an ever deeper penetration into the mystery of that love which itself embraces our lives, and constitutes the term towards which our whole beings strive. The God whose word of love is addressed to us in the conflict stories gives us the ability to make that word our own by the process of Christian conver-sion. 4 Not only do we hear Jesus' story, but we tell the same story in our own lives, making his struggle to overcome the unlove of the human heart our own. The Church tells these conflict stories of its Lord as an expression of the life which derives from his love. His struggle reveals the way that God's ' kingdom comes to us. Consequently, we might well question our tendency to believe that conflict at the intra- and interpersonal levels of Christian life is always an indication that something is wrong. Rather, it would seem we might be more concerned about the authenticity of a Christian commitment which did not encounter resistance at both these levels. The way of the cross is the way of inexhaustible and unquenchable love. It enables us to live in the tension and conflict that this love demands if we are to attain to the fullness of life in the kingdom of God. These conflict stories must not be read outside the context of the Good News. This is what fills the heart with joy and enables self-sacrifice to be wholehearted. Even though these stories imply the demand of a God who challenges everything that is in us, they are expressions at the same time of the great Good News that God is Love and has given us his life and love in Jesus Christ and in his Spirit. Even though these stories imply all the conflict, tension, suffering and Conversion and Conflict / 195 renunciation that is inherent in living as Christians, they, too, belong to the Good News, because what is primary in them and in it is the joy taken in the goodness of the life and love that God has given us: "Jesus. who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame" (Heb 12:2).5 The conflict-dimension of Christian conversion and its way of the cross is founded on the joy that is taken in the Supreme Good, in the Boundless Love that we know and proclaim to be the Father of Jesus Christ. Through the gift of the Spirit. we are enabled to rejoice in this Love and its challenges. In this context we know that where there is love, there is also struggle. The crucified and risen One reveals that Love is not indifferenl to human unlove, but struggles to overcome it in the conflictual activity of Love's self-giving. NOTES ~Other terms have been used to designate the material which we have called here "conflict stories." The term Streitgesprhche (controversy dialogues) was used by Martin AIbertz and Rudolf Bultmann. Martin Dibelius used Paradigmen. Vincent Taylor used pronouncement stories. Sometimes controvers.v stories was used in English as a general designation. -'The following conflict stories are those designated by such as Arland J. Hultgren in Jesus and His Adversaries (Minneapoilis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1979), pp. 26-27: I. There are eleven conflict stories in Mark. usually with parallels in Matthew and Luke: 2: 1-12: The Healing of the Paralytic (Mr 9:1-8: Lk 5:17-26). 2:15-17: Eating with Tax Collectors and Sinners (Mr 9:10-13: Lk 5:29b-32). 2:18-22: The Question About Fasting (Mt 9:14-15: Lk 5:33-35). 2:23-28: Plucking Grain on the Sabbath (Mr 12:1-8: Lk 6:1-5). 3: I- 5: Healing on the Sabbath (Mt 12:9-13: Lk 6:6-10). 3:22-30: The Beelzebul Controversy (Mt 12:22~32: Lk 11:14-23). 7: I- 8: The Tradition of the Elders (Mt 15:1-9). 10: 2- 9: On Divorce IMt 19:3-9). 11:27-33: The Question About Authority (Mt 21:23-27: Lk 20:1-8). 12:13-17: Paying Taxes to Caesar (Mt 22:15-22: Lk 20:20-26). 12:18-27: On the Resurrection (Mr 22:23-33: Lk 20:27-40). 2. There are two conflict stories in the special Lucan material." 13:10-17: Healing the Crippled Woman on the Sabbath. 14: 1- 6: Healing the Man with Dropsy on the Sabbath. 3. There are three conflict stories in Matthew based in part on Marcan and Q materials: 12:38--42: The Refusal of a Sign (in part from Mk 8:11-12 and Q: Lk 11:29-32). 22:34-40: The Double Commandment of Love (in part from Mk 12:38-42 and Q: Lk 10:25-28), 22:41-46: The Question ,~bout David's Son (in part from Mk 12:35-37). 4. There is 1 co~Tflict story in Luke based in part on Marcan material." 7:36-50: The Sinful Woman at Simon's House (in part from Mk 14:3-9). 5. There is I conflict story in Q." Mt 12:22-32: Lk 11:14-23: The Beelzebul Controversy (see Mk 3:22-30). JConflict stories, obviously, are but one way for the evangelists to express Jesus' struggle. The story of the demoniac in the Capernaum synagogue, for example, expresses the demons' sense that in Jesus they have met the victor in the cosmic conflict between good and evil: "You have 196 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1983 come to destroy us, haven't you?" (Mk 1:24). '~See the treatment of Christian conversion in the eighth chapter of my book. co-authored with Thomas Cooper, Tellers qf the Word: Nine Moments in the Theology of Story (New York: I_e Jacq Publishers. 1981). SThe incapacity to enjoy seems to be connected wth the incapacity to love. Some do not enjoy anything enough to be able to forget about themselves. The first thing we read about God in the Bible is that he made something and thought it was good. St. Thomas writes of the love of benevolence or friendship that by it the person who loves desires for the person loved the same goods that he desires for himse~f"as for another se~f.'" And so the lover desires to give to the beloved the same things that have been the objects of his own love and enjoyment. See, e.g., ST. I-II, q. 27, a. 3. Prayer of Personal Reminiscence: Sharing One's Memories With Christ by David J. Hassel, S.J. Price: $.60 per copy, plus postage Add ress: Review for Religious Rm 428 3601 Lindell Blvd. St. Louis, Missouri 63108 The Service of Religious Authority: Reflections on Government in the Revision of Constitutions Mary IJnscott, S.N.D. Sister Mary, formerly Superior General of the Sisters of Notre Dame of Namur (1969-1978), presently works at the Sacred Congregation for ReLigious and Secular Institutes in the area of constitutions and general chapters of sisters. She resides at her motherhouse: Suore di Nostra Signora di Namur: Largo Berchet, 4; 00152 Roma, Italy. Experience in recent years strongly suggests that religious authority, like most other kinds, is in a moment of crisis, A justifiable but over-vigorous reaction to some previous styles of operation has often been the immediate occasion of this. Other causes, however, have also contributed to the situation: the emergence of a strong culture-consciousness in certain areas; the introduc-tion of new processes and patterns whether offered postively, negatively, or simply as a change from what existed before; the need to make values and structures correspond more evidently; the evolution of ideas about religious life itself and about the Church; and even the very fact of having lived since the late 1960's in experimental conditions which often did not provide clearly for the exercise of authority. The crisis is something which ultimately affects fundamental values in religious life: identity, apostolic efficacy, the nature and importance of consecration, the future form of religious life as such. Because of its potentially serious consequences, the crisis cannot be ignored. In fact, many institutes are facing it very honestly. Responses vary. A few follow the ostrich in seeming to assume that if no attention is paid to it, the situation will disappear of its own accord. Some tend to extremes: a holding to the status quo as if nothing had happened, or a leap into a pattern which involves the virtual dissipation, or at least the non-exercise, of any real authority. Some 197 "19~1 / Review for Religious, .March-April, 1983 strive to keep the reality of ,authority but clothe it in a different language, often that of business management or politics. Some keep the concept in words but virtually shift the content to something else: usually participation, communica-tion, consensus or leadership. None of these responses meets the situation but each indicates the realization that there is a situation to be faced. More recent lines of development show a growing awareness of the need to relate religious authority to religious obedience, and both to the ecclesial dimension of consecrated life. Sisters are realizing that the authority question can only be handled adequately on the level of faith and of relation to the Church, and they are trying to find expressions which will simultaneously r~flect faith, foster life and values, meet present realities, and be in accord both with the Church's common law and with the best traditions of their institute. One such line of development is based on a better appreciation Of the service rendered by authority. Current attempts to express this are frequently contradictory because the service of authority is taken to mean either authority and service or authority as service and the conclusions drawn are not wholly consistent with either one or the other. But if authority of itself is service--that is, if by the fact of being itself it serves religious life necessarily and fruitfully-- we have a line with rich possibilities. It is some of these lines which 1 hope to explore. Before doing so, I think that a few clarifications are in order. First, I will not be speaking about authority in general but only about religious authority: the authority properly exercised in a religious congregation because of its recognition by the Church. Secondly, since without it the religious congregation would not exist as such, I will be assuming that the reality of religious authority itself is not in question but that much of the crisis lies in the evolution of structures and the search for suitable styles of exercise. Thirdly, I will restrict my reflection to the experience of congregations of sisters of apostolic life. This is partly because it is in them that questions regarding authority and government are sharply presented, and partly because my own experience is extensively with them and my reflections are largely conditioned by their sharing. The reflections fall into three main phases--a look at religious authority itself as it is seen in Jesus, in the Church and in religious institutes; then the service of authority in religious government; and finally some of the strengths, confusions and questions in the service of authority at present. I. The Service of Religious Authority 1.1 In Jesus Probably the most familiar scene associated with the authority of Jesus is the one at the end of St. Matthew's gospel (Mt 28:19-20).__.M_a.~y Of Magdala and the other Mary have been mandated, first by the angel at the tomb (28:7) and then by the risen Lord himself (28:10) to tell the disciples, "my brothers," to go to Galilee. It is a solemn convocation to the "mountain where Jesus arranged to meet them." There, before the adoration of some and the hesitation of others, Jesus makes his last, confident claim, gives his last The Service of Religious Authority / 199 command, and pledges his last promise in a setting which, for Matthew, recalls the old law of Sinai and the new law of the beatitudes. The claim is absolute-- "All authority in heaven and on earth is given to me" (Mt 28:19), and, to make this effective, he promises to be with them until the end of time (Mt 28:20). Therefore, in the work of evangelization--preaching, baptizing, teaching, carrying God's word everywhere and to all the ages--the inner strength, impulse and power are always that of Christ himself, to whom all authority is given. To the disciples, this can hardly have been surprising. Many knew Jesus as one who had authority and who exercised it. He spoke with authority and not as the scribes and pharisees (Mt 7:28-29): he interpreted the law on no authority but his own (Mt 5:21-22 ff.); he ordered evil spirits to go forth, and they went (Mt 8:32); he commanded the winds and the seas, and they obeyed him (Mt 9:27): he had authority over sickness (Mt 8:14-15); blindness (Mt 9:29); deafness (Mk 9:7-35); dumbness (Mt 9:32-33); lameness (Mt 15:30); paralysis (Mk 2:!1); sin (Mk 2:10): and death itself (Lk 7:15). The authority he exercised in regard to the disciples was unquestioned. So also was the fact that, when he chose, he could confer on others authority similar to his own. Sometimes the authority was for a short period, as when the apostles who had rejoiced exuberantly in it during their first mission (Mk 6:7, 30) found that they no longer had it when they tried to cure the boy possessed, at the foot of Tabor (Mk 9:18). Sometimes it was promised for a longer future, as to Peter after his confession of faith (Mr 16:18): and by the lake of Tiberias it was given in a definitive way (Jn 21:15-17). Jesus was Lord and Master, Shepherd and Teacher, King, though not of this world; Lord of the Sabbath, Messiah and Son of the living God. His authority was never in doubt. According to his own testimony, however, this authority was neither assumed nor taken by acclaim, but given. Like his priesthood, it was not something that Jesus conferred upon himself or took of his own initiative (see Heb 5:4), nor was it something that he Would accept from the acclamation of delighted followers who wanted to make him King (Jn 6:15). It was, as he himself said, "given" and given by the Father. For this reason, his authority was unlike any other. Intimately connected with his person as Son and with his mission as Redeemer, it served a purpose which was the Father's business (see Jn 14:31), the "will of him who sent me" (Jn 5:30). It extended to all things in heaven and on earth. It was clearly distinct in its exercise from the authority of "the rulers of this world who lord it over their subjects" (Jn 22:25) and it was used to give life (Jn 10:10) and to heal (Mr 8:16); to teach (Mr 5:14); to save (Jn 12:47); to forgive (Mr 9:6); to sanctify (Jn I: 12); to unite (Jn 17:21); to bind and loose in heaven (Mr 18:18); to send in evangelizing mission (Mk 16:16); to found the Church (Mr 16:!8). 1.2 In the Church It is this authority, exercised for the same purpose and in the same manner, that Christ continues in his Church by his presence to the end of time. Peter's 200 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1983 authority was something that was given as a matter of faith: it was Christ's authority invested in him. He knew it when he said to the man at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple: "In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk" (Ac 3:7). He knew it when he helped phrase the decision of the so-called Council of Jerusalem in the words: "It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us" (Ac 15:25). He experienced it in the inner changes of values that he had to make in order to welcome Cornelius (Ac 10:34, 42) and to break with the Judaizers at Antioch (Ga 2:i1-14). Exercising the authority of binding and loosing that Christ had uniquely given him (Mt 16:19) and confident in the Lord's prayer for him (Lk 22:32), Peter confirmed his brethren with a power which he knew was pure gift. It was at the service of Christ's mission. It depended for its efficacy on an intimate personal relation and loving obedience to the Master who had conferred it and it was exercised for Christ's purposes and in Christ's way even to union with him in martyrdom. The same characteristics marked Paul's exercise of authority. "Be imitators of me as I am of Christ" ( I Co 4:1) was his cryptic summary of his own place in relation to the Lord who was his life (Ph 1:20) and the new Christians who were his responsibility. He could appeal, and did, to the moral authority of example which can result from the quality of life, of work and of prayer in someone who is fully living his or her baptism. But he had another kind, too: a personal authority given him by God for his work among the gentiles whereby, in union with Peter, he could inspire, instruct, encourage, correct, judge, and organize the Churches he founded in order to lead them to the fullness of Christ. In using it, he made a careful distinction between what was common teaching "from the Lord," as he called it, and what was his own opinion (1 Co 7:10, 12). He was particular not to profit from it in any way personally (! Th 3:8-9 and 1 Co 9:15-18) and he was at pains to ensure that it was continued in his young Churches (2 Tm 1:6, 2:1-2). So we find him constantly instructing, correcting errors whether of doctrine in Galatia or of manner of life in Corinth, fostering order in the local Churches whether liturgical (1 Co !1) or organizational (Tt 1:15) or in the matter of interpersonal relations (Ph 4:2). When necessary, he appealed for material support from them ( I Co 16:I-4 and Rm 15:25). None of this was done without suffering, as the second letter to the Corintl~ians makes clear. The authority of Christ was only exercised in the way of Christ--through the passion and resurrection, and Paul's was a paschal experience. Religious authority in both Peter and Paul was the power of Christ given them and acting through them to fulfill the purposes for which the Church was founded. From their time onwards, the essential authority of the Church has been the same. Her task is to save, to sanctify, to unite, to r~concile to the Father, and to spread the good news of Jesus Christ concretely to all nations and to the end of time. She is, in Vatican ll's beautiful phrase, the sacrament of salvation. She therefore has to direct, judge and teach with an authority that cannot come from her members and which she cannot take upon herself but The Service of Religious Authority / 201 which is the authority of Christ whose presence she is. Her intimate union and identification with him ensure that his own authority is exercised in and through her. It does not, however, make her proof against human weakness in her style of exercising it, any more than it protected Peter from errors of judgment or Paul from the consequences of a volatile temperament. In the course of history much has occurred to condition the Church's structures in ways that needed later revision, and, on that level, she has been embroiled at times in uses and abuses of authority that had little to do with the authority of Christ. But the essential truth remains. The authority which is uniquely proper to the Church is a religious authority--that of Christ himself--to save, to make disciples, to preach the gospel, to bring all to the Father in every place and age. This is the authority which is exercised in the recognition of religious institutes by the Church as a microcosm of her own reality. It is to this authority that they relate; and it is this authority which gives them theirs. 1.3 In Religious Institutes There are several circumstances which require that the authority in a religious institute be an ecclesial or religious authority and not just one which meets functional or organizational needs. These circumstances touch the nature of religious life itself. Religious institutes do not originate of themselves nor do they continue entirely as a result of their own efforts and planning-- they are the result of a gift of God and they depend on him for both their origin and their continuance. Their basic reason for existence is the closer following of Jesus Christ from which, for them, everything else must flow and to which everything else must be related. Moreover, they are in a special way God's gift to the Church: their way of life makes good sense only on the level of faith; they witness to realities and absolutes that are neither tangible nor visible, and it is only in virtue of the Church's recognition and approval that they exist. Their purpose is that of Christ and of-the Church. Such institutes require an authority that operates on the level of faith, Christ and Church, and which corresponds to the obedience which the members have freely vowed as a value because of their closer following of the Christ whose love made him obedient even unto death. All religious foundresses have become aware of the need for this kind of authority as God continued to act in their lives. A variety of providential circumstances can bring Christians together to do good--Pax Christi, the Christian Social Volunteers, CAFOD, the Catholic Women's Guilds would be random samples, and the members of these groups need no more than the authority that results from their own self-organization in order to operate well and to achieve their purposes. Their members give to each other whatever authority is necessary for the organization to function. They are related to the Church~ not essentially or by nature of the authority which they exercise, but by the recognition of their common purpose and by the baptismal commitment 209/ Review for Religious, March-April, 1983 of the individual members. Some religious institutes have begun in this way. At some point in their development, however, came the realization that they were aspiring to something more than what a group of Christians, however well-intentioned, could give to itself. The desire for a total public commitment to God formally received, the need for perpetual vows, the call to follow Christ intimately and as community in his obedience, and the urge towards a particular insertion into his public mission, would be some of the reasons which would prompt a founder or foundress to ask the Church to exercise her proper authority and to recognize the institute as a religious family. The Church alone, in Christ's name, can establish a religious institute, can receive vows that are vows of religion, can give an ecclesial mission and can confer the specifically religious authority in virtue of which an institute can require its members so to live and to work as to attain the purpose for which the institute was erected. This authority, which I will call religious authority, relates particularly to consecration, vowed life, mission, formation and government. It is specific to religious institutes and it is not the same thing as organization, responsibility, power or leadership. Given by the Church, it always involves an ecclesial accountability. Moreover, religious authority is never absolute. It is invested in persons clearly designated but who for the most part may not operate alone, and it is mediated through structures, usually worked out by the foundress in dialogue with the Church, which express the charism, nature, spirit and purpose of the institute and which are approved in its constitutions. Such authority makes possible a life of vowed obedience. Moreover, it is necessary for it. It is true, of course, that the structures by which religious authority is mediated can become outdated. They can atrophy, be abused or manipulated, lose contact with reality, or fail to function. They can reach a stage when they no longer correspond to or express the values that they are meant to foster. They then need to be revised and renewed. For this process, it is of the utmost importance to bear in mind the nature, purpose and source of religious authority, since models that are suitable to other forms are not necessarily appropriate to the structures of authority in religious life. It is also necessary to remember and respect the strongly ecclesial dimension of religious authority since this makes renewal of authority structures always a matter of dialogue with the Holy See and not simply the unilateral initiative of an institute. We further need to keep clear the correlation of authority with charism and life as expressed in the institute's own sound traditions, since this gives the best practical guidance for structures which will reaffirm the institute's identity in creative fidelity, continuity and openness. Where structures are renewed in this way, authority is a fruitful reality serving the purposes for which religious life exists. It is a witness to him who came not to be served but to serve and who used fiis authority at the service of the kingdom. Where the renewal of structures somehow loses sight of the unique nature, ecclesial dimension, and The Service of Religious Authority / 203 charismatic continuity of religious authority on the level of faith, it can ultimately betray religious life itself by secularizing it, in the negative sense, in what is fundamental to it. The various crises of authority at present lie at various points between these two possibilities. II. The Service of Authority in Religious Government 2.1 The Model The model of the authority that serves is Christ, the Servant of Yahweh. He to whom all power is given in heaven and on earth is also, and without diminishing either aspect, the one who came to serve, who emptied himself, obeyed even to the cross, and gave his life as a ransom for many. Clearly in ,iesus authority and service are not in contradiction. One is not at the expense of the other and there is no tension of opposites having to be held in balance. He refers easily to both, as when he is washing Peter's feet (,in 13:14), and he never attempts to justify either. Being at once Son and Servant, he exercises both authority and service as one, and this is of the essence of his incarnation. As religious, the goal of our life is the closer following of Christ in all its fullness but there is no doubt that we have a certain difficulty with this aspect of his reality. This may be because we tend to separate the concepts of authority and service in a way which he does not. ,iesus is concerned with the reality of each; he never confuses them, but they are one in his person. We tend to oppose them and to get involved in words to describe them. For example, we often think or speak of authority as an abstraction. Its synonym is power, with connotations of lordship, mastery, might and force that move easily into oppression and violence. Its implications are efficiency and the carrying out of orders. Its contrary is subservience. We think of service as a function accom-plished or something done in view of helping another, whether this is a kindly individual act like giving a hand to an old person, or a public utility, like driving a bus, or the meeting of a national need like the operation of civil service. Its synonym is action in relation to something or action in view of something. It implies somehow being less or becoming less than another. Its contrary is command. We tend, therefore, to identify authority with the power and lordship which are the contrary of service and, because of the negative connotations which we attach to it, we try in fact to avoid its exercise in-common life, to reduce or even to eliminate it, and we forego, perhaps too simplistically, the potential which it has for holiness and for fruitfulness in the apostolate. Yet Christ had authority, used it, and did not hesitate to speak of it and to confer it. It enriched, and in no way d

Issue 18.6 of the Review for Religious, 1959. ; Review Religious Ecclesiastical Formation by The Congregation.of Seminaries A Fuller Sense of Literature by Father Aidan, C.P. ~Examen on Renovation and Adaptation by Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. St. Lawrence of Brindisi by R. F. Smith, S.J. Current Spiritual Writing by Thomas G. O'Callaghan, S.J. Survey of Roman .Documents Views, News, Previews Questions and Answers Book Reviews and Notices Index to Volume 18 321 328 333 346 353 36O 365 367 370 381 Volume 18 November 15, 1959 Number 6 OUR CONTRIBUTORS FATHER AIDAN is stationed at St. Gabriel's College, Blythe Hall, Ormskirk, Lancs., England, JOSEPH F. GALLEN, the editor of our Question and Answer Department, is professor of canon law at Woodstock College, Woodstock, Maryland. R. F. SMITH, editor of the REVIEW, is professor of apologetics at St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas. THOMAS G. O'CALLAGHAN is professor of ascetical and mystical theology at Weston College, Weston 93, Massachusetts. ~, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, Nov., 1959. VOI. 18, No. 6, Published bi-monthly by The Queen's Work, 3115 South Grand Boulevard, St. Louis 18, Missouri. Edited by the Jesuit Fathers of St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas, with ec-clesiastical approval. Second class mail privilege authorized at St. Louis, Mis-souri. Copyright, 1959, by TKe Queen's Work. Subscription price in U. S. A. and Canada: 3 dollars a year; 50 cents a copy. Printed in U. S. A. Editor: R. F. Smith, S.J. Associate Editors: Augustine G. Ellard, S.J.; Gerald Kelly, S.J.; Henry Willmering, S.J. Assistant Editors: John E. Becker, S.J.; Robert F. Weiss, S.J. Departmental Editors: Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; Ehrl A. Weis, S.J.' Please send all renewals, new subscriptions, and business correspondence to: Review for Religious, 3115 South Grand Boulevard, St. Louis 18, Missouri. Please send all manuscripts and editorial correspondence to: Review for Religious, St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas. Ecclesiastical Formation SACRED CONGREGATION OF SEMINARIES AND UNIVERSITIES Prot. N. 541/59 CIRCULAR LETTER ADDRESSED TO BISHOPS ON THE OCCASION OF THE FIRST CENTENARY Of THE DEATH OF THE CURI~ OF ARS CONCERNING CERTAIN PROBLEMS OF ECCLESIASTICAL FORMATION. Your Excellency, Not long ago pilgrims of every race and tongue Were gathered at the grotto of Massabielle to commemorate the centenary of the apparitions of Lourdes. And now, before the echo of these solemn celebrations has died awdy, our minds and hearts turn once more towards France, to a small village of that lalid which was the scene of the apostolic labors of a humble parish priest in whom our Lord saw fit to renew, with copious. 9utpourings .of grace, the portents of His public life. This Sacred Congregation of ~eminaries and Universities does not wish to let this year pass without recalling the attention of future priests to this humble son of the soil. For he, by corres-ponding faithfully with the grace of vocation, became in the hands of God a powerful instrument for the renewal and the deepening of the Christian life in many souls. The life of St. John Mary Vianney has many valuable lessons for the young levite of our own times. In fact, we may say that his message, implemented now by the lustre of his heavenly glory, carries a greater significance than ever before. I. First of all, he shines as an example of fidelity to the inspirations of grace. Once he had come to know the divine will in his regard, he pursued the priestly ideal with a tenacity of purpose that has rarely been equaled. He never allowed himself to be discouraged by the many obstacles which seemed to bar his way towards the goal he so ardently, yet so humbly desired. Rather was he guided always by a most profound appreciation of the greatness of the priesthood. Contemplating that greatness .he would exclaim in ecstasy, "Oh how wonderful is the priest! His greatness will only be seen in heaven. If a priest in this life 321 ECCLESIASTICAL FORMATION Review for Religious were to comprehend his real dignity, he would die -- not of fear but of love." It is this appreciation, this tenacity of purpose, this spirit of dedication which the Church wishes to bring home to the ecclesiastical youth of our time to urge them to cherish the ideal to which the Lord has called them. The present scarcity of voca-tions is a well known fact while the spiritual needs of the faithful are daily on the increase. It is not that the Lord scatters less abundantly the seed of the divine call. Alas! it is the fewness of those who gather it; and even of these, how many put their hand to the plough and then turn back, abandoning the work they have begun. The example of the Cur~ of Ars should urge all who have received a divine vocation to the priesthood to treasure it as a priceless gift. If there is a lack of generosity on their .part, the wiles of the evil one may well rob them of this hidden pearl. To safeguard it, everything should be willingly sacrificed. Clerics, as the very name implies, are the portion of the Lord and have been called by Him to a special destiny. They should, therefore, for their own encouragement and perseverance, be always mindful of the tender goodness and munificent kindness which has singled them out. If "the Apostle, reminding the early Christians of their redemption, could charge these laymen to live as children of light and heedless of the works of the flesh, how much more grave is such an obligation for clerics who are called not merely to share in the grace of Redemption but to follow in the footsteps of the Divine Master as its dispensers and ministers. Let them, therefore, give thought constantly to the gift of God and let them strive to make themsebfes more worthy of the divine choice, making a daffy offering of their youth to the Church for their own salvation and the salvation of their brethren. II. If we look at the figure of the saintly Cur~ of Ars, we will recognize in his shining virtue a supreme model of priestly excellence. He knew that the priesthood had, in some mysterious way, identified him with the one Eternal Priest, the Word incar-nate. It was such knowledge which inspired him to repeat phrases like these: "When you see the priest, think of our Lord Jesus Christ" or "The priesthood is the love of the Heart of Jesus." But even these sentiments, however beautiful and expressive of divine realities, were of secondary importance. For him the essential was to live the priegthood which the Lord exercised through him. Behold him, therefore, the holy Cur~, in the rSle outlined by the Apostle, a mediator for his people, devoted to a life of adoration, 322 November, 1959 ECCLESIASTICAL FORMATION of intercession, of total sacrifice; he too a victim like his Redeemer, ready day and night to implore "with unspeakable groans" the remission of sins, ready always to fill up in his body what is wanting in the Passion of Christ. This closeness to God and perfect conformity to the Eternal Priest inspired in him a deep appreciation of prayer and of the interior life, and were besides the secret of his "extraordinary success. He knew perfectly well that the: efficacy of his work for souls depended above all on prayer and on union with God. Conscious of his rSle as an instrument of divine grace, it was to grace alone that he looked for the success of his ministry. Not without reason, therefore, did the Supreme Pontiff Pius XI name St. John Mary Vianney the special patron of parish priests and those entrusted with the care of souls, wishing thereby to emphasize that the efficacy of all pastoral endeavor is directly dependent on the personal holiness and interior life of the priest. The Sacred Congregation of Seminaries is convinced that in this matter much is left to be done in institutes for clerical train-ing. In view of the attitude of young priests, particularly towards the problems of the ministry, the question arises whether the traditional principles of formation are not being overlooked. In most cases, it is true, there is no lack of zeal for the external works of the ministry; but such zeal, unsupported by prayer and morti-fication, issues only in vanity and disillusionment. The fact is that without the interior life there can be no true apostle. Apart from it the most elaborate and spectacular techniques of organization will achieve little of permanent value. The true apostle, conscious that he is but an instrument in the hands of God, knows that he has other and less fallible means at his disposal. He is aware that a spiritual edifice may be raised only by prayer and the power of grace. His labors will be successful in the measure of his reliance not on himself but on these God-given aids. "Therefore neither he who plants ~or he who waters is anything, but God who gives the increase . For we are God's helpers" (1 Cot 3:7-9). The Supreme Pontiff, Pope Pius XI says clearly: "It would be a very grave and dangerous error should the priest, carried away by a false zeal, become completely immersed in the external works of the ministry to the neglect of his own sanctification . Without piety, the holiest of actions, even the most solemn rites of the sacred ministry will be performed in a mechanical and routine manner, devoid of spirit, of unction and of life" (Ad catholici 323 ECCLESIASTICAL FORMATION Review for Religious sacerdotii [December 20, 1935] in Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 28 [1936], 23-24). Later, Pope Pius XII, in his apostolic exhortation Menti nostrae vigorously reiterated the same teaching. "An ardent spirit of prayer," he says, "is necessary today as never before, when so-called 'naturalism' has taken hold of men's minds and virtue is beset by dangers of every kind -- dangers which, at times, assail even those engaged in the sacred ministry. What more effective means can there be of avoiding these snares, what more apt to raise the mind to higher things and preserve its union with God than constant prayer and invocation of the divine assistance?" (Menti nostrae [September 23, 1950] in Acta Apos-tolicae Sedis, 42 [1950], 673). More recently still, Our Holy Father Pope John XXIII, happily reigning, has insisted on the need for an efficacious pastoral apostolate. In his discourse to the Apostolic Union of the Clergy (March 12, 1959), proposing the holy Cur~ of Ars as an apt model for the members, he addressed to them the following solemn considerations: "How is it that in the ministry so much labour frequently yields but meagre fruit? How is it that priests who seemingly neglect no weapon of the apostolate fail to bring back so many lapsed children of the Church who are dead to the life of grace? Perhaps it is because they are not single-minded in their ministry; perhaps because they do not always seek exclusively the good of souls; perhaps also, they place too much reliance on means that are human and therefore frail without giving due attention to prayer and sacrifice." We must insist therefore that teachers in seminaries, and particularly the rectors and spiritual fathers shall give adequate and timely instruction, especially to students approaching sacred orders, on the true nature of the priesthood, its mission, and the means to be relied on in the apostolate. Furthermore they shall be careful to base this in'struction on the traditional principles that are to be found in revelation and have been authoritatively interpreted by the Fathers and the magisterium of the Church. They shall not permit the introduction of any novelty which could undermine or alter the teaching of the Church in so delicate a matter. These instructions must be regarded as of the highest importance because upon the ideas instilled in them during semi-nary years will depend the future conduct of priests in the ministry. III. The loyalty of St. John Mary Vianney to the Church is well known. He had a most tender love for the Holy Mother 324 November, 1959 ECCLESIASTICAL FORMATION of all the faithful. Whenever he spoke about her his face appeared transfigured and his voice thrilled with emotioh. His love, it is true, embraced all the faithful and was not confined to the narrow circle of Ars -- in fact, people came from all over the world to lay siege to his pulpit and his confessional--but it was especially directed towards the visible head of the Church, the Pope, whom he venerated. It is clear from the process of canonization that he sought out every opportunity to testify his supreme devotion to the Roman Pontiff. He could not conceal his emotion when he spoke about the Mother and Teacher of all the Churches or heard her spoken about. He showed respect, love and obedience to his own Bishop "as to the Lord." And what obedience! Everyone knows that he was bent on withdrawing from the public eye to weep over what he called the emptiness of his life. For he was conscious of his unworthiness and dispirited by his increasing responsibility. But obedience, manifested in the will of his supe-riors, wished him at Ars; and at Ars he remained in a spirit of sub-mission and sacrifice. Those responsible for clerical education have here a matter for serious reflection. The virtue of obedience is absolutely funda-mental in the process of forming sacred ministers. It is necessary to engender in them a habit of obedience which reaches to the very fibre of their being. And this is particularly true in times like ours when the demon of pride bids everyone throw off restraint and indulge in unlimited liberty of thought and action. Such a norm of behaviour, hailed as progress, has crept into educational methods and threatens the very foundations of Catholic teaching on the principles of pedagogy. Cases are sometimes met with even in ecclesiastical colleges -- indeed this Sacred Congregation has had to intervene -- where attempts are made to exploit the methods of "self-education" with too great concession to individual caprice and too little thought for the frailty of human nature. To strive to develop in their charges a sense of responsibility, initiative~ and judgment is indeed the legitimate and necessary work of educators. But what must be deplored is the attitude of teachers who are afraid to command lest they invade the sanctuary of another man's mind and do violence to his personality. Such a teacher abdicates his position as superior and renders the very concept of discipline meaningless. It is a false approach; for it is only by discipline that one achieves a strong personality, endowed with that spirit of sacrifice which is required of all those who would follow in the footsteps of the Lord Jesus Christ. By means of this 325 ECCLESIASTICAL FORMATION Review for Religious discipline alone are formed genuine apostles bent on doing the will of God, as indicated by their superiors, rather than following their own c.apricious inclinations. Let discipline, therefore, joy-ously embraced, be the touchstone by which superiors test the vocation of their students. Let them demand an obedience, not merely theoretical, but effective, single-minded, and complete in all things, great and small, contained in the seminary rule. In requiring this obedience and in putting it before the students, let them recall the supernatural motives which are its justification and its supreme model, Jesus Christ, who had only one purpose on earth: "To do thy will, O God" (Heb 10:7). Let them always remember that obedience primarily involves "obsequium," that. is, a total submission of mind and heart which makes our actions pleasing to God. If superiors can achieve this much they can be assured that their students will also acquire the other virtues proper to a priest, especially those, like chastity, which require manly will-power and perfect self-control. For the members of all pious institutes, therefore, the prin-ciple must hold that the rule is the will of God manifested in their regard and consequently of obligation as a necessary means of their formation. The vigilant presence of a superior must not be regarded as something injurious to personality but rather as a help towards securing that spiritual development which is re- 'quired of a priest and is his glory: "All things are yours; you are Christ's; and Christ is God's" (1 Cor 3:22-23). Addressing our beloved seminarians we would exhort them to keep before their minds the repeated teaching of the Church which compares the clergy to an army, carefully chosen and proper-ly trained, ~in object 6f terror to enemies because of its disciplined might. During the long and arduous period of training let them cultivate a spirit of discipline, sound convictions, and an un-questioning obedience to those placed over them. Thus will they acquire that perfect "thinking with the Church" which will enable them. at a later stage, to fight the battles of the Kingdom of God "prepared to act and to endure bravely for the salvation of all" (Leo XIII, Alacritas ista [January 18, 1885] in Enchiridion Cleri-corurn [Rome: Vatican Polyglot Press, 1938], n. 458). However arduous the preparation for the priesthood may be and however toilsome and full of sacrifice the life of the future priest, the reward for valiant service under the banner of the Lord is very great indeed. St. Augustine, who was called to the apostolate in times as difficult as our own, affirms: "Nothing in 326 November, 1959 ECCLESIASTICAL FORMATION this life and especially at this time is more difficult, laborious, and dangerous than the work of a bishop, priest, or deacon; but God's view nothing is more blessed, provided one conducts one-self in the way our King orders" (Letters 21:1). Your Excellency, much more might be said in pursuance of the example of the holy Cur~ of Ars; relevant to the right formation of candidates for the priesthood and therefore helpful to the better administration of seminaries. We have confined our attention however to those matters which have come to our notice through the reports of apostolic visitators and which seem peculiarly related to the needs of our time. We wish to emphasize the need for a deepening of the sense of responsibili~ty in relation to the grace of vocation, to insist on the primacy of the interior life as an essential condition for the pastoral ministry, and finally to establish the formative value of a discipline which is accepted willingly and conscientiously. In this way, the truly priestly life will be protected and developed and it will be able to meet the needs of the time and adapt itself to the pastoral circumstances of the moment, never forgetting the sources from which its super-natural fecundity and its truly noble character derive. We are convinced that these principles added to the essential requirement of knowledge -- which, let us remember, was not wanting in the case of the Cur~ of Ars, for God enriched him won-derfully with the gifts of His Spirit -- are the solid foundation on which future apostles must raise the structure of their priest-hood. Only with this foundation may they go forth, the able workers of the Lord's vineyard "trained to do all good works" as heralded by St. Paul, and the good shepherds described by St. Peter as "from the heart a pattern to the flock" (2 Tim 3:17; 1 Pet 5:3). While we beg Your Excellency to ensure tha~ the contents of this letter are brought to the notice of your students with what-ever comments you consider opportune, we take the occasion to express to you the sentiments of our profound esteem and remain, Yours devotedly in Our Lord, Given at Rome on the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, June 5th, 1959, JOSEPH Cardinal PIZZARDO, Prefect DINO STAFFA, Secretary. 327 A Fuller Sense of I_iterature Father Aidan, C. P. AMONG THE MANY hardships incident to the student state, the writing of essays was one that could rarely be evaded. Of course, as one realizes -- later -- the correction of these'effusions must have been' an even more Herculean labour. It is only when we face an exercise-book armed with red ink in-stead of blue that we realize that sufferance is the badge of all our tribe. But all the same, we were rather surprised when one long-suffering student once plaintively, complained that we were always giving a religious turn to the development of our thought. "Isn't that a happy fault?" we replied. "Surely you should be pleased that we are so spiritually minded?" and so on ran the ready answers. And I think that, as the unspeakable vernacular has it, we'd got something there; a thought that has often recurred to me when the study of literature is discussed. I think it was Sir Roger de Coverley who preferred his parson rather to deliver the solid sermons of accredited authors than to drone out his own efforts; and while we would not perhaps care to descend to such utter conservatism, we ought not to despise learning aspects of truth, often brilliant and revealing, from the great minds of past ages. "A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit," and our own minds cannot fail to be improved by such a blood ~transfusion. Again, it strikes me very forcibly at times when "doing" (horrible word) literature in class that a statement in the texi is a very brilliant facet of a perhaps vaguely realized spiritual truth. One realizes that such and such a remark is capable of application on a plane of thought other than what the author intended. Its significance can be extended to shed a grateful ray of light on some spiritual principle whose full expres-siveness has perhaps been obscured by familiarity or neglect. What the author has said is perfectly true in its context, but it is also more profoundly true in a higher sense. In studying the acknowledged classics of English literature, we are surely not being disloyal to our author if we read with our ear attuned to the deeper harmonies that perhaps underlie the 328 A FULLER SENSE OF LITERATURE chord he strikes. If he has seized and expresse.d some truth for our benefit and we enlarge and enrich that truth on another plane of though't, we do him no disservice; in fact, we remember his phrase with greater gratitude and appreciation. He has l~ointed out the way, and we have followed out his directions with profit. My c]ass--I dare not say my audience--are often politely amused when I mention that such and such a poem, rightly taken, could be used for spiritual reading, and that several class periods could profitably be expended in exploiting its deeper treasures. A poem is a poem is a poem, their looks warn me; the life of a saint is a very different kettle of fish; and never the: twain shall meet. They are good enough to admit, however, when it is pointed out, that there is literally more than meets the eye. Wordsworth, for instance, has written much admirable poetry as well as much abominable verse; "Tintern Abbey" is as good an example of his vein of William the Conqueror as "We are Seven"--that playground of parodists--is of his unfortunate tendency to be merely Silly Billy. Of the joys of nhture he knew in childhood, he writes soberly: That time is past, And all its aching joys are now no more, And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts Have followed; for such loss, I would believe, Abundant recompense. This is clear enough certainly. Yet we may need to remind ourselveg that such a Clear-sighted attitude should also be ours in spiritual matters. What if we were mo~e obedient as novices, or more fervent as students? "That time is past." Our present duties are urgent, and we should know how to adapt ourselves to them, without sacrificing one whit of our essential obedience or fervour. With the passing of the years, our charity ought to become less natural, and our obedience more positively vigorous. There should be no sentimental looking back on those early days, no echoing Vaughan: Happy those early days, when I Shined in my Angel-infancy! . How I long to travel back, And tread again that ancient track! for "that time is past." We ought not depreciate the present in desiring again the past. We might as well face the facts: obedience, 329 FATHER AIDAN Review for Religious charity, patience, and the rest in those earlier days, with all their zest and novelty, came easier to us. But we should not "mourn nor murmur" that we have to put forth sterner effort now; still less should we "faint" and, discouraged, relax our exertions. We can surely say that "other gifts have followed," no less real for being less memorable; and, remembering the graces of the Mass and vocation, we should with all our heart believe "fer such loss, abundant recompense." The grace of God, too, has its seasons; to yearn for a perpetual spring is to show bad husbandry. Much Ado About Nothing is one of the most appropriately named plays that Shakespeare ever wrote. Yet amid all the bustle and much ado, there is much of permanent value that we can reflect on. Familiarity~ especially with spiritual things, may breed, if not contempt, at least insensibility. And we who grow accustomed to the daily miracle of the Mass and Holy Communion can learn from the remark of the Friar: What we have, we prize not to the worth Whiles it is ours; ~ut being lacked and lost, Why, then we rack the value; then we find The virtue that possession would not show us Whiles it was ours. Routine can be ruthless, if we allow it to become so; ~ind sheer regularity may prove a mere placebo if we are spiritually run-down. There is a false sense of security against which George Eliot warns us, which "more frequently springs from habit than from conviction," and which consequently persists even after warning signs should have alerted the victim. Our appreciation of God's gifts is a m£tter of conviction, not custom, a conviction which we ,try to make even deeper; to abandon ourselves to mere habit is to run the risk of undervaluing those gifts, even to ultimate ingratitude.: We should try to "find the virtue that possessio.n would not show us" even while we thankfully retain possession. No less than amuse, the elegant irony of Jane Austen can also instruct. Elizabeth Bennet's arch rebuke to Darcy is an example. Darcy admits that he has not the talent of easy conversation with those whom he has never met before, and appears to think that this handsome admission exonerates him completely from any charge of superciliousness. Elizabeth gently points out that her lack Of "masterly manner" in playing the piano is due to her own fault; she has not taken the trouble of practising. Possibly our own shortcomings, especially in the matter of charity, are capable 330 November, 1959 FULLER SENSE OF LITERATURE of similar diagnosis, Perhaps we too do not take the trouble of practising. It is easier to conclude that we have not the talent of a ready, friendly interest in others than to make the effort neces-sary to acquire it. As Jerome K. Jerome well said, "Don't bother yourself about how much nicer people might be; think how nice they are." A search for another's good points can be more profitable .than a murky exhumation of his less taking characteristics. Practice does make perfect, and if we h~ive not attained perfection --and who has?--perhaps the fault lies in our insufficient practice. Again, it seems to me that truths ~cquired in reading can sometimes reinforce by their very humour or poetry some point of. more specifically religious, life; or better still, the life of religious. There are many illuminating remarks scattered about in various places which may give rise to an uneasy searching of conscience, and may even enable ourselves to see ourselves as others see~us. Sheridan was--surely--not thinking of religious obedience when, in The Rivals, he put the following remark into thb mouth of Sir Anthony Absolute. Young Absolute has just affirmed, "I cannot obey you";'and his exasperated parent is led to lament, "You know I am compliance itself--when I am not thwarted; no one more easily led--when I have my own way; but don't put me in a frenzy." (I like that phrase; a religious frenzy is put in quite a novel perspective.) Dickens, I think, holds a mirror up to religious life when the delightful Mrs. Gamp is moved to declare her motto in life. No-one would accuse Dickens of interest in religious, still less of interest in religious poverty; and he has growled in approved Victorian fashion about processions of dirty ragged monks. Nevertheless, Mrs. Gamp's motto does warn us of the danger of too great com-placency in our vow, and indicates--malgrd elle--a practical way in which we can keep it better. "I'm easy pleased," she primly says. "It is but little as I wants; but I must have that little of the best, and to the minute." Indeed, earth has not anything to show more fair than that; but, it is to be hoped, a religious house has. Shakespeare, as might well have been expected, is a fertile source of inspiration. In the matter of chastity, we know, our natural obligation is reinforced by vow; yet, as a modern spiritual author has said, "There is nothing fireproof or asbestos-like about the cassock"--or, for that matter, about the religious habit. Our vow is no vaccine, no injection, to render us immune to attack. 331 FATHER AIDAN And well does Shakespeare understand this when in a powerful metaphor Prospero warns Ferdinand, lately engaged to Miranda: Do not give dalliance Too much the rein: the strongest oaths are straw To the fire i' the blood: be more abstemious, Or else, good night your vow! Finally, there is one very thought-provoking remark--again by Shakespeare--which, by shedding a dramatic light on the great mystery of Redemption, may help us to a richer estimation of its depths. Measure for Measure is often referred to as a gloomy comedy, but it abounds in brilliant lines. Isabella pleads with the inexorable Angelo for her brother's life, only to be told that he is ¯ . . a forfeit of the law And you but waste your words. "Alas!" she replies. "Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once; And He that might the vantage best have took Found out the remedy." Surely even theology would be hard put to it to find a o more succinct reference to the reconhiliation of the outraged Justice of God with the infinite Mercy of the redeeming Christ in His Sacred Passion. Why not a religious turn to our serious and literary reading? And why should not a religious turn to serious and literary reading? 332 Examen on Renovation and Adaptation Joseph F. Gallen, S. J. THE IMPLEMENTATION of renovation and adaptation depends primarily on higher superiors; but they are also the religious whose numerous duties can have impeded or pre-vented the reading, study, and attendance at courses and institutes that are necessary even for an understanding of this subject. The following questions and principles should make such a superior realize whether he or she is sufficiently conversant with the move-ment, These brief questions and principles are at least intended as a sufficiently complete and balanced picture of the nature, men-tality, and purposes of the movement. They should therefore be useful to all religious. The success of renovation and" adaptation depends on the intelligent and willing cooperation of all superiors and subjects. I. General Principles Is my principle rigorously what the founder did and said or also what the founder would now do and say? Do I adapt my institute to the present age as much as the founder did to his own age? Isn't resistance to intelligent and prudent adaptation opposi-tion to the will of the Holy See? Any adaptation should conform to expressed norms of the Holy See; but it is not to be thought that the Holy See will define exactly, impose, or even suggest every necessary or profitable adaptation. A fundamental purpose of renovation and adapta-tion is to quicken the life, energy, and self-initiative of all institutes. Do I understand that the purpose of adaptation is a more ¯ effective use of the means of self-~anctification and of the apos-tolate? Do I realize that everything in the religious life is only a means to its purpose? Am I choosing effective .means? Changing the ineffective? Do I understand that all human institutions ~ are capable of. change? that no human being could foresee all possible circum-stances of all ages? 333 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review for Religious Do I realize that any idea decreases in universality of place and age in the degree that it is particular and determined? Do I admit in fact and practice that there are different customs, manners, and demands in different countries, nations, and ages? that all ideas, works, and practices of the past may not be suitable for the present? Am I holding on to any thing that was introduced only be-cause of particular circumstances of the past? Any artificial or affected practice or observance is repugnant to the doctrine and example of Christ. Do I prevent or impede adaptation by the rationalization that it is laxity, self-indulgence, and worldliness? Do I blind myself to the good in adaptation by concentration on its extremists? This is as much lacking in intelligence as it would be to seek the truth of Christianity in religious fanaticism. The greatest enemies of renovation and adaptation are those who hold that its purpose is to eliminate or diminish religious discipline. A regulated life, solidly productive of the virtues dis-tinctive of the religious state, is necessary for complete Christian perfection. Adaptation seeks to retain but to revivify the discipline that is good, to remove the idle and useless, to substitute the better for the less efficacious, and to effect the realization that an oppres-sive, merely annoying, and too minut~ religious discipline is self-destructive. "All counsels by which we are influenced to perfection are reduced .to this: that we be detached from affection for temporal things in order that the soul may more freely tend to God." This maxim of St. Thomas is eternally valid. Renovation does not seek to weaken or destroy but to animate the total dedication by which the religious renounces any earthly affection that could impede the greater love of God. Adaptation cannot and does not deny or enfeeble the complete detachment, mortification, and abnegation demanded by this purpose of the religious life. It strives to find, intensify, and promote the most suitable and efficacious means for this purpose. Renovation is not worldliness but greater sanctity; adaptation is not self-indulgence but more intelligent and appropriate mortification. Am I aware only of the old? suspicious of the new? Do I discourage or prevent talk and discussion on the new by subjects? It is not difficult to discern the blind conservative and the rash innovator. Adaptation is prudent progress. Its purpose is to 334 November, 1959 RENOVATION AND ADAPTATION preserve, protect, and improve the good, to change or remove only what is harmful, obstructive, or useless. There are consecrated immutables in the religious life. Only the religious nihilist attacks these. There are also many mutables, and only the blind conservative or religious zealot elevates these to the order of immutables. You are true to renovation and adaptation when your maxim in all aspects of the religious life is: hold on to the good but always seek the better. Do I discourage and repress new ideas in the general chapter, sessions of the council, in superiors and officials? Do I refuse my subjects publications that contain new ideas? Do my subjects understand that renovation and adaptation are to proceed slowly, by study, discussion, and persuasion, not by agitation? The superiors who do nothing are those most apt to have agitated subjects. Do I, a higher superior, read books, periodicals, and articles on renovation and adaptation? attend gatherings or courses that include this subject? Have I, on the. constant excuse of work, cut myself apart from this movement? I should lead the way, and nothing will be accomplished in fact without me. Am I willing to accept anything ~hat will lead the religious of today to greater sanctity or a more effective, ministry? Am I willing to consider any good idea, no matter what its source? Am I searching for or hiding from new ideas? Has our institute contributed any idea to the movement of renovation and adaptation? Do I favor or accept the new merely because it is new? Do I abandon the old only when I am convinced that it is useless, harm-ful, or that something better can be substituted? Do I readily adapt in hospital work, with difficulty in schools, but with much greater diffi5ulty or not ht all in religious and community,life? Why? Is our institute distinguished by a granite inflexibility or a living elasticity? Since the authoritative beginning of adaptation in 1950, what have we changed in our constitutions, customs, observances and practices, prayers, community life, formation, work, religious habit? Can I say that all of these are in all respects fully adapted to the present age? 335 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review [or Religious Is my attachment to my institute so blindingly intense that I believe it admits of'no greater perfection in spirituality, govern-ment, formation, or external works? Love of my institute is a virtue, but not the love that smothers life and progress. Do I grasp the paradox that my institute will remain the same only if it changes? only if it receives the nourishment of new ideas? that otherwise it deteriorates to feebleness and senility? The only one who cannot progress but in whom all others should progress is God, and He is the God not only of infinite sanctity but also of infinite knowledge and truth. We may object that change is not always progres.s, but we are "certain that doing everything exactly as it was done in the past is not progress. Is my principle in fact that the good is what was done in the past and that the new is a synonym for the dangerous or evil? How would I prove that a good idea is better b~cause it arose in the sixteenth or nineteenth rather than in the twentieth century? It is true that to be modern is not necessarily to be spiritual. It is equally true that traditionalism is not necessarily sanctity. Do I realize that only the aged mentality lives completely in the past? Am I not immature to the degree that I refuse to face the present? Do I talk about adaptation but do nothing? Do I consider adaptation an unwelcome guest and hope to effect its speedy departure by my coldness and ~neglect? Are we cooperative and helpful to other religious institutes? Do I think that renovation and adaptation are only for religious women? Nothing is more blind.ing than our own customary and routine conduct. An efficacious way of learning what I should adapt is to go over everything we do daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly with an intelligent and spiritual religious Of another institute. II. Sanctity of Life How many and to what degree do our local superiors have a spiritual influence on their communities? Am I convinced that the holiness of our institute must always be measured by the extent, intensity, hnd constancy of its prayer an~" self-denial? Is conformity with the holy rule the ultimate norm of our life or is the rule a means to conformity with Christ? 336 November, 1959 RENOVATION AND ADAPTATION Rule, regulation, and regularity are important, but is our spirituality nothing but rule, regulation, and regularity? Have we little consciousness 0f the interior life? of the richness of the fatherhood of God? of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit? of the person of Christ? of the mystical body? of the life of grace? of the doctrine of Christ? of the motherhood of Mary? Am I disturbed at violations of silence, promptness, and regularity in my subjects but never think of their correspondence to grace, interior prayer, or interior virtue? Is the actual purpose of our institute the devout life, not the saintly life? What proportion of the members of my institute have a low idea of the purpose of the religious life? Is the actual tenor' of the spiritual .life of our institute a challenge to generous souls or the canonization, of little souls? Is our spirituality purely negative or positive? Do we always define humility as the lowering of self, never as the enthronement of God? mortification as the denial of self or preference for and love of God and of the things lof God? Do we curb ou2 passions for self-control or to grow into the fulness of Christ? Do we make God or self the center of our spiritual lives? .Do we love God or self-perfection? Are penance and mortification practiced? Are those who can and do fast thought peculiar? Are voluntary works of penance and mortification found in only a very few individuals? Is the atmosphere of my community spiritually inspiring? depressing? debilitating? . Are the influential members of our institute exemplary or mediocre religious? Do I realize that the fertile mother of mediocrity and tepidity in the religious life is bad example and that conspicuous reasons for this fact are that our religious have not been led to a convinced spirituality and have not been trained.to think for themselves? Spiritual direction should evidently have its proper place, but are the majority of those receiving spiritual direction in our institute religious from whom .no' proportionate profit can be expected? Is our library stiflingly sweet with pietistic books? Are the religi.ou~ allowed to choose their own book? Must spiritu.al reading be in common? Do we ever take Sacred Scripture as our spiritual reading? Do we realize that mental prayer is often weak and 337 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review for Religious difficult because it is famished for proper and constant spiritual reading? III. Poverty Do I emphasize interior detachment from material things? Do I understand that moral uniformity in material things is necessary for community peace and fraternal charity? Do I give subjects permission because they get the money or the object from externs? Do many of our religious procure material things or the money for them from externs? Am I permitting or tolerating any custom or practice that is clearly opposed to poverty or that excludes its perfection? Do too many of our religious constantly ask for the newest and best? Do our religious understand that luxury is not a necessity but an obstacle to good work? Am I generous with material things to externs but not to our own religious? Do our buildings, the furnishings of our religious houses, and the personal lives of our subjects manifest to lay people the nothingness of material things in themselves? Do I accept modern inventions and improvements in so far as they increase efficiency but reject those that lead only to self-indulgence and luxury? Am I sensitive to the fact that the multiplication and constant increase of material improvements and conveniences tend to produce softness of character? Do I realize that the emphasis on interior mortification must be proportionately intensified? Is our life simple and poor? Do too many of our religious live an unmortified and soft life? Do we work for, attract, love and are loved by the poor and the working class? IV. Chastity Is chastity for too many of our religious merely obligatory celibacy or is it in fact their quickest means for attainment of unworldliness, of love of God, for clear vision of spiritual realities and values, a life of delicate familiarity with God in prayer and of pure love for others in zeal? 338 November, 1959 RENOVATION AND ADAPTATION Do our religious understand that marriage is not sinful or ugly but a good? that they renounce this good for a higher good, the attainment and perfection of the love of God? Are our postulants, novices, and junior professed properly and sufficiently instructed in chastity? V. Obedience and Government My subjects must obey me as manifesting to them the will of God. Is my government so elevated and enlightened as to reflect infinite sanctity, truth, knowledge, and widsom? Do I lead and govern or follow my community? Do I govern according to the lowest level of my community? Renovation is a quickening of the religious life. Have I, the superior, given up all effort to accomplish any-thing? "What's the use?" If I fail, will the community succeed? When I no longer have the vision, energy: or courage to try anything new, it is time to inform higher authorities that I should no longer be a superior. Am I more interested in housekeeping than in the intellectual life or sanctity of my subjects? Are the permissions we prescribe intelligent, reasonable, productive of solid religious virtue? What, how many, and how great are the purely secular norms of conduct that have taken root in my community? Do the ordinances of the general chapter, the exhortations, circular letters, regulations, and general corrections of superiors produce any effect? Do I enforce them? Do I realize that there is a hierarchy of values or does every-thing in the religious life have the same value for me? Could I give an average Catholic layman a readily intelli-gible reason for all our customs, practices, and observances? Are our written and unwritten customs, observances, and practices too numerous? too detailed? too minute? too insistent on everything being done in common? oppressive? Are we retaining customs, observances, and practices that are peculiar? antiquated? formalistic? externalistic? not productive of religious virtues? Is our horarium intelligently adapted to the demands of prayer? work? sufficient preparation for class and study? proper rest? When did we last change the horarium? Do we chart out every moment of the day for our subjects? 339 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review for Religious Do I trust only the dlassroom, the chapel, the stove, and the broom? mistrust the r~ligious who is seen with a :book? Are our local superiors mere permissiori distributors? house-keepers? financiers? "public relations experts? principals or deans? Is obedience explained, demanded, ahd practiced-in~ such a way as to hinder or exclude the perfection of other virtues? Do I realize that the independence, autonomy, or rather autocracy of the individual existing in the youth of today demand a more protracted,~ patient, doctrinal, theological~, and: theocentric p~esentation and exercise'in obedience? Are too many of our religious so immature and undependable that the superior has 'to' go around the school, hospital, or institu-tion picking up their forgotten and careless work? In praising the docile, the conformist,"the conventionalist, am I glorifying the mediocre? .' o. Don't I pay an exorbitant price for my efforts to pacify the malcontents and worldly? Am I too fearful or slothful to correct my subjects? Do correct when it is necessary? patiently?, kindly? calmly? with due firmness when it is demanded? Do I correct too often? on minor details only? too frequently in public? too quickly? too impatiently or harshly? . VI. Prayer What proportion of our religious, especially in institutes of men, fail to make the daffy religious e~ercises? What have I done about it? Does our prescribed regime of prayer tend to produce a pious and devout but not a saintly religious? ~ Are we always praying and yetare not prayerful? is bur ~rescribed prayer sufficiently liturgical? Do we under-stand ~hat the liturg:~ does not exclude but presupposes, ~omple-inehts, and is complemented by individual' practices, for ex~imple, the individual ideals of sanctity Of life, correspondence to grace, and: the" individual and private types of prayer and religious exercises, such as meditation, examen, spiritual reading, retreats, and so forth? Have we so many prescribed exercises that there is no oppor-tuni[ y for 'indivi~lual prayer? Do we esteem mental prayer as the most necessary and valu-able prayer for sanctity of life? 340 November, 1959 RENOVATION AND ADAPTATION Is mental prayer in our institute a mere formality? Is our mental prayer a mere abstract study of virtue and ¯ examination of conscience, not a turning to,. a living 'in-and with God? Do I believe that a retreat'or any other special~religious exer-cises are a rest or recreation for my subjects? Are our retreats so encumbered 'with other religious exercises and .perhaps with work that the retreat ceases to be a period of deep recollection and reflection? , Are we suffocated by devotional practices? novenas? non-liturgical vocal prayers? Have we any periods of prayer 'so. long as to be unbearably burdensome? so long that we cannot reasonably hope for anything but a low fractional part of real prayer? .- Are our prescribed' prayers so numerous that. fervent and faithful religious find constant difficulty.in.,compldting them? Has the history of the prayer of our institute been ohe of pure addition? never of reflection as to whether the quality and quantity of our prayer were suitable or the, most suitable" for attaining the purpose of the religious life? VII. Formation Do I assign our best religious to the formation of our own subjects? What proportion 'of our-religious. 'are interested in or have ever done anything about fostering, vocations? Does our formation, discipline, community life, and govern-ment produce a type of religious who will not. attract vocations? Do we refuse in fact to admit that an unsuithble candidate lacks a vocation? Are we 'nursing along unsuitable postulants, novices, and junior professed? Do I realize that a middle-aged problem religious is nearly always a fully grown youthful problem religious? Am I nullifying the purpose of the postulancy and the second year of noviceship by devoting the postulants and second-year novices to the works of the institute? How does this harmonize with the warning of Pius XII to bishops that they should not rush inexperienced priests into the life of full activity? Are the postulants and novices give~ sufficient instruction in the religious life? Is it solidly doctrinal? Are they mere passive listeners? ~ 341 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review for Religious Do I fear to give free time to postulants? novices? professed? How much individual and competent guidance and counseling do we have of postulants, novices, junior professed, and the younger professed of perpetual vows? Do I praise the juniorate but hold that it is for others, not for us? Do I say that it is now impossible for us? What arguments have I to show that it will be more possible in the future? Can I reasonably hold that a religious is properly prepared for his work at first profession? Am I fair to the religious in assign-ing him or her to work at such time? Am I fair to his students? What means have I taken to help young religious in their adjustment to the full active life? What have we done about a somewhat longer period of recollection before perpetual profession and a period of renovation? Have young religious ever been properly formed when their elders were left completely uncorrected? Does our formation produce a religious worker who can think for himself? possesses the power of self-initiative? self-decision? efficiency? dependability? responsibility? prudence? courage? perseverance? Do we check the postulant, novice, young or old religious who does his work childishly, inefficiently, carelessly? Are we training docile automatons or subjects equipped to face the inevitable doubts, difficulties, disillusionments, tempta-tions, demands of work, and personality clashes of life? Do we realize that a formation, in so far as it is insincere, unreal, antiquated, formalistic, legalistic, externalistic, leads the factual youth of today to cynicism? Do we form the impolite candidate of today into the polite, selfless, cultured religious? Do we guide our young subjects collectively ~nd individually to a personal esteem, conviction, acceptance, desire, and resolve of holiness of life? Do we yield to the youthful religious of today who in their studies so frequently give their attention and effort only to the interesting, the novel, the striking, .and habitually neglect those that are essential? The youth of today are not to be considered as glowingly virtuous nor as irreparably defective. As is true of any age, they have their characteristic virtues and defects; and their most conspicuous defects are merely the fuller development of those found in the generations immediately before them. 342 November, 1959 RENOVATION AND ADAPTATION Does our education, formation, community life, practices, and government make our subjects at least appear as antiquated and out of touch with the world they are striving to save? Does it make them appear as aloof and. superior or one with the poor, the afflicted, the unfortunate, the sinner? Have we any permanent plan or arrangement for assigning capable religious to higher studies? Do we properly prepare the religious who are sent to the foreign missions? VIII. Work Do we consider work as a distraction or obstacle to personal sanctification and not as another aspect of the same purpose? Is our formation producing intellectual, cultured, .spiritual subjects? .Are our schools turning out intellectual, cul. tured, and profoundly Catholic laymen and laywomen? What is the level of our schools and institutions compared to those of seculars? Have all our new ideas in education, hospital, and institutional work come from secular sources? What new ideas has our institute, have I, contributed? "Am I ashamed of the qualifications of our school and in-stitutional personnel in comparison with that of secular schools and institutions? Is the cultural level of our subjects equal to that of laymen engaged in the same work? Have I reflected that the publicized lack of sufficient Catholic scholarship may not be due entirely to institutions of higher learn-ing but partially or principally to our elementary and secondary schools? What proportion of students overcome a defective ele-mentary education? Wh~t proportion of our subjects are mere teachers or nurses, not religious teachers and nurses? What proportion of our subjects can be classed as spiritual religious, as proficient and dependable workmen? Are our religious so overburdened with work as to exclude a life of prayer? Overwork is to be eliminated, but isn't it true that very many of the individual religious who are overworked are spiritual? Isn't the lack of spirituality to be found also and principally in other causes? 343 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review for Religious What prop~ortion of our religious adhere in fact to the heresy of activity, that is, to work to the exclusion of the ordinary means of self-sanctification? What proportion of our religious do. a minimum of work? Which is more harmful, the heresy of activity or the apostasy of idleness? Are many of our religious enfeebled and reduced to a childish life by an excessive use of television and the radio? Why do so many religious become intellectually inactive after completing their' studies? Do I suspect the intellectuals of my institute? Am I confusing ignorance, incompeten.ce, childishness, and lack of culture with simplicity and sanctity? What proportion of our subjects have the habit of reading? of striving constantly to advance in the knowledge'and practic~ of their matter and assignment? Ignorance and lack of progress in any field of endeavor are not virtues. Few classes of men can do such harm as the sincerely ignorant. An unsatisfactory apostolate is not always caused by incom-petence or sloth. Its cause can be and often is lack of spirituality in the apostle. Do we face the needs, problems, and evils of our day in the choice of works? the proportional emphasis on particular works? the education and formation of subjects? Or are we training re-ligious to meet and solve only the problems of past centuries? Have we at=least a satisfactory library in every religious house? Am I ashamed of the libraries or lack of them in any or all of our religious houses? In the assignment of religious, do I give sufficient thought to the full utilization of their individual abilities~ What have we done to lessen the habitual tension of so many religious? Have we changed an unsuitable horarium? diminished overwork? given a weekly holiday? an annual vaca-tion? removed or lessened added burdens from week-ends and such vacation seasons as Christmas and Easter? given private rooms? allowed the religious to study and do their other work in their rooms? lessened monotony? diminished routine? given sufficient rest and recreation? abandoned the insistence on every-thing being done in common? Is there sufficient sleep? a Sensible rising hour? proper food? 344 November, 1959 RENOVATION AND ADAPTATION Would a competent male dietitian give a favorable j~udgment on the diets in all institutes of religious women? Is our norm in undertaking new works the greater nec.ess.ity of the faithful? Is the horizon of. our zeal parochial or universal? Are we undertaking added.works at the expense of the.proper formation of our subjects? Do I. courageously and steadfastly refuse works, even if good in themselves, that would,deprive the religious of sufficient rest and.vacations? .~ : . .Has our institute a foreign mission? IX. The Religious Habit Wliat have we done to simplify the habit to one that continues to express the' consecration to Christ and retains its modesty but is simple, unaffected, inexpensive, hygienic, efficient, suited to the customs and ways of one's own country and nation, adaptable to the changing seasons, easily laundered, that does not imprison the face and head, eliminates starched parts, is of suitable color, not eccentric, not ostentatious? Can w~ reasonably hold that the simplification of the habit is a question that of its very nature is confined to institutes of women? 345 St. Lawrence of Brindisi Ro F. Smith, S. J. BY THE APOSTOLIC letter Celsitudo ex humilitate (Greatness from Humility) of March 19, 1959, Pope John XXIII by virtue of his apostolic power proclaimed St. Lawrence of Brindisi (1559-1619) a doctor of the universal Church. By that act St. Lawrence became the thirtieth saint to be honored with that title, the third Franciscan doctor, and the first of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin. He also brought to five the number of doctors of the Church who flourished in the latter half of the six-teenth and the early part of the seventeenth centuries, the other four being St. John of the Cross (1542-1591), St. Peter Canisius (1521-1597), St. Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621), and St. Francis of Sales (1567-1622). Childhood, Vocation, Priesthood The future doctor of the Church was born on July 22, 1559, at Brindisi, a town located on the Adriatic coast of the heel of Italy, reputedly founded by the'Greek hero Diomedes on his return from the Trojan war, the southern terminus of the Appian Way, and deathplace of the poet Virgil. The boy's father was William Rossi and his mother Elizabeth Masella Rossi; at baptism the infant was given the name Julius Caesar in honor of Sts. Julianus and Caesarius of Terracina, martyred, according to early martyrologies, in the persecution of Nero. Providence, which was to make the boy one of the most illustrious of the sons of St. Francis, saw to it that he was early brought under Franciscan influence; for at the age of four his education was entrusted to the Conventuals living at Brindisi. In 1573 after the death of his father he ov~ercame his mother's dislike for his desire to be a priest and went to Venice to begin his seminary work in a school whose rector at the time was his uncle, Don Peter Rossi. It was in Venice that the saint first came to have an intimate knowledge and love of the Capuchins; and on February 18, 1575, he received the Capuchin habit at the Verona novitiate of the Venice province, being given the name Lawrence of Brindisi. In 1576 he made his profession in the order and was thereupon sent to the University of Padua to make his studies 346 ~T. LAWRENCE OF BRINDISI in philosophy and theology. The university at that time was the focal point of an atheistic form of Aristotelianism; by reaction the young Capuchin acquired a lifelong distrust of Aristotelianism and was drawn instead to a Platonic way of thinking. The intellectual ability of Lawrence, which had already been noted and fostered by the Conventuals in Brind~si, now had full opportunity to develop itself in the university setting at Padua. His course of studies was brilliantly done; and realizing the in-creased importance of Scripture because of the Protestant defection from the Church, he especially set himself to learn all the languages needed for a mastery of Biblical studies; at the same time the international composition of the student body of the university enabled him to attain a mastery of most of the vernaculars of the European continent. There is in fact good reason for thinking that St. Lawrence was the greatest linguist among the doctors of the Church, for besides mastering Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, and Chaldaic for his Scripture studies, he also had command of Latin, German, Bohemian, French, and Spanish besides his native Italian in several dialects. In 1581 Friar Lawrence was ordained a deacon; such was his ability as preacher of the word of God that he was given the unusual permission to preach publicly; it was the beginning of what was to be the principal.apostolate of his life. He was ordained priest in 1582 and thereupon was commissioned to travel through-out Italy to reinvigorate Christian living;-through his unusual combination of holiness and intelligence, he was able to touch the hearts and minds of his hearers in a way that is remarkable in the history of popular preaching. Doctrinal Synthesis To the end of his life almost forty years later the saint con-tinued his apostolate of preaching. Of his collected works (S. Laurentius a Brundisio, O.F.M.Cap., Opera omnia. 10 volumes in 15 tomes. [Padua: Seminario Vescovile di Padova, 1928-1956]), no fewer than eight volumes are given to his collected sermons. Since the sermons of St. Lawrence are the best source from which a knowledge of his doctrinal synthesis can be made, it will be worthwhile to interrupt the course of the saint's life to give a brief sketch of his doctrine as described in A. Michel's. "Saint Laurent de Brindes docteur de l'Eglise" (L'ami bIu clergY, 69 [1959], 401-06.). 347 R. F. SMITH Review for Religious ¯ " St. Lawrence~ did not conceive of a philosophy with its own method and its own proper aim; for him all speculative thinking is subsumed under theology, of which he distinguishes two types. The first type he dalls mystical theology and.conceives of it as a negative, intellectual proces.s the aim of which is to show what God, Chri.st, the Church, the Blessed Virgin and other supernatural realities are not; this. type of theology must b~ rooted in prayer and it~ s.e.ek~ .to discov.e,r the. spiritua.1 .se.n~.e of the Bible. The second kind of theology is called b~ the saint symbblic theology; it studies the literal sense of.Scripture a~.d a~emP.ts to seek out the secrets of the ph.ysical.u.niverse. ~ Man, according'to St. Lawrence, is composed of sense, reason, and spirit (mens). Spirit receives from God an infused idea of the infinite, while reason, "using sensible creatures, is capable of arriv-ing ;at a .knowledge of .God who is pure being viewed under the 6spect ,of the good. This God of goodness has created the world out:of pure love. To all creatures God gives a general assistanc~ which permits each being to act according to its nature. From this it will be seen that St. Lawrence entered hardly at all into the Bafiez-Molina. controversy which was at. !ts height from the years 1590 to~1604. St. Lawrence's views on the state of the first man' and woman are not-without interest. The state ~oforiginal justice in which they w~re" created was constituted: by a 'gift distinct from sanc-tifying grace;, this gift of original justice is characterized by the saint as'a perfect tranquillity and friendship of. sense and reason. In accordar~ce With this view, St. Lawrence conceives of original sin as the loss of this gift of original justice; which loss necessarily entailed a further loss of sanctifying grace. After sin man is justi-fied by the rectitude of t~e soul when elevated by grace to the supernatu.ral, orde.r. God is the p~incipal efficient, cause of this justification; the Holy Spirit and His gift.s are the intrinsic formal cause; Christ, as exemplary cause, is the extrinsic formal cause of Justifica~!on; while the. humanity of, Christ and the sacraments are the instru.mental cause of justific.a~ion. Christ is presentetl in the theology of St. Lawrence as. the. king of angels and. of men. The salvation 6f the angels revolved around Christ, for. they were assured of eternal life only if they consented to adore Christ. Christ is the cause of all sanctification not only in the sense that He is its exemplary cause but alsd be-cause all graces given to angels and to men are given through the 348 November, 1959 ST. LAWRENCE OF BRINDISI instrumental causality of the humanity of Christ. After Christ the Blessed Virgin occupies the first place among all creatures. She is decisive even in the ca~e of the angels for at the time when the Incarnate Word was presented to themfor their adoration, Mary was also presented for their veneration. Because of her divine maternity the Blessed Virgin was conceived immaculately and given an initial fullness of grace that surpassed the final beauty of all the saints taken together. The motherhood of the. Blessed Virgin extends to all men, for all graces come to men through the prayers she addresses to God. The graces of Mary reach their final glory by the crowning gift of the Assumption whereby she now lives, body and soul, in heaven. Mission to the Jews . The success of St. Lawrence's first Commission .to preach throughout Italy came to the notice of Pope Gregory XIII; in 1584 he appointed the saint to .be apostolic preacher to the Jews of Rome and of Italy. Such was his zeal, his l~nowledge of the. Old Testament, and his manifest affection for the Jews that he was able, as he himself reported, to convert many-of theme All his life he retained h~s interest and zeal for the Jewish I~eople and whenever it was possible would seize the opportunityto preach Christ t~ the descendants of the people who had once rejected Him. This interest of St. Lawrence in the Jewish people is mani-fested in his collected works; for his Explanat!on of Genesis (Ex-planatio in Genesirn), which is the only exclusively exegetical work of his still extant, was conceived and written with the Jews in mind. The commentary extends only through the. first eleven chapters of Genesis. The purpose of the commentary was to achieve a scientific understanding of ~the literal sense .of the book; to achieve this the saint not only utilized the opinions of Christian exegetes, but also made wide use of Jewish commentators on the book. This .use of Jewish commentators makes the work unique in the writings Of the do.ctors~ of the Church. As one writer has put it: ". there is no Doctor, of the Church who. has given such prominence to Hebrew scholars as Lawrence has done. The opus will ever have a special value for the conversion of the Jewish people. For this it was intended; and who knows but that, in God's Providence, the book's mission will find its fulfillment in ways that we cannot foresee.'" ~Cuthbert Gumbinger,-O.F.M.Cap., "St. Lawrence of Brindisi, Exegete," Catholic Biblical Quarter:ly, 8 (1946), 268. 349 R. F. SMITH Review for Religious Counter-Reformation In 1590 St. Lawrence was elected provincial of th~ Tuscany province;., in 1592 he was reappointed .to a t~5-year term as apos- ¯ tolic preacher to the Jews. At the conclusion of this term he assumed the provinciala~e of the Venice province; in 1596 he was elected .Definitor General of the entire order, and in 1598 he became provinc~al~9f Switzerland. Up to this point the zeal and labors of St. Lawrence had been limited almost ~ entirely to the regions of Italy; now, however, hi~ sanctity and his learning were to be given a chance to radiate out into the other countries of the continent. In 1599 St. Lawrence was sent ~o Prague to establish the Capuchins as a source of help for the :Counte.r.:Reformation in Austria and Bohemia. Despite violent opposition., from the Protestants and notwithstanding the . initial indiffe~e6ce, if not the hostility, of the Emperor Rudolph II, St. Lawrence. was able to effect a permanent establishment of the ¯ friars and l~d his fellow religious in a spirited apostoiate to win back Proteit~ants and to '.save lukewarm Catholics from defection. That the Capuchin apostolate was¯ successful can be seen from the words of the papal nuncio: "Thanks be to God, the number of Catholics is increasing . I~ is esphcially the Capuchins who reap a rich harvest.'''~ As a result of, his contact with Protesta~nts the saint com-posed a three-tome work, called An Outline of Lutheranism (Lu-theranismi hypotyposii). The work ~was a long expo6ition and refutation of.Lutheranism together with an apology for the Catholic Church as the only true Church of Christ. This work; together with some of the.saint's sermons; gives some idea of his theology of the Church. According to St. Lawrence, the salvific action¯ of Christ with regard to the human race has a!ways-been¯ exercised through the Church; its.history then goes back to the very origins of humanity, and all persons who have been saved must.be .re~arded as 'constituting the fullness of Christ. The materiali cause of the Church is the entirety of the faithful; its l~nal cause is the glorification "of the ~elect; its efficient cause is Christ, His apostles,- and their successors; and its formal cause is the faith as taught'by the Church~s legitimate rulers. ¯ -~Cited in Ludwig von Pastor, The History of the Popes, 23 (St. Louis: Herder, 1933), 384-85. 350 November, 1959 ST. LAWRENCE OF ]~RINDISI Without neglecting the other marks of the Church, St. Lawrence finds holiness or sanctity to be the principal characteris-tic mark of the Church, for it was primary in Christ's plan that I-Iis people be a holy nation. This mark of sanctity is manifested in the Church throughout her entire history by the multiplicity of her saints. This does not mean, St. Lawrence admits, that every Catholic is holy; but just as we call man a rational animal even though not.every part of him is rational, so also we call the Church holy, not because every member of the Church is actually holy and saintly, but because only in the Church do we find that exalted purity of heart and exercise of virtues which Christ desired for his religious society. Chaplain, Superior, Diplomat St. Lawrence had already had contact with two of the great bodies alienated from the Church--Jews and Protestants; now, and in a much different way, he would meet the third great body that was inimical to the Church--the Turks. Because of the con-tinued military strength of the Turks, Pope Clement VIII had formed a league of Christian princes against them; and St. Law-rence was made chief chaplain of the army the emperor contributed to the league. In 1601 the Christian and Turkish forces met at Szekesfehervar, a town thirty-five miles southwest of Budapest and the place where the kings of Hungary had been crowned from 1027 to 1527. The Christian forces were outnumbered four to one; the generals of the league judged retreat the only feasible maneuver. Lawrence, however, opposed their decision and finally convinced them to attack the Turkish forces. He himself exhorted the soldiers to bravery and went into battle at their head, carrying his crucifix as his only source of protection. For five days the battle continued with the saint always in the lead of the Christian forces; at the end of the five days the Turkish forces had "been routed. A few months after this incident St. Lawrence was elected the head of his order with the title of Vicar-.General. As Vicar- General, St. Lawrence was obliged to visit all the houses of his order from Italy to Spain. He made his visitations on foot and was notably successful in deepening throughout the order the love of Capuchin poverty and austerity. In 1606 St. Lawrence returned to Germany at the request of Pope Paul V to assist once more in the, Counter-Reformation. 351 R.' F. SMITH In 1609 his mission in Germ~n~ was interrupted when he was sefit by the same Pope to Philip III of Spai~i to gain his support of ~h~ Ciitholic League recently founded by Maiimilian of Bavaria. Af~er successfully completing this commission, the saint returned to Munich as papal nuncio; in 1610 while still remaining nuncio, he was also made chief chaplain of the armed forces of the Catholic Leagu~.In 1613 the saint's health was broken and he returned to Itaiy.There he was Minister-Provincial of the Genoa province until 1616. In 1619 he'jburneyed to Lisbbfi to plead the cause of the people of Naples against their viceroy. While negotiating the matter he fell ill and died the{e on July 22, 1619. This sketch of the latest doctor of the Church may be fittingly concluded with the words Pope Leo xiII wrote about him at the time of his canonization in 1881: .".There were resplendent in .him all.virtues, especially those which bring us close to God, faith, hope, and charity, from which all the other .virtues spring and derive their supernatural value. Hence his diligent and fervent love of prayer during which he ~vas frequently rapt in ecstasy; hence his remarkable devotion to. the Blessed Sacrament and his constant grief over the sufferings and death of our Lord; hence his most tender love of the Mother' of God to whom he credited all that he had received from Christ; and hence also his stalwart love of the Catholic faith, his horror for heresy and error, and his rock-firm fidelity to the See of Peter.".~ It is regrettable that little has been written in English about St. Lawrence. The only lengthy life of the saint is the volume entitled Life o[ St. Lawrence of Brindisi Apostle and Diplomat by Anthony Brennan, O.F.M.Cap. (London: Washbourne, 1911). The saint and his activities figure prominently in the second volume of Father Cuthbert's The Capuchins (London: Sheed and Ward, 1928). The best general introduction in English to the saint is to be found at present in various issues of Round Table of Fran.ciscan Research, a quarterly published by St. Anthony Friary, Mara-thon, Wisconsin. Four issues of the magazine are especially valu-able: v. 14, n. 2 (February, 1949); v. 14, n. 4 (June, 1949); v. 15, n. 2 (/~pril, 1950); and v. 15, n. 4 (October, 1950). These issues have furnished much of the data given in the present article. :~Cited in Armand Dasseville, "Saint Lawrence of Brindisi," in ~Round Table of Franciscan Research, 14 (1948-1949), 59. 352 Current Spiritual Writing Thomas G. OTallaghan, $. J. Edification p, RIESTS AND RELIGIOUS are frequently exhorted by. their superiors, rules, and retreat directors, to the practice of edification. They might well:ask themselves, however,, wheth.er they are fully aware of the real m~aning, the ]biblical .m.eaning~ of this word edify, in a rece6t,, scholhrly,, and most interesting article, ' "Building the House Of the Lord,''1 George MacRae, S.J., examines the use of this word in the New Testament, especially in St. Paul, in order to discover what is its proper meaning. To edify in its original literal sense meant to build. But when it was used as a religio~s metaphor in the New Testament, what precisely did it fi~ean; what was being built, who was the builder, and how did he build? In the Gospels Christ uses the metaphor twice: once when He promises to build His Church, that is,'not a structure of stone 'and mortar, but the assembly of God's people, upo.n the rock foundation of Peter; the other occasion was when He spoke of building up in three days the Temple of Jerusalem, which He used as a metaphor for His own resurrected body. Analyzing these metaphors, es-pecially in the light of their Old Testament background, MacRae shows that in Christ's use of the term: the builder is God or the Son of God; what is being built is the Church, the permanent assembly of God's people, the spiritual temple; and the purpose is "to perpetuate God's presence among His people and to provide a vehicle for continuing the salvation accomplished by the death and Resurrection of the Son of God." St. Paul also uses the word edify in a metaphorical sense, but with some variati?ns. In his letter to the Ephesians, speaking of the Church as a spiritual temple, Paul tells his readers that they are "members of God's household, built up on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the keystone. In Him the whole building is joined together and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord; in Him you are also built to-gether into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit" (2:19-22). 1American Ecclesiastical Review, 140 (1959), 361-76. 353 THOMAS G. 0'CALLAGHAN Review for Religious Through a careful analysis of this text, MacRae shows that the primary object of edification is the Church itself, to be edified or built in the first place by our Lord. But the task of edification is by no means confined to Christ alone. St. Paul more than once echoes the prophet Jeremiah in describing his own apostolic role as one of building up the faithful. He also at times makes it quite clear that edification is the work of every Christian: "Let us pursue the things that make for peace and mutual edification" (Rom 14:19); "Go on encouraging one another and edifying one another as you are doing" (1 Thess 5:11). Christ Himself, the apostles and their successors, all the faithful --these are the builders of the Church, the edifiers. In what does their edification consist? In regard to Christ, His "historical contribution to the building of the Church was His life's work of teaching, healing, sanctifying, redeeming man-kind by His death and Resurrection." This work He continues through grace which, says St. Paul, "has the power to edify" (Acts 20:32). As to the apostles, they must first "lay the founda-tion" (1 Cor 3:10) by preaching Christ and then "build up the Body of Christ" by their entire ministry (Eph 4:12). Finally, for all the faithful, Paul mentions several explicit means of edification: good example, love, personal integrity in dealing with others. In a word, all the good works that we perform as members of the Church are works of edification. There is one final problem to be considered in order to r.ecapture St. Paul's understanding of edification. If we examine all the pass-ages that mention edification, we find that at certain times the object of it is the Church as a whole, at others the individual member. Paul exhorts his readers to edify the Body of Christ and to edify one another. It can happen that too often we forget the collective aspect of edification and concentrate on the in-dividual. In fact, historically that has happened; and in the process there has been a distortion of St. Paul's original metaphor. A close study of the Epistles shows that he overwhelmingly stressed the collective aspect of edification. "Strive to be outstanding," he exhorts, "in.the edification of the Church" (1 Cor 14:42). The edification o~ individuals within the Church is only meaning-ful in relation to the Church as a whole. We should, therefore, try to rid our understanding of edification of any selfish or merely personal emphasis. "None of us lives for himself," the Apostle 354 November, 1959 CURRENT SPIRITUAL WRITING reminds us. "For if we live, we live for the Lord . We are the Lord's" (Rom 14:7-8). Edification is every Christian's partici-pation in the redemptive work of the Church, the Body of Christ and the Temple of His presence among us. Prayer For St. Teresa of Jesus mental prayer is an exercise of love, of personal love of God. It is an intimate, affective conversation with a loving God. Of the two major faculties which play a part in prayer, the intellect and will, it is the. will which is the more important. For, as the late Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C.D., the eminent commentator on Teresian prayer, pointed out more than once, it is from the will that love and the other basic affections flow; since it is these which are most effective and fruitful in uniting the soul with God, the will must hold the first place in prayer. That is not to deny to the intellect its own importance, but it is still secondary to the will. -In fact, the primary purpose of intellectual work in prayer is to prepare for the affections of the will. But, before the will can love God and pour out affections to Him, God must be present to the soul in some way. Thus, Teresa also stresses the importance of faith in the divine presence. For St. Teresa, then, to be with God and to speak intimately with Him, this is the substance of mental prayer. In the Way of Perfection, when commenting on the Our Father, the saint of Avila laid great stress on one way in particular of being with God. She tried to teach and impress on her nuns, many of whom were not learned in things theological, the extraordinary importance of the inhabitation of God in the soul. This doctrine of the presence of the triune God in the soul she made the basis of what she calls the Prayer of Recollection. Since God dwells in the soul, St. Teresa taught her nuns' to seek Him there, and there to speak intimately with Him as with a "Father, a Brother, a Lord and a Spouse -- and, sometimes in one way and sometimes in another . Remember how important it is for you to under-stand this truth--that the Lord is within us and that we should be there with Him.''~ This prayer Teresa calls the Prayer of Recollection because the soul collects together all the faculties, withdraws the senses from all outward things, and enters within itself to be with its 2The Complete Works of Saint Teresa of Jesus (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1946), 2, 115. 355 THOMAS G. O'CALLAGHAN Review for Religious Divine Guest. Thus, there is a detachment from. exterior things in order to center itself on God dwelling within the soul. This recollection; .Teresa of Avila warned her religious, is not an easy thing to acquire, especially at the beginning.It.demands ener-getic effort and mortification, and the soul should expect this. But if one continues faithfully to make the necessary effort--not only during prayer but. also at other times during the day--then the soul will gain .mastery over itself and will be able, without any great, fatiguing effort, to center itself on God within. ' Onde the soul has found God, it doesnot seem that the Prayer of.Recollection demands, any partidular way of praying. St. Teresa even susgests vocal prayer, that one recite very slowly the Our Fathei~. "Accustom yourselves, to saying the Paternoster'in :this recollected way, and before long you will see how you gain' by doing so. It is a method of prayer which establishes habits that prevent the soUl. from going astray and the faculties from becom-ing restless . I only beg~you to test it." ". But whether a person prays vocally or mentally, the general tendency of the Pray,er ,of. Recollection is .that it easily becomes simplified. That is why:some authors, i~ seems,, classify it as a PraYer of simple' regard or of active contemplation. Since it is not too often that one finds in American periodicals an e.xplanation oof St. Teresa's l~rayer of Recpllection,. some may be int.~rested in reading "The Prayer of Remembering" by Father I-linnebi~sch, O.P.3 Eyen better--wi~h all due respect to the learned author--those who are interested might prefer to read the Way Per[ection, especi.ally Chapters 28 and 29, and study there, the doctrine in the saint's own words. Abnegation Despite frequent substitution for one another, the words abnegation, renouncement, and mortification, although they have something in common, are strictly nbt synonyms, nor are they "used.-in Sacred Scripture as such. In order to determine their precise meaning, the very learned and scholarly Father Hausherr, $.J., examines each of th.ese.words in their evangelical context.4 Since his obser~atibns are most interesting, it might 'be useful 3Cro~ss and Crown, 11 (1959), 174-79. 4"Abnegation, Renouncement, Mortification," Christus, 6 (1959), 182-95. . . 356 November, 1959 CURRENT SPIRITUAL WR.ITING to mention¯ a¯ few of° them. But, because a summary of his explana-tion of mortification might easily distort his teaching, we will limit ourself to a few of his observations on" abnegation and re: nouncement. ~n abnegation there 'is hegation; and to deny (negate) is an intellectual operation. But when the Gospel, speaking of abnega1' "tion as some" sort of duty, uses the word abnegate (a'bnegare), it always has, but for one exception, the same direct object: to deny oneself (Mt~ 16:24; Mk 8:34; Lk 9i23). The abnegation which Christ, who is Truth, demands of us is that wedeny of ou~selves that which is not true. That seems to b~little, but it is ieally something enormous. For the great truth about ourselves is that we are creatures of God; .ne.gatively, that. we are not God. Thi~ fundamental negation cohstitutes the whole essence of .~bnegation, just as the essence of ~doration is the fundamental affirmation that God is God. Th~s~ two truths are reallyo~ly ~ne; there is no abnegation without adoration of God, and no adoration of God without abne-gation of oneself. Thus, abnegation taken in this proper sense will last forever. Perhaps the best° formula of ~he basic abnegation of oneself is that of the Baptist: "And he acknowledged and did not deny; and he acknowledged, 'I am not the Christ' " (Jn-1:20). ¯ " AbnegatiOn then, beipg primarily ~an intellectual" a.ct, an a~kfiowledgment of'truth, does ndt indicate any pain or suffering. On the ~ont~ary, itseems quite clear that there isno reai" happiness except in the truth; and in ~ohfirmati(>n of this, one may point to the joy which accompanies devout adoration. But abnegation, precisely because it is an intellectual act,. does entail some inescapable .consequences. Just as to know God in the biblical sense means to acknowledge and to' treat Him as God, so to deny myself means to ackpowledge that I am a.creature and to behave as such. Abneg6tionzadoration lived out in daily living becomes renouncement and mortification. The Greek word which we translate as .renounce means to set apart, to dismiss (Christ dismissed the crowd.before going ~nto the hills to pray), to take leave of (Paul took leave of the brethren and sailed for Syria). .- ~ .: The commandment of renouncement is contained in the~single text: "Every one of you who does not renounce all that h~possesses, 357 THOMAS G. 0'CALLAGHAN Review for Religious cannot be my disciple" (Lk 14:33). This commandment is addressed to all and pertains to all goods of whatever nature. While abnega-tion means that God is God and that we are not God, 'and consists in neither considering nor treating ourselves as God, renouncement emphasizes that God is God and nothing else is God, and consists in neither considering nor treating any created pers.on or thing as God. This then is an affair of the heart, a disposition of interior. detachment, of spiritual poverty. Nothing may be loved with the sovereign love due to God alone. Renouncement is thus the logical consequence of that basic truth: God is God, and neither I nor any created thing is God. ~ Complacency and Concern During the year there appeared in Theological Studies a very long and scholarly article entitled "Complacency and Concern in the Thought of St. Thomas.''5 It was written for experts in the field. But in another article under a similar title the author sum-marized in a simple and clear way a few of the more practical aspects of the matter.6 It might be of some interest to mention here a few of the points which he made. Human activity may be divided into the two compartments of necessity and possibility. Man reacts to these two in different ways. When one is faced with the possibility of accomplishing something of value, he rises to effort and action; but faced with necessity, he must submit. In order to live, then, with wisdom and get the most out of life, one must see clearly what are necessities and inevitable limitations, and be willing to submit to them; but one must also see what are possibilities, and then react with effort and concern. Thus, there are two attitudes towaid life, each complementing and moderating the other. On the one hand there is the rest and simple complacency which comes from acquiescing willingly to the necessities of life, to what must be. On the other hand there is the solicitude and concern of trying to attain certain attractive possible goals, of contending for what is not yet, but can be. To necessity there should correspond in our life the disposition of "complacency in the good that is"; and to possibility there should correspond "concern for the good that may be." ~Frederick E. Crowe, S.J., 20 (1959), 1-39, 198-230, 343-95. 6"Complacency and Concern," Cross and Crown, 11 (1959), 180-90. November, 1959 CURRENT SPIRITUAL WRITING There seems to be something of this division in Scripture. In reading the Written Word of God we meet at times what seem to be contradictory recommendations. If we examine them, perhaps we will find that these scriptural recommendations can be ordered around the two attitudes of complacency and concern, and that the situations to which they are to be applied correspond to what Father Crowe calls necessity and possibility. For example, we are told to strain forward to what is before, to press on to the goal, to fight the good fight. We must watch and pray, be vigilant; we have to serve God with a whole heart and with all our strength. All this suggests effort, drive, concern for goals which can be attained. Yet we are also told not to be anxious for life, to be willing to accept the order of divine Providence. For if, like the humble Christ, we accept the things which we cannot change, then we will find rest for our souls. This suggests complacency in the face of necessity. Although he does not mention the point, it seems that the distinction which the author makes between possibility and ne_ces-sity is very close to the distinction which many modern spiritual writers make between the signified will of God and the will of good pleasure. At least in practice it appears that they would work out to be just about the same thing. Also, what he calls concern and complacency is very similar to what spiritual writers mean by active and passive conformity. I-Iere also it seems that in practice they would more or less coincide. Perhaps these simi-larities are worth some consideration: One thing, however, is quite true. One of the reasons why many generous and dedicated religious do not enjoy the peace of soul which should rightly be theirs is that they d5 not dis-tinguish carefully between what Father Crowe defines and ex-plains as necessity and possibility. They become concerned about necessities and unavoidable limitations, about things which should be the object of peaceful complacency. (Of course, there are also those who are too often complacent when they should be concerned; this is basically laz.iness.) These souls who find themselves without interior peace, overconcerned and anxious about things which they cannot chan~e, might do well to read this article. They might find there a source of some help. 359 Survey of Roman DocUme nts R. F. Smith, S. J: THE DOCUMENTSWhich appeared in Acta (A~A pSo)stoiicae Sedis during June and July, 1959, will be surveyed in the' follow.ing article. Throughout the article all page references will be" to the 1959 AAS (v. 51). ¯ John XXIII's First Encyclical On the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, June 29, 1959 (AAS, pp. 497-531), John XXIII issued the first encyclical of his pontificate. Entitled Ad Petri cathedram, the document was divided into four parts, the first of which was concerned, with truth. The root caus.eof, all the evils that infect individuals and nations today, His Holiness began, is ignorance and even contempt of truth. This condition~ .has arisen, he continued, even though God has given man a reason cap'able Of l~now-ing natural truth and despite the. fact that the Word of God, became flesh to show man the plenitude of truth. Because of the latter fact, the Pontiff continued, all men. must a.dopt the do~trine of the gospe.l; and if they reject it,. they jeopardize the foundations of t~uth, probity,' and civilization and deprive themselves of'eternal life. In this connectior~ the Vicar of Christ warned thos~ ahsoci~t~d with the commucation arts of writing, radio, movies, hnd television to avoid deceit and evil especially 'in matteis intended for~ the ~neducated and the young. In concluding the first" part of .the encyclical the Holy Father lamented the indifference to truth that leads to religious in-difference and eventually to the denial of all religion. The men of today, he remarked, work tirelessly for the progress of human knowledge; should they not, he asked, exercise a similar zeal to acquire that knowl-edge which is concerned not with this earthly and mortal life but with the life of heaven which does not pass away? In the second part of the encyclical, John XXIII noted that from the acquisition of truth there must necessarily flow union and concord. God, he ins.isted, has created men to be brothers, not enemies. To them he has given the earth for their support and sustenance. Accordingly the different nations of the edith should be communities of brothers who should work together not only for their own individual purposes but also for the common good of all humanity. If, he added, brotherly union based on justice and nourished by charity does not prevail; then the world situation will continue to be grave. Shofild a war break out, both conquerors and conquered will reap nothing but disaster and universal ruin, so great is the power of modern weapons. Concord and unity must also exist between the social classes within a nation. Such class distinctions, he said, are necessary; but 360 ROMAN DOCUMENTS just as the different parts of the body form. a symmetrical whole, so also the various classes should by their mutual collaboration realize a harmonious equilibrium. The Vicar .of .Christ completed this part of the encyclical by.urging a similar unity and concord in the family, observing that if concord does not exist there it will never be achieved in society at large. The third and principal part of the encyclical was concerned with the unity of the Church. Noting that in recent times those who are separated from the Holy See have grown in sympathy towards the Catholic Church and at the same time have attempted to create a closer unity among themselves, the Pontiff proceeded to show how the unity Christ willed for His Church is to be found in the Catholic Church with her unity of doctrine, government, and worship. Unity of doctrine, he said, is possessed by the Church because she teaches all the truths of divine revelation as they are conserved in Scripture and tradition and-clarified, by the teaching power of .the Church. The Church's unity of government is easy to perceive: the faithful are subject to their priests; the priests to their bishops; the bishops to the Roman Pdntiff, successor of Peter, the foundation rock of the Church. 'A similar unity of worship is to be found in the Church, for she has always had the seven sacraments and has possessed but one sacrifice, that of the Eucharist. Addressing .himsel~ ~lirectly to those who are separated from the Holy S~e., the Pontiff asked them if this spectaclb of the unity of the Catholic Church .does not answer their own desire for unity; and he invited them to return to the Church which they will find is not a strange dwelling but the common house of the heavenly Father: Re-minding them that the troops of the saints which their nations have already sent to heaven urge them to. unity with the Holy See, the Pdntiff concluded, his plea by s.aying to all those who are separated from the chair of Peter: "I am your brother Joseph" (Gen 45:4) who desires nothin~ for you but your salvation and eternal happiness. In the 'fi~i~l part of the encyclical, John XXIII considered the various member's of the Church. He urged the bishops to fortify them-selves in their work to extend the kingdom of God by ~ecalling the words of St. Paul: "I can do all things in Him who strengthens me" (Phil 4:13). To the clergy he recommended respectful ,obedienc~ to the bishops and exhort&t them never to think that they havb done enough to further the reign of Christ. Having encouraged religions men to live the rule of their live~ in obedience to their superiors, he asked them to be especially zealous for prayer, works of penance,. ~ducation of the young, 'and the care of the needy. He assured the missionaries .of the Church that no enterprise is more pleasing to God than their own. He extolled the role of religious women in the Church as the brides of Christ and noted that their work 361 R. F. SMITH Review for Religious is of incalculable profit both for the Church and fort civil society. To members of Catholic Action he promised a special document later in his pontificate, contenting himself for the present with the remark that the zeal of the laity should be as great as the needs of our times. He consoled the afflicted and suffering by reminding them that we have not here a lasting city but seek one for the future; and he asked them to utilize their sufferings to expiate the sins of others and to obtain the return of those who have quitted the Church. He told the poor that the Church is not their enem. y but rather preaches a social doctrine that aims at a just distribution of material wealth. Above all he urged them not to allow false promi~.es of material goods to lead them to embrace doctrines c~ndemned by the Church. After detailing the unfortunate lot of the refugees in the world today and after describing the bitter situation of the persecute~ members of the Church, the Pontiff concluded his encyclical by .exhOrting all not only to pray for the Church's needs but to contribute to the flowering of the Church by a renovation of Christian living. Allocutions and Addresses At the solemn Vespers for Pentecost, May 17, 1959 (AAS," pp. 419-22), the Vicar of Christ delivered an allocution in which he shared with his listeners both joyful and sad news. The joyful announcement was concerned with the formation of a commission to prepare the work of the projected ecumenical council. The sad news was the worsening condition of the Church in China and .Hungary. After d, escribing the conditions now existing in those countries, the Pontiff promised prayer that Christ, who in founding the Church did not wish to exclude per-secution from her, might give the persecuted brethren cpnstancy and firmness and might bring the persecutors light, pardon, a~d conversion. On the same day (AAS, p. 430) the Pontiff also gave a brie~radio address to conclude an all-European broadcast Of the hymn Veni Creator. On June 28, 1959 (AAS, pp. 476-81), at the solemn First Vespers of the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, the Vicar of Christ delivered an o allocution on the liturgy of the feast and its accompanyipg blessing of the pallium. Just as, the Pope said, the brief dialogue between the angel and Mary in the sacred silence of Nazareth summed up the mystery of the Incarnation and of the redemption, so too the dialpgue between Peter and Christ at Caesarea Philippi established the structure of the Catholic Church. Peter then opens the line" of the Roman Pontiffs whose authority extends to the teaching work of the Church as well as to the organization of the Church's work throughout the world. The pallium, he concluded, which is blessed on the present occasion, is a symbol of unity and sign of perfect coinmunion with the Holy See; it is, as well, an indication of fidelity to the teaching of the head of the Church. On July 5, 1959 (AAS, pp. 536-38), John XXIII broadcast a message to those participating in the seventeenth Eucharistic Congress 362 November, 1959 ROMAN DOCUMENTS of France. Telling his listeners that a Eucharistic congress is nothing else than a long, fervent visit to the Blessed Sacrament, he warned them that the traditional practice of visits to the Blessed Sacrament is today neglected and even disparaged by some members of the Church. Accordingly he urged his listeners to retur~ to their homes persuaded of the excellence of this practice and desirous to make it loved by others. On May 17, 1959 (AAS, p. 431), the Pope radioed a message to the people of Portugal congratulating them on the completion of their national shrine to Christ the King. On May 26, 1959 (AAS, pp. 426-27), the Holy Father addressed the Order of Canons Regular of St. Augustine on the occasion of the federation of the four congregations° which compose the order. On the previous day (AAS, pp. 466-68) he had addressed a letter to Bishop Severinus Haller, newly chosen Abbot Primate of the order, 'in com-memoration Of the nine hundredth anniversary of the Lateran Synod which gave decisive shape and form to the order. The Pontiff encour-aged the members of the order to carry out the principal purposes of their institute; and after bidding them to emphasize common life, to reject worldly ways of thinking, and to practice obedience to superiors as to Christ, he urged them to continue that fraternal charity which has always b~en the characteristic of the order. On June 11, 1959 (AAS, pp. 470-73), John XXIII addressed a group of former chaplains of the Italian army. He told them that his own soldiering experience had led him to a deeper understanding of human nature and had also given him a great respect for the priesthood as he saw it exercised by his army chaplains.' Later as a chaplain, he continued, he had come into contact with the wounded and suffering; and their gro,ans brought home to him man's universal desire for peace. Hence, he said, all military chaplains should be men of peace who by their very presence bring serenity to souls. He reminded his listeners that the chaplain should always approach his men as a priest. The men, he emphasized, expect from their chaplains the light of the gospel and of sacrifi~ce; and they wish to see in the chaplain the minister of Christ and tl~e dispenser of the mysteries of God. On June 28, 1959 (AAS, pp. 481-83), the Pope gave a world broad-cast as part of the beginning of World Refugee Year. Exiles, he explained, have always 'been a special object of the Church's solicitude, for she can not forget the words of Christ: "I was a stranger and you took me I ~n; naked and you clothed me . I was in prison and you came to see me" (Mt 25:35-37). Today, he went on, hundreds of thousands of exiles are living in camps and barracks, are humiliated in their dignity as men, and are exposed to sharp temptations of discouragement and despair. The existence of such a state of affairs, he asserted, is an anomaly in a society so proud of its technical and social progress. The Holy Father exhorted all the faithful to cooperate in the Refugee Year and bade pastors to call the attention of their charges to this invitation of 363 R. F. SMITH Providence to exercise Christian charity. He also urged public authori-ties to' intensify their' efforts in behalf of refugees, expressing a wish that-countries open their frsntiers to them: ~ ¯ Five allocutions' given in the June and July issues of AAS were given to heads of state on thei~ official visits to the Holy Father. They were given to the regents of the Republic of San Marino (AAS, pp. 423-24), to the kirig dnd qdeen of Greece (AAS, pp. 424-26), to the president of the Republic of Turkey (AAS, pp. 427-29),' to the prince and princess of Monaco (AAS, pp. 473-74), and to the president of France (AAS, pp. 474-76). Miscellaneous Documents By th~ apostolic letter Celsitudo ex hurnilitate of March 19, 1959 (AAS,. pp. 456-61), Pope John XXIII declared St. Lawrence of Brindisi a doctor of the Church and established his feast day on July 21. By another apostolic letter "Agnes sepulchrum," February .27, 1959 (AAS, pp.,.415-17), the Church of St. Agnes Outside the .Walls was made a stational church (along with the previous station, St. John Before the Latin Gate) for the Saturday after Passion Sunday. On May 17, 1959 (AAS, ,pp. 401-03), the Pontiff's motu proprio Cum inde granted the Pontifical Lateran Athenaeum the status of a univeroity. On June 5, 1959 (AAS, p. 489), the Sacred Penitentiary released the text of a prayer composed by the Holy Father to be recited~by automobile drivers. Drivers who recite the prayer devoutly and with contrite heart may gain an indulgence of three years. . The Sacred Congregation of Rites on January 28, 1959 ~AA~,:pp. 4.8.5-88), approved the introduction of the cause of the Servant of God Mary Ann Sala (1829-1891) of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Marcellina (Marcellines). On May 8,-1959 .(AAS, pp. 484-85), the Holy .Office issued a warning concerning Giovanni Taddei, priest of the diocese of Biella, who had ,already been suspended and excluded from the wearing of ecclesiastical costume. Since he has subsequently joined a non-.Catholic sect and has received there episcopal consecration, he has merited excommunication and the other penalties of canon 2314, § 1. Moreover he has dared to confer sacred orders on Catholic subjects; such persons, are to be considered as heretics or 'at least as suspect of heresy; moreover their ordinations are not recognized by the .Church and the persons involved are to be treated as laymen in all things including the right to contract marriage. The same Holy Office in a decree of June 4,. 1958 (AAS, p. 432), placed the following books by Henri Dumdry on the Index: Philosophie de la religion, 2 v. (Paris: Presses. Universitaires de France, 1957); Critique.et religion (Paris: Socidtd d'Edition d'Enseignement Supdrieur, 1957); Le probl~rne de Dieu en la philosophie de. la religion (Bruges: Desclde de. Brouwer, 1957); and La foi' n'est pas un cri (Tournai: Caster-man, 1957). 364 Views, News, Previews UNDER THE AUSPICES of the Sacred Congregation of Religio.us there has been issued a volume entitled Directory of the Religious Women of Italy (Annuario delle religiose d'Italia). The volume, which is to be a quinquennial publication, provides a national directory of the various religious orders and congregations of women in Italy. According to the foreword of the directory the Sacred Congregation had four motives in view when sponsoring the publication: 1) The congregation wished to have a clear, systematic, and. complete view of the numerical, geographical, and social situation of the women religious of Italy. 2) It wished to manifest in a concrete way the importance it attaches to the 'use and proper interpretation of statistics on religious life. 3) The congregation wished to offer to all those interested in the problems of modern religious life an objective and complete view which would aid them to give a correct solution to those problems. 4)' Finally it wished to use the compilation of the directory as a pilot study for a future volume on all the states of perfection in the entire Church. The directory is divided into four parts. The first of these gives an alphabetical listing of all the religious institutes for women .to be found in Italy; and for each of them it gives its specific aim, briefly indicates its history, and notes the extent of its existence m countries other, than Italy. The second part follows the previous alphabetical list, this time noting after each institute the location of each Italian house. The third part provides an~ alphabetical list of the dioceses of Italy, noting in each diocese the location of all its houses of religious women. The fourth and final part is devoted to statistical tables on the number and distribution of religious women in Italy. The directory, which costs 4,000 life, may be purchased from the following address: Segreteria del .C.I.S. Piazza S. Callisto, 16, Rome, Italy The foreword of the directory mentioned in the preceding item includes some interesting statistics of the religious women of Italy. The following chart, taken from those statistics, shows the growth in numbers of religious women in Italy: Year Number ofreligious women 1881 28,172 1901 40,251. 1911 . 45,616 1921 71,679 . 1931 112,208 ~951 144,171 1957 152,312 Number of religious women per 10,000 population 9.9 12.4 13.~. .18.9 27.2 30.3 31.3 365 VIEWS, NEWS, PREVIEWS The directory also makes some important remarks on the geographical distribution of religious women in Italy. In 1881 the greater number of religious women was to be found in the central and southern parts of Italy. In 1957, however, 55% of .the religious women are found in northern Italy, 24 % in central Italy, and 21% in southern Italy. The July 15, 1959, issue of Informations catholiques internationales gave a panoramic view of every phase of the Church today; from it are taken the following statistics of interest to priests and religious. At the present time the Church has 381,500 priests, of which 116,000 are religious and 265,500 belong to the diocesan clergy. On this basis there is 1 priest for every 1,261 Catholics in the world. This propor-tion, however, does not indicate the wide variations in the geographical distribution of priests. Such variations are given in the following table which lists for each geographical division the number of Catholics for each priest as well as the total number of inhabitants for each priest: Number of Catholics Total population Region. per priest per priest Africa 1,538 16,555 Asia 1,531 75,827 Central America 5,077 5,257 Europe 925 2,510 North America 652 2,685 Oceania 588 3,763 South America 4,569 5,030 The same source reports that at present there are 283,640 men religious in the world; 58% of these are in Europe; 16% in North America, 14% in Latin America, 6% in Africa, 4.5% in Asia, and 1.5% in Oceania. Religious women of the world number about 930,000; of these 61% are in Europe, 21% in North America, 8% in Latin America, 4% in Asia, 2% in Africa, and 4% in Oceania. The United States and Italy together have one-third of the religious women in the world. September 27, 1960, will mark the three hundredth anniversary of the death of St. Vincent de Paul. The Vincentian Fathers and the Daughters of Charity throughout the world will celebrate this anni-versary of their founder by an entire preparatory Year of Observance. The year began in September, 1959, and will extend through September, 1960. Those interested in more information about the year may con-tact: Tercentenary Observance Committee, The Vincentian Fathers, 500 E. Chelten Avenue, Philadelphia 44, Pennsylvania. 366 ( uestions Answers [The following answers are given by Father Joseph F. Gallen, S. J., professor of canon law at Woodstock College, Woodstock, Maryland.] I believe that the proportion of very elderly members in the general chapters of our congregation of sisters is constantly too great. I admit the validity of the argument of wisdom and ex-perience, but this does not demand that so many capitulars be from the highest age level. Many elderly religious are simply out of touch. They understand neither the youth of today nor today itself. Is there any system of delegates that. apportions the delegates according to various age levels? I agree completely with the reasoning of this questioner. I know of no such system of delegates that has been actually approved by the Holy See, but one pontifical institute is considering a system of the following type for presentation to the Sacred Congregation. 1. In the election of delegates to the general (provincial) chapter, only the sisters of perpetual vows have active and passive voice. These sisters shall elect twenty-four delegates. 2. From a prepared list containing the names of all local superiors then in office, each sister shall vote for six delegates. 3. The mother general (provincial), with the consent of her council, will have divided into three equal groups according to precedence from first profession the sisters of perpetual vows who are neither local superiors nor members of the general (provincial) chapter in virtue of any office. She will also have made clear to the vocals just what sisters are in each group. 4. At the same time as the election of the superior delegates, each sister shall vote for six delegates from each of these three groups. This voting will be done on a ballot marked group 1, group 2, group 3. 5. In each house, on the day determined in the letter of convocation, the sisters shall assemble under the presidency of their local superior. The latter shall collect all the ballots without inspecting them and enclose them with her own ballots in an envelope, which she shall seal in the presence of the electors. She shall write on this inner envelope, "Election of Delegates, House N." and forward it immediately to the mother general (provincial). 6. As soon as possible after all the envelopes have been received, the mother general (provincial), with her council, shall open the envelopes and count the votes. The secretary general (provincial) shall record the votes. The elections are decided by a relative majority. The sub-stitutes are the local superiors and sisters of each group who in order received the next highest number of votes (c. 174; 101, § 1, 1°). 367 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Review for Religious The first article is to be omitted if stated elsewhere in the con-stitut. ions. Perpetual vows for a determined number of years may be demanded for passive voice or also for active voice, for example, of perpetual vows for at least five years. The delegates will be elected for the provincial chapter; if the institute is divided into provinces; other-wise for the general chapter. This system, as is true in general of group systems, will maintain the same number in the general or provincial chapter not~.'thstanding any increase in the number of members of the institute or province. I believe that the numbe~ in a chapter of lay i~stitutes should not be greater than forty. A chapter of fifty or more becomes progressively unwieldy and inefficient. The chapters of many clerical institutes are also too large for efficiency. Ordinarily seven general and provincial officials are members of the general or provincial chapter. There are frequently two or three added .members, for ~example, forme~ superiors general in the general, chapter. The present system would therefore givea chapter of thirty-one to thirty-five members. Some may prefer to elect twenty-eight delegates. The present system would give a proportion of eighteen subjects to thirteen superiors and officials, which seems appropria.te. ~. Local superiors are eligible by the mere fact that they hold this office. It does not seem practical to divide ttiem also accordihgto preceden~ce.The oldest eligible sisters will be in group one, the middle level in group two, and the youngest in group three. If the total numbe~ does not permit a division into three perfectly equal groups, the added members, according to the general norm of precedence, will be in the older group, for example, 51, 50, .50, or 51, 51, 50. A provincial chapter ordinarily elects two delegates to the general chapter, rarely three or four. The same system may be employed for these delegates by dividing the eligible .sisters into two, three, or four groups. Article six'states that the 'substitutes are thos~e who in order re-ceived the next highest number of votes. Therefore,' no matter how many substitutes are required or how many substitutes are also pre-vented from attending, the places are filled by taking'those with'the next highest number of votes. In institutes divided into provinces, it may be established that this norm of substitution from the. first group applies also to the mother provincial, if she cannot attend" the general chapter. Any tie vote is broken by the u~ual norm of lay institutes, that is, by seniority of first profession; but if the sisters made their first pro-fession on the same day, by seniority of age- I presume that this norm was previously stated i~i the constitutions in a ~eneral article on the number of votes required for an election. 368 November, 1959 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Religious institutes appear to me to be outstandingly lacking in cooperation with other religious institutes. The religious of one institute are at least very frequently aloof and distant in their attitude to other religious, and the institutes themselves often appear more as rivals than partners in carrying out the work of Christ. This does not seem to me to conform to the concept of the Mystical Body. Even in the Church of Chris~, we can have the human failing of being so intent on ourselves and our own work as to forget and neglect others. This is possible in religions and religions institutes; it is equally possible in other parts of the Church, for example, in the relation of one diocese to another and of the Church in one country in relation to the faithful in another. Love of our own nation can so readily and falsely lead ns to the unalterable assumption of its superiority over° ,other nations in everything and the same self-deception can occur with regard to our own institute.- The greatness of an institute i~ not necessarily the measure of such dorporate pride. Pride is not confined to the powerful and rich; it can be more intense, pervasive, and harmful in the weak and poor. Abbe Baechler aptly and beautifully expresse~ the right principle in this matter. It is noticeable that our time, in which institutions and customs change so rapidly and present so many problems, shows a special predilection for the dodtrine of the Mystical Body. It is equally providential that, not content with admiring the doctrine, it should be eager to make use of it in its life; to work together, to pray together, to collaborate as a team, all this is a distinctive feature of the young people of today. The "s~nse of the Church" is developing, and is inspiring many realizations from the top of the hier-archical ladder down to the least of the faithful. To have the "sense of the Church" will mean for a congregation and its members, first of all conscious-ness of being a part of Christ's great family, a branch of the Sacred Vine, a member of the Mystical Body. One of the first consequences of this great awakening will be a feeling of dependence and humility, very necessary in religious life; w~ are not a Whole, but a part: Christ is the whole: omnia in omnibus. This is the way to fight against .a kind of collective individualism, if I may say so, a kind of feeling of perfection and fullness, as well as of family exclusiveness, not unheard of in congregations, especially when they are large and well organized. Individual members feel so well off there that they think they can suffice to themselves. Actually, however glorious the history of an institute may be, however perfect its Constitutions, however enlightened its Superiors, it remains the servant of Christ and of His Church that prolongs and extends Him. It is not an only child; it has many b~oth~rs and sisters. Certainly it is not only legitimate but even h0nourable to be proud of one's Order, of its past, of its great men. But we must not for all that forget the Church,' nor despise the other members of the Mystical Body. St. Francis de Sales exhorted the Sisters of the Visitation in a charming page to complete their personal humility by collective humility: they were to look on theirs as the smallest and last of religious congregations, though they are to love it more than all the others, just as a child prefers his mother to any other woman even although there are others more .beautiful. (Communal Life, 200-201.) Although greater cooperation is always possible and desirable, I belieYe that the religions institutes of our time have not only awakened 369 BOOK REVIEWS Review [or Religious to the necessity but have manifested a heartening spirit of cooperation. This has been evident in the activities of educational and hospital associations; the confederations of higher superiors; the federations of monasteries of nuns; religious congresses, institutes, and workshops; and especially in so many aspects of the sister formation movement. Doesn't renovation and adaptation really imply reform? All writers deny this; but, if renovation means an increase of fer~?,or, doesn't this imply a reprehensible lack of fervor in the past? Renovation and adaptation can be said to imply reformation or reform only if these are taken in the sense of making better or improving, not if they imply moral evil or abuses in the past. The purpose of renovation and adaptation is not the correction of evil but the elimina-tion of a blind, unswerving, and material conformity to everything done in the past and of the lack of a true, constant, and universal spirit of progress. "A true adaptation is a modification of the constitutions and observances for a better realization of the spirit of the founder in given circumstances. The true adaptation arises not from a lessening of life but from an increase of fervor. The more fervent the life, the better it adapts itself" (Most Reverend A. Ancel in Acta et Documenta Congressus Generalis de Statibus Perfectionis, I [Rome: Pia Societh San Paolo, 1952], 124). "Even the Church has always admitted a certain evolution that the circumstances rendered necessary. Anyone who is opposed in principle to adaptations does not possess the spirit of the Church" (Ancel, ibid.). "The purpose is to give a new impetus to the religious life by rendering easier the development of its ti-ue values and remSving the obstacles in its externals that were established in human and social circumstances of life different from our own, no longer have any reason for existence, and can be profitably replaced by others that take. into account the changed conditions of life" (Reverend Gabriel of Saint Mary Magdalene, .O.C.D., ibid., 139). Booh Reviews [Material for this department should be sent directly to Book Review Editor, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, West Baden College, West Baden Springs, Indiana.] THE BRIDE: ESSAYS IN THE CHURCH. By Daniel Berrigan, S.J. New York: Macmillan, 1959. Pp. 142. $3.50. The excellence of this book of reflections on the Church and her meaning in sacred history and in the life of the Christian will come as no surprise to those who have read Father Berrigan's highly acclaimed volume of poems, Time Without Number. This second book is not easy to classify; the publisher's 370 November, 1959 BooK REVIEWS dust jacket refers to it as a theological prose-poem; perhaps "variations on some theological themes" would serve as a description. In any case, The Bride is eminently worth reading, an unusually moving and beautiful book. Various chapters deal with Israel and her role in the history of salva-tion; with the event of the Incarnation; with the Church as extension of the incarnate Word; the Kingdom in history; the meaning of person in the light of faith; the Christian's knowledge of redeemed creation; the mission of the Church; various elements of the Christian life -- prayer, suffering, the sacrifice of the Mass, fulness in the Church, the saints. Throughout, every-thing is seen in the light of the risen Lord living in His Church. In every chapter the fine sensibility and intelligence of the poet accom-panies uncommon spiritual insight into the theological realities which bear on Christian existence and the ecclesial life~ and again and again the quality of Father Berrigan's writing wonderfully renews what it touches. True, The Bride is not, as Time Without Number was not, an "easy" book. The author is often content to "reveal" a truth in quick bold strokes, rapidly suggest its relevance, and pass on to other reflections. The unity of the chapters, as of the entire book, is to be looked for in the insights which illuminate various aspects of the themes treated. If the reading sometimes proves difficult (we trust the preparation of a second edition will allow the more painstaking editing this book deserves), it is nonetheless invariably rewarding. One hopes that this work will reach the hands of all thoughtful Christians --those above all who are engaged in various forms of the apostolic life--who need just such food for their minds and hearts as this. Religious will find here much that is fresh and valuable for their prayer and reflection, much to quicken true Christian love and apostolic concern. Few books we know impart so well and with such sincerity the breadth and beauty of the Christian vision and. the sense of the imperiousness anal urgency of the Christian vocation to share in the labor of the redemption.--C. G. AR~VALO, S.J. THE BIBLE IN THE CHURCH. By Bruce Vawter, C.M. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1959. Pp. 95. Paper $.75. PATTERN OF SCRIPTURE. By Cecily Hastings, Vincent Rochford, and Alexander Jones. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1959. Pp. 96. Paper $.75. Father Vawter, whose clarity of expression is happily matched by his ind.ustry, states his purpose in the first sentence of his foreword: "This little book is intended as a brief explanation of the role played by the Bible in the life of the Catholic Church." On this basis he divides his material into

Issue 16.5 of the Review for Religious, 1957. ; A. M. D. G. Review for Religious SEPTEMBER 15, 1957 God's Living Sermon . Bonaventure Balsam Dismissal in Lay Institutes . Jo,eph g. ~,allen Our Supernatural Organism . Daniel J. M. Callahan Book Reviews Questions and Answers Roman Documents VOLUME 16 NUMBER 5 RI::VII:::W FOR RI:LIGIOU.S VOLUME 16 SEPTEMBER, 1957 NUMBER, 5 CONTENTS GOD'S LIVING SERMON AND MYSTERY-- Bonaventure Balsam, O.P . 257 DISMISSAL OF RELIGIOUS IN LAY INSTITUTES-- Joseph F. Gallen, S.J . 265 SOME BOOKS RECEIVED . 292 OUR SUPERNATURAL ORGANISMu Daniel J. M. Callahan, S.J . 293 OUR CONTRIBUTORS . i99 SURVEY OF ROMAN DOCUMENTS--R. F. Smith, S.J . 300 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: 29. Professed of Temporary Vows and Return to Motherhouse for Perpetual Profession . " . '.309 30. Adaptation and Renovation and New Laws on Poverty . 310 31. Last Gospel According to the Simplified Rubrics .312 32. Masses. Permitted on the Saturday of Our Lady . 312 33. Personal Gifts and Poverty . 312 BOOK REVIEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS: Editor: Bernard A. Hausmann, S.J. West Baden College West Baden Springs, Indiana . 313 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, September, 1957. Vol. 16, No. 5. Published bi-monthly by The Queen's World, 3115 South Grand Blvd., St. Louis 18, Mo. Edited by the Jesuit Fathers of St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas, with ecclesiastical approval. Second class mail privilege authorized at St. Louis, Mo. Editorial Board: Augustine G. Ellard, S.J.; Gerald Kelly, S.J., Henry Willmering, S.J. Literary Editor: Robert F. Weiss, S.J. Copyright, 1957, by The Queen's Work. Subscription price in U.S.A. and Canada: 3 dollars a year; 50 cents a copy. Printed in U.S.A. Please send all renewals and new subscriptions to: Review for Religious, 3115 South Grand Boulevard. St. Louis 18, Missouri. God's Living Sermon and Myst:ery Bonavent:ure Balsam, O.P. WE CANNOT LOVE, reverence, and respect what we do not know: A religious priest, brother, or sister will never love and appreciate his life and vocation as much as it is lovable unless he first sees and tastes the indescribable nobility of that vocation. We begin to evaluate a thing rightly only when we begin to see it, to understand it, rightly. Misguided love follows on misguided and false knowledge, detestation often follows on the footsteps of ignorance. To a very great extent, the intensity' and scope of our love will depend on the genuineness and grasp of our knowledge. All religious preach God. They do so, not so much by word of mouth as by their whole life. Their preaching--and this is the judgment of the great minds of the Church- since it is by action, can make a far deeper and more lasting im-pression on the world than any or all the sermons preached in Notre Dame Cathedral. For religious are their own sermon and their own cathedral. In preparing and preaching .their sermon to the world, they must study, not so much the spoken word, as the far more powerful and vocal deed. If .we could summarize in a few words the influence which it is the role of a religious to have on the world about him, it is this: it is his vocation in life to teach the whole world this v~ery important lesson, "We have here no lasting city, but we look for 6ne which is to come." By their life, religious must preach that lesson to the world. It is the holy and privileged task of every religious to make the world unworldly, to teach the world to be divine, and to lift up the mind and heart of the world to God in one great offertory. The vocation of a religious is brought home to him every day in the Preface of 257 BONAVENTURE BALSAM. Review for Religious the Mass; he is to lift up the heart of the world to God in love, "Sursum Corda.'" And where a religious does not find love, he must see to.it that God puts love there. As St. John of the Cross says: "~ 'here there is no love, you must put love." To preach that sermon with its double element of detachment from the world and clinging to God is the vocation, par rxcellence, of every religious brother and sister. In a special way, and by special right, religious can apply to themselves the words of the same St. John: "The life of every religious sho~,ld be a complete doctrinal sermon." The life of every religious is one continuous paradox, a divine anomaly. Religious must love the whole world and everyone in it; yet they must ceaselessly try to keep it dis-satisfied with itself, discontented. Their life is one of opposi. tion to the spirit of the world and its maxims, one of constant disagreement and protest. That is a most unenviable task; and, like all opposition and protest, it brings with it much enmity and misunderstanding. That is why the-world often and in many ways misunderstands religious and scorns them. That is why, too, religious sometimes misunderstand them-selves and their role in the salvation of the world. In walk-ing down the street, every step a religious takes is a sort of step of protest, of admonition. He protests to the world and warns it that the glitter and tinsel meeting the eyes on all sides are all too ephemeral and passing and petty and that the only One worth living for and loving with every fibre of one's being is God. The way that they teach this to the world which they live in, but away from, is a most efficacious one. Religious preach to the world by the daily living of their vows which make their life unearthly because heavenly. By their vow of poverty religious lecture on the unending wonders of divine Providence. They lecture on that subject though they may never actually utter a word about it; they do not have to, for they live their subject. By the mere fact that they have freely and gladly relinquished all claim and aspira- 258 September, 1957 GOD'S LIVING SERMON tion to this world's goods, religious proclaim to the world that they trust in God's divine providence with an unshakeable confidence and that "possessing nothing, they have all things." For they have learned to "cast your care upon the Lord, who cares for you." Religious daily experience the truth of St. Paul's words: "As needy though enriching many; as having nothing and possessing all things." By that childlike confi-dence in divine Providence, a confidence solidified andmade a very part of their life and reridered inamissible, as it were, by their vow of poverty, religious take at face value the loving promise of our Lord that, if God is ever careful to feed the birds of the air and clothe the grass of the fields, will He not take infinitely greater care of a religious who is of much more value than they and the rest of the material universe combined? Moreover, by their vow of poverty religious te.ach a materialistic world an important lesson in divine economics, for they teach the world a proper sense of values, a divinely wise and exact evaluation of all creation. Religious appraise things for what they are--and are not--and proper ap-praisal of a thing is indispensable for its true appreciation and enjoyment. One can never love a thing rightly until one knows its true value; j~ust as one can never know its worth unless one knows the value God places on it. All of which means that we can never love a creature rightly except in and through God Who makes it worth whatever it is. In teaching mankind all this by ~he daily living of their vow of poverty, religious are teaching a most wise lesson. In so doing, they themselves become more wise and share their wisdom with others. For it belongs to the wise man to order and evaluate things rightly. By their vow of chastity, religious teach the world another saving lesson; they teach a selfish and unsacrificing world the value of sacrifice. Religious teach the world the fruitfulness of unfruitfulness. They teach the world that in order to win more of the children of God they have given them up. Relig- 259 BONAVENT~JRE BALSAM Review for Religious ious teach a grasping world that, in order to gain what is really worthwhile, one must lose what is really not worthwhile. They teach the world that oi~ten the only way to conquer is to surrender and that everything that one gives up for God he gains back again in God, and "pressed down, in good measure, and flowing over." And God besides. Religious give up a lesser privilege t~or a .greater one; they t~orego the privilege of bringing children into the world because to that privilege they pret~er the greater privilegi~ of bringing God into the world. So, in actuality, the chaste brotherhood or sisterhood of a religious is far more fruitful and noble than wedded t:ather-hood, or motherhood. There is something more that religious can do t~or the world and for God's children which often goes unappreciated even by themselves. Religious should realize the element of personal reparation and vicarious atonement inherent in their vow of chastity./ Vices are not only expelled, but are most fittingly atoned for, by. their opposite virtues. Religious are God's "chosen pedple." They stay the avenging hand of God by the purity of their lives. God, in looking upon the un-earthly purity of His religious, is moved to forgive the morass of impurity in which a great part of mankind is floundering and to give it grace to repent and change its evil ways. Here, again, the life of religious is a living protest to a "wicked and adulterous generation." The protest they lodge against the world is the silent protest ot~ their unassuming though uncon-cealable modesty and purity which, "like a city seated on a mountain top, cannot be hid." By their entire and absolute chastity, religious work to make this carnal world into a holy and pure generation. They must offer up their chastify, which makes them akin to the angels, as a protest to the world and and as a propitiatory sacrifice for its unspeakable impurities. Only the pure o~ heart will ever see God,. and they alone will be able to show God to others. God makes use o~ the conse-crated purity ot~ a religious to sterilize the world ot~ its in~ection 260 September, 1957 GOD'S LIVING. SERMON of impurity. Thus the~ freely chosen childlessness of religious is, .indeed, most fertile of good--their holy barrenness begets countless children of God. By their vow of obedience, religious proclaim to the world that the root of all sin lies in inordinate self-love and inordinate self-will. And they teach the world the remedy fo~ this ill. By their obedience, religious tell the world that the only way to escape out of the maddening labyrinth "of self and selfish-ness is to take one's will in both hands and exchange it for the #111 of God by riveting it to His most Sacred' Heart. The o~nly way to be truly free is.to serve m to serve God without stint. In this exchange of wills one's own narrowness and smallness are exchanged for the infinite generosity of God. The stagnate pool of selfishness ,is displaced by7 the restless sea of love which is God's holy will. And since the will of God is the cause of all good; since, too, religious have exchanged their will for His by vow, then they too will bring into the world and into the lives of men unlimited good. Religiods, by the life they lead, will diffuse through the universe some of the infinite goodness of God. In this vowed exchange of wills with God, religious be-come more and more sinless. For the more God's will dis- 'places theirs and becomes the motive force of their life and actions, the more religious approa.ch the state of impeccability --the impeccability of God's holy will. Hence, the more and longer God's. will works in them, the less will they fall into daily sins and faults, and the more they will do, and diffuse, good about them. The world seeing this transformation in religious, their own fellowmen, will first wonder at them, then admire them, and finally imitate them. And when the world imitates them, religious thus renew the face of the earth. They and the life they live. Besides being a living sermon on G~d, every religious is a living mystery also. Religious must have all the elements 261 BONAVENTURE BALSAM Review for Religious about them of a true mystery of faith. They must be thor-oughly supernatural. They must think, will, and act always on a supernatural plane. They must survey the whole of their own life and every event that befalls them from that super-natural ~vantage point, from the loft~; peaks of faith. Their viewpoint, their perspective of everything will always and every-where be determined by faith. Nothing will be purposeless; everything will be judged according to a divine pattern. All their assignments, and the minutest details and circumstances surrounding those assignments, must be looked upon and judged with the eyes of faith. The hardships and crosses of a par- ' ticular assignment, the trials and difficulties attached to an act of obedience, the misunderstandings and false accusations that may dog their steps, all these must be seen in their supernatural light. They must be seen as~having a definite .place in God's plan for their sanctification and salvation. Never will religious live on the merely natural level mthe level of those who have no faith. Rather, they must, under all circumstances, "live in such a way that their life would not make sense if God did not exist." God and their great faith in God must determine every decision religious make, must be the heart in every one of their motives for acting. By profession, and even more by religious consecration, religious belong to God and are familiar with God's ways. But religious are a living mystery for more reasons than that. As in the case of every' mystery, their life is one of im-penetrable paradox. Religious are in the very midst of the wo~ld, though they can never claim any of it as their own. By profession, they are consecrated down to their fingertips. Though they are vowed to seek after that peace which only God can give, still they are ever stirring up discontent and dissatisfaction. They are ever fomenting a rebellion against the ways of the world. A religious is an aposde of elevation; his whole life tends to. raise the general worth and standards of. mankind by the 262 September, 1957 GOD'S LIVING SERMON unearthliness and loftiness of his own life. He is the divine yeast in the rather inert and formless mass'of humanity without God. He is what the priest has been called, "the minister of restlessness." In looking upon his life, the world is wounded with a sort of tormenting longing for the divine. A religious may be rightly called "an apostle of the abso-lute." He is ever on a relentless search, a quest, not for that which is merely good, but for that which is God, for the Per-fect. His very religious consecration makes him ever a pilgrim, ever a foreigner to this wor/d, and en route to see the face of God. Whatever he finds, good, whether in himself or in others, he must ever try to make better. He is gripped by a continu-ous and divine unrest, which, oddly enough, is the great source of the profound peace which surrounds his life. That unrest takes the form of a hunger to be more united to God, though he knows full well that divine union must entail the painful surrendering of deep-seated attachments. It entails turning a deaf ear to the unending call of the flesh to pla~ riot in the warm fields of its pleasures; it entails purging out of one's spiritual organism the multiplicity of sins which plague it and keep it undeveloped, ~tunted, and impede its more complete union with God. All this means pain, struggle, denial, sacri-fice, and death. But the religious is equally aware that in the midst of all this struggle to embrace his God and never to let Him go there is a joy that makes all this tremendous effort and strife insignificant, short-lived, accountable as nothing at all. He knows that the more he peels away the outer bark of bitter self, the more he sees and tastes of the fruit of God with-in. He knows that the sufferinss of these times are like seasoning, sharp and bitter, but necessary to taste one's God, indeed to consume Him in love. Like ev.ery mystery, the religious .must remain beyond. the ken and grasp of the generality of mankind. He will be misunderstood, his actions misconstrued. So lofty and extra-ordinary is his life that those who see only with a fleshly eye 263 BONAVENTURE BALSAM will say that it is impossible or a huge deception. He will be considered a cowardly fugitive from the world, from reality; 'whereas, in truth, he pursues thd world in its flight from God, takes it in his arms as a father does a recalcitrant child, and offers it up to God in love. Instead of being a dreamer, as he is accused of being, he is the world's greatest realist, for he knows and appreciates God, the cause of all reality, and claims Him as his very own possession and gift to the world. Since he is a sort of special creation of God, the religious must remain unknown; he must n~ver become profane. When his life becomes common, banal, vulgar, a byword among the people, he is no longer a living and sacred mystery; he is now common knowledge. He has then lost that necessary quality of' super-naturalness. He must ever remain like a beautiful tree with its roots hidden in the earth and its head and heart in the heavens. Every religious is a living mystery. Like every divine mystery, he must be accessible to all those who ai, e seeking God. He and his life must ever be a source of awe for the world. Being a pilgrim and an apostle of the absolute, of perfection, he must keep the world dissatisfied, discontented with its smug and mediocre ways. He must be .the tangible and living expres-sion of the life of God and the degree in which it can be shared by grace. His life must be one of elevation, of an offertory. Sworn to pursue perfection, he must make himself and the world one grand host of love offered up to God in adoration, thanksgiving, petition, and atonement. From ttie rising of the sun even to the going down thereof, the religious must be a liv!ng mystery and sermon of God. 264 Dismissal ot: Religious in Lay Insfit:u es Lloseph g. Gallen, S.,J. 1. Definition. Dismissal is the compulsory departure from a religious institute during the time of the vows of the religious. Any religious, whether of solemn or simple vows, perpetual or temporary, may be dismissed. Dismissal is effected by the de-cree of the competent superior and by law, ipso facto, or automatically because of the commission of any of the crimes specified in canon 646. The present article is confined to the dismissal of religious in lay institutes. However, the norms are the same in other institutes for the dismissal of a professed of temporary vows and also for men of perpetual vows in a clerical non-exempt institute. The canonical prescriptions for the dis-missal of a clerical or lay religious man of perpetual vows in a clerical and exempt institute are likewise the same as in a lay institute of men except that in the former the crimes, admoni-tions, and incorrigibility must be proved in a judicial process. The provisional return to secular life is essentially the same in a clerical exempt institute (cc. 653; 668). The laws of the code and of the particular constitutions must be accurately' and sincerely observed in a dismissal. They were enacted to protect the rights of both the institute and the individual religious. It is very likely that an unusual number of highly unsatisfactory religious justifies a complaint against facility of admission and retention during the probationary periods rather than against the difficulty of dismissal. It is evident, also that the age of the religious is to be considered before deciding on the formalities of a dismissal, even though this is not mentioned in the code. Older religious should be dismissed only for most serious reasons. Their adjustment to secular life, especially in the case of a religious woman, is obvi-ousl'y more difficult. A religious whose conduct merits serious 265 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review for Religious thoughts of dismissal should practically always be first encour-aged to ask for an indult of secularization. Those who are found certainly unsuitable at any time during temporary pro-fession are to be counseled to ask foi: an indult of secularization rather than to wait until the voluntary departure or exclusion at the expiration of temporary vows. I. Competent Authority for Dismissal by Decree and for Final Adjudication of Provisional Sending Back to Secular Life . 2. In pontifical congregations. (a) For professed men and women of temporary vows (c. 647, § 1). The competent authority is the superior general with the deliberative and secret vote of his council. In the few constitutions where his part in any dismissal is mentioned, it is prescribed that the pro-vincial should consult his council before proposing a dismissal to the superior general. The provincial will usually, in fact, initiate a dismissal by proposing it to the superior general, Since the matter is one of greater importance, in prudence he should at lea~t ordinarily consult his council before doing so. (b) For professed of perpetual vows. 1° In congregations of men (c. 650, § 2, 2°). The superior general with the consent of his council is competent to decree the dismissal, but his decree has no effect until it is confirmed by the Sacred Congregation of Religious. 2° In congregations of women (c. 652, § 3). The Sac/ed Congregation of Religious alone is competent to decree the dismissal. 32 For professed of temporary or perpetual vows in diocesan congregations of men or women (cc. 647, § 1; 650, § 2, 1°; 652, § 1). The competent authority in all cases of men or women is the ordinary of the diocese where the house to which the religious is attached is located. The ordinary of the diocese of the generalate is competent only for religious attached to houses' in his diocese. In virtue of canon 647, § 1, the local ordinary may certainly initiate the dismissal of a professed of temporary vows. He probably possesses the same .right with regard to professed men or women of perpetual vows.' If the 266 September, 1957 DISMISSAL IN LAY INSTITUTES ordinary initiates the dismissal, he is obliged to inform the superior general before dismissing the religious. He is also obliged to give consideration to the reasons the superior gen-eral proposes against the dismissal and is forbidden to dismiss a religious, if this superior ha~ just reasons against it. If he does so, the superior general has the right of recurring to the Sacred Congregation of Religious. 4. Societies living in common without~ public vows (c. 681). The norms of dismissal for pontifical and diocesan religious congregations ~pply also to these pontifical and diocesan socie-ties, i. e., the norms for the professed of temporary vows apply to members whose bond is temporary, those for religious of perpetual vows to members whose bond in such a society is per-petual. 5. In monasteries of nuns. (a) For professed of temporary vows .(c. 647, § 1). If the monastery is not subject to regu-lars, the competent authority is the local ordinary of the mon-astery. If the monastery is subject to regulars: two opinions are probable, i. e., the competent authority is either only the regular superior or, the more probable opinion, the regular superior and the local ordinary acting conjointly. (b) For professed of perpetual vows (c. 652, § 2). The competent authority is the Sacred Congregation of Religious, but all the documents and acks of the case are to be transmitted to the congregation by the local ordinary of the monastery with his own vote and that of .the regular superior, if the mon-astery is subject to regulars. 6. Obligation of competent authorities. The competent au-thorities, as well as the superior and his council who propose a dismissal to such authority, have a grave obligation in con-science to observe the norms for dismissal imposed by canon law (cf. c. 647, § 2). ~ Tabera, Corntnent,~rium Pro Reli]io$i$, 13-1932-124-25; 14-1933-35; Schaet:er, De Religiosis, n. 1602; Quinn, Relation of t/~e Local Ordinary to Religious o/ Diocesan/l$/~ro¢,al, 103-105. 267 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review for Religious . II. Dismissal by Decree of a Professed of Temporary Vows (cc. 647-48) 7. Sufficient" reasons for dismissal. (a) ' General principles (c. 647, § 2, 1°.3°). The authority dismissing a religious of tem-porary vows must have. moral certainty, i. e., a judg,ment that excludes a founded doubt, of the existence and sufficiency of the reasons. The reasons must be external to the extent that they are known by others. They mu~t also be ~sekious'or grave, which does not imply serious moral culp~ibilit~ or any culpa-bility at all. The general principies on the sufficiency 0f the reasons are that it is to the good of the institute not to retain the subject; the institute will suffer a notable harm or serious incon;cenience in retaining him; there is no hope that ~he reli-gious will be able to conform his life in a creditable or praise-worthy manner to the demands of .the constitutions; "lie lacks the general aptitude for the religious life or the special aptitude requisite for the spiritual life or works of. the particular insti-tute; and any reason is sufficient that is of the same or greater import than that stated by way of example in canon 647, § 2, 2°, i. e., a defect of religious spirit that 'is a cause of scandal to others. It is probable, as under exclusion from a further profession,~ that after more than six prescribed years in tem-porary vows a religious may be dismissed or~ly for reasons that are sufficient to dismiss a professed of perpetual vows. (b) Particular sufficient reasons (c. 647, § 2, 2°). A sufficient reason on the part of the institute is the lack of aptitude stated in the preceding paragraph. Sufficient-reasons on the part of the religious himself can be reduced to intelledtual defects, which is included under aptitude above, to health, which will be explained below, and to moral defects. Moral defects constitute" tl~e principal motive for dismissal. The code mentions only one sufficient cause of dismissal by way of ex-ample, and this is a habitual moral defect, i. e., a defect of 2Cf./IEwsw FOg RELXG~OL~S, July, 1957, 216-18. 268 September, 1957 DISMISSAL IN LAY ]INSTITUTES religious spirit that is a cause of scandal to others. This defect can be ascertained from the conduct and motives of the religious and from the effect of his conduct on others. Such a religious seems to lack all supernatural motives, and' acts almost constantly from those that are purely natural. He is de~oid of love, attachment, and devotion to the religious life and its duties. His transgressions arise from habitual negligence, sloth, weariness, perversity, and ill will, not from accidental weakness and frailty. He ,manifests little care or effort for per-sonal sanctification. In his conduct he "habitually violates the constitutions, rules, customs, and usages of the.institute, even if not in relatively serious matters. He obeys superiors with diffi-culty in matters that are not strictly commanded. He habitually omits, performs carelessly, or places little value on religious exer-cises. In its effect on others, the conduct described above is already scandalous in a person consecrated to God. Such conduct and the fact that .the motives and state of his will externally manifest themselves decrease in others respect and 'devotion to the religious life and its duties and make observance of religious disci-pline by others more difficult. Often there, is added the direct insti-gation of others to violations of religious duties and discipline. Among the equivalent habitual moral defects are the follow-ing. 1° Obedience. Habitual, unwilling, and grudging obedience; .habitual murmuring against and criticism of superiors; habitual negligence in fulfilling duties assigned by superiors. 2° Poverty. Repeated violations of the vow and of common life, even if not in serious matters. 3° Anger. One who is habitually quarrelsome or has an" ungovernable temper that~ breaks out in frequent and serious fitsof anger and causes frequent disturb-ance of the peace of the community, loss of peace of soul, insults, and injuries to companions, .and dissensions in the community. 4° Charity. One who is addicted to faults of the tongue that annoy, disturb, or provoke others to quarrels, Or that consist of frequent calumnies, detractions, imprudenc~e in speech or violations of secrets. 5° Disturber of the peace. A 269 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review for Religious habitual disturber of the peace of the community who creates or fosters dissatisfaction, dissensions, factions, or provokes to quarrels. 8. Necessity of repeated admonition and salutary penance with-out effect (c. 647, § 2, 2°). Any habitual moral defect is a sufficient reason for dismissal only when a repeated admonition together with a salutary penance has produced no effect. The code demands only that the subject should have been admon-ished at least twice, orally or in writing, secretly or in a manner /hat can be proved, by a local or higher superior, to reform his conduct. Canon law does not require here that the admoni-tion be given in virtue of a mandate from a higher superior or that a threat of dismissal be. added to the admonition. The salutary penance to be added to each admonition i~ one suitable for effecting the reform of the religious and the reparation of the scandal" already given. It will consist of the penances in use in the particular institute, e. g., recitation of determined prayers, an act of humility, or a public acknowledgment or reprehension of defects. A sufficient period of time is to be allowed to pass "after the second admonition to permit the religious to reform his conduct. After this period, if he has ¯ nbt reformed his conduct to such an extent that it can no longer be considered a sufficient cause for dismissal, he may be dismissed. Both for the reform of the religious and proof in the eCent of dismissal and recourse, the more secure and prudent ¯ dgctrine is to be followed in practice, i. e., a threat of dismissal is to be added to each admonition and the admonition and penance are to be given in such a way that there will be proof that both were given and received. This can be accomplished b'y¯giving the admonition and penance before two witnesses or in writing. A copy of such a document is to be retained. by the institute. 9. A single act as a sufficient reason. A religious of temporary vows may be dismissed because of a very serious single act, 270 September, 1957 DISMISSAL IN LAY INSTITUTES e. g., a grave external s_in against chastity; formal contempt of the authority of superiors; violation of a formal precept .of obedience; an act that creates a danger of notable harm or infamy to the institute; serious scandal given once or twice in the community, or what is more serious, to seculars, when there are indications that the same thing will happen again.-~ A pro-fessed of temporary vows who becomes a fugitive from religion or does the same thing as an apostate from religion, even though he cannot technically be called an apostate because he is not in perpetual vows, may be dismissed because of either of these acts. :~ 10. Insul/icient reasons (c. 647, ~ 2, 2°). The statement of the religious that he never possessed or has lost a religious vocation or the mere agreement of the institute and the religious that he be dismissed are insufficient reasons. In either case, the religious, giving all the reasons that actually exist, may ask for an indult of secularization or may wait and depart at the expiration of temporary vows. Ill health is a sufficient reason for dismissal only if it was certainly fraudule.ntly concealed or dissimulated before the first profession of temporary' vows. Everything said under exclusion from a further profession because of ill health, lack of ability arising from ill health, ailments such as hysteria and neurasthenia, and insanity apply here also.~ 11. Procedure (c. 647, § 2, 3°). No special process is pre-scribed for attaining certainty of the existence and sufficiency of the reasons for dismissal nor for decreeing the dismissal. If it is d~cided to proceed to dismissal, the .necessary preliminary data should be written out first, i. e., the religious and family name of the subject, age, date of entrance into the postulancy and noviceship, date or dates of temporary profession, and the houses and employments to which the religious had been assigned. To this should be added a brief and accurate descrip-tion of the previous conduct of the religious. The formalities 3 Cf. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, May, 1957, 162-63. -1 Cf. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, July, 1957, 219-20. 271 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review for Religious of dismissal are practically always preceded by a protracted period o'f most unsatisfactory conduct. The decision on dis-missal is then to be studied and obviously with the greatest care. The matters to be decided are whether certain proof is had of the existence and sufficiency of the reasons, of the admonitions given privately and of those given in writing or before witnesses with a threat of dismissal, and of the lack of effect, of these admonitions. Proof of the existence of the reasons will ordinarily be from signed statements of local superiors and councilors, principals of schools, companions in religion, etc. Canon 647, ~ 2, 3°, prescribes that all the reasons for dismissal, not the proofs nor the names of the witnesses, be manifested to the religious orally or in writing before dismissal. The proposal of the reasons in writing is preferable for proof. The religious must be given full liberty and a su~cient amount of. time to reply to the charges. He is .to be counseled to reply in writing. If his replies are given orally, they are to be taken down immediate!y in writing and he is to be requested to sign them. If he refuses, this is to be noted in the document on which his replies are given. His replies are to be submitted fully to the authority competent for dismissal. Everything given above in this number should have been followed also by the superior general and his council in a diocesan congregation and the superioress and her council in a monastery of nuns before tl~e written petition for dismissal is forwarded to the competent authority. The vote of the council should be given in writing to this authority. In a monastery of nuns, this vote must be deliberative.~ In a diocesan .congregation, the superior general will present the petition for a dismissal to the local ordinary; but the constitutions will frequently require the con-sultive or deliberative vote of his council for such a petition. The local ordinary and the regular superior must have certainty ~Cf. Tabera, Commentarium Pro Religiosis, 12-1931-372-73; Larraona, ibid., 2-1921-364-65; Schaefer, 010. cir., n. 1584. 272 September', 1957 DISMISSAL IN LAY INSTITUTES of the existence and sufficiency of the reasons alleged in the representations of the superior. They accordingly have the right and duty of investigating the existence of the reasons, although this is usually proved in the proposal of the superior, and of weighing the seriousness of these reasons. 12. Dismissal. If the decision is for dismissal, a decree" of dismissal should be drawn up containing the date, name of the religious, the reasons for dismissai, and the statement that the religious is therewith informed of his right of suspensive recourse against the decree to the Sacred Congregation of Religious. The decree should either be read to the religious or he should be given a copy of it. Either the original-or a copy of the decree and of all the proofs and documents in the case is to be retained in the files of the institute. It would be well to give the religi-ous a written statement to the effect that he was l~gitimately dismissed from the institute and freed of all his vows and obligations. In the presence of two religious as witnesses, the dismissed religious is to be asked to sign the following or a similar docu-ment after it has beenread to him. "I realize that I am hereby informed that'I have the 'right of recurring to the Sacred Congregation of Religious against this decree of dismissal and that, if I make this recourse within ten days from this date, such a recourse will suspend the effect of this decree until offi-cial notification is received that the decree has been confirmed by the same Sacred Congregation." The two religious witnesses are also to sign as such. If the dismissed religious will riot sign, this refusal is to be noted on the document; and the two religious witnesses ard also to attest on the document to this refusal. This document also is to be retained by the institute. If the religious has already left the institute illicitly, th'e notification of the decree and of the right of suspensive recourse is to be sent to him by certified mail, which provides for a receipt, to the sender and a record of delivery at the offi~ce of the address. 13. Suspensive recourse (c. 647, § 2, 4°). The one who 273 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review for Religious communicates the decree of dismissal is counseled in a reply of the Sacred Congregation of Religious to inform the religious of his right of recourse.° This should always be done; and several authors advise that this information be included, as above, in the decree of dismissal. The religious has the right of making a suspensive recourse to the Sacred Congregation of Religious against the decree of dismissal within ten days from the date on which he was informed of the decree. The first day is not counted. If the religious was informed of the decree on June 1, the time begins to run on June 2 and expires ~it midnight of June 11-12. The time does not run for any period during which the subject is ignorant of his right or unable to act, e. g., because of illness. The recourse is to be made by letter, either immediately by the subject or mediately through the superior who communicated the decree to him. The subject is to give his reasons againsf the dismissal. Proof that he had made the recourse is had by the authentic document of his own letter or the testimony of two trustworthy witnesses. The recourse within ten, days suspends the effect of the decree, which is completely ineffective until the authority that issued the decree is notified of its confirmation by the Sacred Congre-gation of Religious. While the recourse is pending, the subject is not dismissed and remains a religious with the same obligations as any other professed of temporary vows. He has the right and obligation of dwelling, under obedience to superiors, in the religious house assigned by them. If the religious does not wish to make recourse but to leave the institute immediately after the. decree is communicated to him, he may do so. Superiors may oblige him to leave immediately only if he has declared in writing that he will not m~ike recourse.7 Otherwise the religious is to remain until the ten days have elapsed without recourse having been 0 Bouscaren, Canon Law Digest, 1,329. ¢ Cf. c. 1880, 9°; Coronata, Manuale Practicum luris Discipli~iaris et Criminalis Regularium, n. 248. 274 September, 1957~ DISMISSAL IN LAY INSTITUTES made. A subject may als6 make recourse after the lapse of the ten-day period, but such recourse does not suspend the effect of the dismissal, 14. Effects of dismissal (c. 648). Canon 648 frees a professed of temporary vows, as soon as the decree of dismissal is effective, from all the vo~,s of his religious profession. There is no need of a dispensation from the vows. The ~ther effects are the same as explained under secularization in the REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, September, 1956~ 233-36. III. Dismissal. By Decree of a Professed of~ Perpetual Vows (cc. 649,52; 669, .~ li 672, ~ 1) 15. Sufficient reasons. (a) In institutes of men (cc. 649; 656, I°). Three grave and external crimes of the same or different species in the proper sense of canon 2195, § 1, two admonitions, and incorrigibility a~e necessary. A violation of any positive law accompanied l~y special gravity or scandal is also a crime (c. 2222, § 1). The following are examples of sufficient ¯ reasons:' serious sins against common life, external si~s against chastity, disobedience to formal precepts, formal contempt of authority, rebellion against superiors, seriously impeding the government of superiors, creating or fomenting factions in the community, drunkenness, striking companions in religion, seri-ous diffamation of others or 0f the institute, apostasy or flight from religion, as also violations of the vows or of the ~onstitutions that constitute a specially grave offense or give rise to~ grave scandal in or outside the institute. These acts must be seriously sinful objectively and subjectively. Crimes of different species should be such as to reveal, when viewed collectively, a will obstinate in evil (c. 657).s (b) In institutes of women (c. 651, § 1). The same reasons are required for the dismissal of any religious woman of per-petual vows, whether solemn or simple. The reasons must be s Cf. Creusen, Religious Men and Women in the Code, n. 353; Bastien, Directoire Canonique, n. 634, 1, 1°; Tabera, op. cit., 14-1933-267; Beste, Introductio in Codicem, 443,448. 275 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review for Religious external, culpable, serious, and joined with incorrigibility. The reasons have to be external to the extent that they are known by others. The code requires culpable but does not certainly demand seriously culpable reasons. Inculpable reasons, e. g., lack of aptitude and physical and intellectual defects do not suffice for the dismissal of a perpetually professed religious. The reasons must be serious or grave. Finally, the reasons must be joined with incorrigibility, i. e., attempts at correction were made and their lack of success proves that there is no hope of amendment. ~The following are general examples of sufficient reasons: violations of the vows, constitutions, and religious dis-cipline that are considered more serious, even though in them-selves they are not mortal sins, or that cause serious scandal in or outside the community; and conduct that causes a notable spiritual or temporal harm to the community. The following are examples of particular sufficient reasons: repeated violations of~the vow of poverty, even after admonitions, reprehensions, penances, and even though the matter in itself does not consti-tute a serious sin; repeated and more serious acts of disobedi-ence; exciting others to rebellion and insubordination; arousing others against superiors by word or conduct; impeding the authority of superiors; disturbing the peace of the community by constant murmuring and complaints; causing dissensions and factions in the community; and the diffamation of the institute or its members among seculars. The reasons given above for men also evidently suffice for the. dismissal of women, since less serious reasons are required for the dismissal of women. Incorrigibility supposes repeated or habitufil actions. There-fore, one violation does not suffice for the dismissal of a per-petually professed religious woman. As in the case of religious men of perpetual vows, there must be at least three violations or one continued violation which, after a double admonition, becomes vi'rtually three violations. These three violations may all be of the same species, e. g., all against poverty; they may be of different species, e. g., one against poverty, the second 276 September, 1957 DISMISSAL IN LAY INSTITUTES against obedience, and the third contrary to charity. The one continued violation is verified in such things as apostasy from religion, being a fugitive from religion, and a refusal to obey. The apostate who has been admonished twice to return to religion and refuses commits virtually three violations, the original act of apostasy and the two refusals to return (c. 657). 16. Attempts at correction and 'incorrigibility (cc. 649; 656- 62; 651, § i). Everything below on the admonitions and incor-rigibility is of obligation 'from canon law in lay institutes of men. The code does not determine just what' 'the attempts at correction are to consist of in the case 'of religious women but leaves these and the judgment of the incorrigibility to the supeiioress. However, the doctrine that is more probable :in itself and to be followed in practice is that the canons on religious men should be extended to women, i. e., there should be two admonitions coupled with suitable corrections and penances. When these produce no effect, the religious wom£n may be judged in-corrigible. 17. Admonitions (cc. 658-62). (a) Prerequisite certitude of first violation (c. 658). Before the first admonition may be given, there must be certitude, not mere suspicion, probability, or conjecture, of the commission of the first violation. If cer-titude is not had, a further investigation of the conduct of the religious may be. made. If the investigation does not give certitude, an admonition may not be given. (b) Matter of the admonitions (c. 661). The' essentialnotes of an admonition are three: the superior reprehends the religiou~ for the violation already committed; warns him to avoid slich conduct in the future; and adds a threat of dismissal if the religious should persist in such conduct. The thi:eat of dismissal is always to be added to the admonition in the case of a per-petually professed religious man or woman (c. 661,. § 3). 9 Statuta a Sororibus Externis 8er~anda, n. 119; Coronata, lnstltutiones luris Canonici, I, n. 651; Palombo, De Dimissione Religiosorum, n. 179; Tabera, o~. cit., 13-1932-123; Bastien o/,. tit., rt. 639, 3. 277 JOSEPH ~. GALLEN Review for Religious The superior is also to add to the admonitions: 1° an apt exhortation, i. e., to give motives to the religious for the reform of his conduct; 2° an apt correction, i. e., to show the religious the disorder of his past conduct, its effect on himself and .others, on the community and the institute; 3° preventive measures against a future violation. Almost necessarily these will imply putting the religious under the vigilance of a superior. Other such measures that the particular case demands are also to be employed, e. g., changing the employment or house of the religious and, in general, removing and lessening the occasion of a future violation. 4° apt penances. These are to be added to each admonition. Their aptitude is to be judged from their suitability for effecting the amendment of the religious and the reparation of the scandal already given. (c) Number and form of the admonitions (c. 660). There must be two admonitions, one for each of the first two viola-tions. In a continued violation, at least three full days must elapse between the first and second admonition. The admoni-tions are to be given in such a way that there will be proof that ' they were given and received. They are accordingly to be given before two witnesses or in writing.When given before witnesses, it is better to have the admonition also written out, to retain a copy, and have the two witnesses sign this copy to the effect that they witnessed the giving of the admonition. If given in ¯ writing, the religious is always to be made to sign a document to the effect that he received the admonition, a copy of the admonition is always to be retained, and two witnesses are to attest that the copy agrees with the original. If the religious is'outside the institute, e. g., as an apostate or fugitive, the admonition is to be sent to him in writing by certified mail (cf. n. 12). (d) Competent superior for admonitions (c. 659). In institutes of men, the admonitions should be given by the immediate higher superior personally or through another authorized for the purpose. An authorization given for the first admonition 278 September, 1957 DISMISSAL IN LA~ INSTITUTES suffices also for the second. From analogy, the same principles are to be followed in an institute of women. (e) Interval and violation after the second admonition (c. 662). After the second admonition, there must be a third vio-lation or a refusal to obey the second admonition in the case of a continued violation. An interval of at least six full days is to elap, se between the second admonition and any further action in a continued violation.'° After the third violation or the lapse of the six days without sincere repentance, the religious is canonically incorrigible and may be dismissed. If he sincerely repents within the six days, ¯ he is not incorrigible and may not be dismissed. If such repen-tance is verified only after the third violation or after the six days, action on the dismissal may be continued, since the religious is canonically incorrigible; but it would be better to discontinue such action provisionally, because the religious is not in fact incorrigible,n If the religious later commits another violation, the formalities of dismissal may be continued unless the reforma-tion of thereligious was sincere and complete. Such a reforma-tion excludes the computation or inclusion of past violations and admonitions and requires that the formalities of dismissal be begun anew. A sincere and complete reformation demands that the religious, e. g., have avoided the occasions of violations, have been willing to repair scandal by public penance, and have been more than ordinarily faithful to religious observance. The common doctrine is that such an amendment of conduct should have continued for three years, but a lesser space of time, e. g., a year, will su~ce in the case of extraordinary repentance.12 l°Cf. Tabera, 0p. cit., 14-1933-273; Toso, Commentaria Minora, II, II, 268; Chelodi-Ciprot~i, lus Canonicura de Personis, n. 291; De Carlo, Jus Religiosorum, n. 587. 11Cf. Goyeneche, De Religiosis, 217; De Carlo, oiO. cir., n. 587; Schaefer, oil: clt., n. 1629; Palombo, 0/~. cir., n. 113; Coronata, 0/L cir., 867; Beste, 0/~. cir., 450; Jone, Commentarium in Codicem Iuris Canonici, I, 586. ~2Cf. Goyeneche, op. cir., 217; De Carlo, oiO. cir., n. 587; Schaefer, o/,. cir., n. 1629; Palombo, op. tit., n. 114; Beste, oiO. cit., 450; Jone, o~O. tit., 586; Coropata, op. cit., 864. 279 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review for Religious 18. Procedure (cc. 650-52). (a). Intervention of the superior general and his council. In pontifical or diocegan lay institutes of men, canon 650, §§ 1-2, not only require that- the dismissal of a professe~ of perpe~tual vows be submitted to th~ superior gen-eral but also demand a deliberative vote of his council for such a dismissal. Canon law "does not clearly demand the interven-tion of the mother general nor of her council in the dismissal of .a professed of perpetual vows. However, from analogy with the law on the dismissal of religious men of perpetual vows and the constant practice of the Sacred Congregation of Religi-ous in the approval of constitutions, the dismissal of a professed woman of perpetual vows in both pontifical'and diocesan congre-gations is to be referred to the mother general and h'er council and the council is to have a deliberative vote.la For the same reasons, the deliberative vote of the council is required in a monastery of nuns. The remarks on the provincial and his council in n. 2 (a)apply here also. A proviricial should prac-tically never initiate the formalities of dismissal except after having consulted the superior general. The superior general and his council should have the pre-liminary data on the' religious drawn up, as stated in n. 11. To'this document are to be added a description of the three violations, proof of their existence, and proof that the admoni-tions Were properly given and received. As explained in n. 11, the reasons for the dismissal are tg, be fully manifested to the religious; and his replies in writing are to be submitted to the authority competent for dismissal. The matters .to be decided are whether certain proof is had of the three violations, of the giving and reception of the admonitions, and of the incorrigi-bility of the religious. (b) If the decision is for dismissal. 1° In a pontifical congre-gation. The mother general is to transmit all the acts and a:~Cf. Larraona, Commentarium Pro Religlosis, 2-1921-364-66; Ta~era, op. cir., 14-1933-53-54; Schaefer, op. cit., n. 1608; Jone, op. cit., 578; Muzzarelli, Tractatus Canonicus de Congregationibus Iuris Dioecesani, 175; Goyeneche, op. cit., 219; Bastien, op. cir., n. 640. 280 September, 1957 DISMISSAL IN LAY INSTITUTES documents of the case along with the vote of her council to the Sacred Congregation of Religious (cf. n. 2). In a congregation of brothers, the same things are to be sent to .the Sacred Con-gregation. However, the brother general,, with the deliberative vote of his council, decrees the dismissal; but this has no effect until it is confirmed by the Sacred Congregation (cf. n. 2). A superior who transmits a case to the authority competent for dismissal may include further information from himself or the members of the council in, addition to the latter's vote. 2° In a diocesan congregation, of brothers or sisters. The same things are to be forwarded to the local ordinary (cf. n. 3). The matters to be decided by the ordinar~ are the same as those stated above. He may summon the religious, defer the dis-missal and prescribe further attempts at correction, deny the dismissal, or issue the decree of dismissal. 3° In a monastery of nuns. The superioress is to transmit the same things to the local ordinary and the regular superior (cf. n. 5). 19. Dismissal. The religious is dismissed only at the moment that he or she receives legitimate notification of the decree of dismissal or of the confirmation of the Sacred Congregation of Religious in the case of religious men.~ Before that time he may neither leave the institute nor may the institute eject him. He is then to leave the institute, unless he is a member of a diocesan congregation, as will be immediately explained. 20. Recourse. (a) In any pontifical lay institute of men or women. The religious may recur io the Holy See against the decree of dismissal, but this recourse does not suspend the effect of the dismissal. The code gives no such right, and the Holy See has both examined ihe reasons of the religious against the dismissal and has itself effected or confirmed the dismissal. (b) In any diocesan congregation of men or women. The code says nothing on the right of the religious to recur to the Holy See against a dismissal effected by the local ordinary. a4 Palombo, op. cit., nn. 144, 187; O'Leary, Rdi.oious Dismissed after Perpetual Profession, 47-50. 281 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review for Religious However, it is admitted that the religious has the right of recur-ring. to the Sacred Congregation of Religious against the decree; and, if made within ten days from the date on which the religi-ous was informed of the decree, this recourse suspends the effect of the dismissal. This right to a suspensive recourse follows a fortiori from the fact that such a right is granted to a religious of temporary vows dismissed by the local ordinary (c. 647, ~ i, 4°). Therefore, everything said in n. 13 under ¯ the dismissal of a professed of temporary vows applies here also. 21'. Effects of dismissal (cc. 669, § 1; 672, § 1). (a) If dis-missal frees from the vows. The code itself (c. 669, § 1 ) does not free a dismissed religious of perpetual vows from the vows of religious profession by the very fact of the dismissal. Such a liberation may be effected by a provision of the particular constitutions, or the Holy See may append a dispensation to the dismissal, or the dismissed religious may petition the Sacred Congregation of Religious in the case of pontifical institutes or the local ordinary in that of diocesan institutes for a dispen-sation. 1~ The religious is to be most earnestly encouraged to make such a petition, and the superiors are willingly to aid him. Constitutions of lay congregations submitted to Rome in the earlier years after the Code of Canon Law became effective, May 19, 1918, uniformly do not provide that legitimate dismis-sal of a perpetually professed religious frees from the vows; tho~e submitted in more recent years frequently contain this provision. The latter practice should be followed in any revis-ion of pontifical or diocesan constitutions. Ill such a provision is contained in the constitutions, the dismissal frees from all the vows of religious profession as soon as the decree is effective. There is no need of a dispensation from the vows. The other effects are the same as explained under secularization in the REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, September, 1956, 233-36. (b) If the dismissal does not free from the vows (c. 672, § 1). Canon 672, § 1, prescribes that a religious of perpetual is Cf. Muzzarelli, o~. cir., 306. 282 September, 1957 DISMISSAL IN LAY INSTITUTES vows who has been dismissed without being freed of his vows is obliged to reform his.life so that he will be worthy .of being received back into the institute. If the dismissed religious has manifested a complete reform during a period of three years, he is obliged to return to the institute and the la'tter~ is obliged to take him back. Howe.ver, it is the far more probable interpre-tation that this canon applies only to a religious in sacred orders (priest, deacon, subdeacon).'6 If the dismissed lay religious will not voluntarily petition a dispensation from the vows, the practical remedy is to submit the case immediately to the Sacred Congregation of Religious. A professed of~ perpetual vows is also to be given an official statement to the effect that he had been l~gitimately .dismissed, and mention should b~ made as to whether he had been freed of the vows by the dismissal or a concomitant or subsequent dispensation. IV. Dismissal By Law (c. 646) 22. Definition. This dismissal is effected automatically by canon 646 itself by the very fact and at the instant that any of the three crimes specified in the canon is committed. Therefore, the law itself, not the decree or declaration of a superior, effects the dismissal. In its nature, the dismissal is a punishment in-flicted for the crime and also a means given to religious, insti-tutes to free themselves immediately of members who have perpetrated most serious crimes against the religious life. 23. Subject. The subject of the il~so facto or dismissal by law of canon 646 is any professed religious, man or woman, of solemn or any type of simple vows, whether perpetual or tem-porary, and the members who have been aggregated perpetually or temporarily in societies living in common without public vows (c. 681). A postulant or novice is not the subject, but the commission of any of these three crimes is certainly more 'than a sufficient reason for his dismissal by the decision of the competent superior. ~6 Cf. Fanfani, De lure Religiosorum, 703-705. 283 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review for Religious 24. "Religious who have publicly apostatized from the Catholic faith" (c. 646, § 1, 1°). The crime is simply public apostasy from the Catholic faith. (a) Simply. The canon does not demand that the religi-ous have joined a non-Christian sect, e. g., Judaism, Buddhism, Mohammedanism. The crime can be" verified either in or out of such a sect. "(b) Public (c. 2197, 1°). In the case of a religious, a crime is public when it is actually known or is in serious and immediate danger of being known by at least a notable part of the mem-bers of the religious house to which the delinquent is attached.1~ It is not necessary that such knowledge or danger extend.to the province, institute, or to externs. External apostasy that has not attained this publicity does not effect dismissal by law. (c) Apostasy from the Catholic faith (c. 1325, ~ 2). Apos-tasy is the act of a baptized person who formally" denies or positively doubts about the entire Christian-faith. The unbap-tized are infidels, not apostates, heretics, or schismatics. Formally means that there must be a subjective mortal sin in the act. A doubt is the suspension of the acceptance of the intellect. A positive doubt is had when the intellect judges that there are sufficient reasons for affirming and denying the proposition, that the reasons on neither side are convincing, and therefore the intellect suspends assent to the proposition. In a negative doubt, the intellect suspends assent because it does not p~rceive reasons either for affirming or 'denying the proposition. This is to be classed rather as ignorance. As in heresy, /~ positive doubt constitutes an injury to the faith and is sufficient four apostasy.18 The one who so doubts has had the truth suffi-ciently proposed to him, but he positively judges that the truth is not sufficiently proposed and that contrary reasons make it uncertain. ~ Cf. Michiels, De Delictis et Pornis, 117-18. ~8 Ciprotti, De Consummatione Delictorum, 15; Coronata, o,O. cir., IV, n. 1856. 284 Septe,~be~', 1957 DISMISSAL IN LAY INSTITUTES Apostasy is a denial or positive doubt concerning the entire Christian faith, e. g., the existence of God, the fact or possibility of the Christian revelation, the fact or possibility of the supernatural order. Apostasy is therefore distinguished from heresy or schism. A heretic is a baptized person who formally denies or positively doubts about one or some dogmas of faith. A schismatic is a baptized person who formally refuses to submit to the spiritual authority of the Roman Pontiff or to communicate with the other members of the Church (c. 1325, ~ 2). Canon 646 mentions only apostasy and thus inflicts dis-missal by law only on apostates, not on heretics or schismatics. (d) Excommunication (c. 2314). An apostate incurs by the very fact of the apostasy an excommunication reserved in a special manner to the Holy See. An excommunication demands merely that the act be external and not that it be public. 25. "A religious man who h~as run away with a woman or a religious woman who has run away with a man" (c. 646, ~ I, 2°). The crime will be explained with a religious man as the subject. Four notes are required to constitute this crime. The last three are only probably required in theory but are certainly necessary in fact to effect the dismissaI (cc. 15, 19). (a) The religious man must be united physically or morally in flight from one place to another with a woman. It is not required that the r.eligious be an apostate or fugitive from religion in the canonical sense of canon 644J" Flight in canon 646 has the common and ordinary sense of running away with a woman. The crime, is completed as soon as this notion is verified, without any consideration whatever of the length of absence from the religious house. The intention of returning or not returning, of contracting or not contracting marriage has nothing to do with the crime. Both must flee, since the canon demands that the religious man have run away with a woman. This is verified physically if both start out from the religious house; it is verified morally. 19 Cf. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, May, 1957, 155-64. 285 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review for "Religious if the religious alone flees in virtue of a previous agreement to meet the woman. The moral union is caused l~y the previous agreement; if such an agreement does not exist, there is no flight. In a doubt, this agreement is'to be presumed if.there was an illicit attachmehr or familiarity beforehand and union shortly after the departure of the religious; otherwise the agree-ment must be proved. The dismissal is effected at the begin-ning. of the flight. The flight described above is always neces, sary. Without such flight, neither concubinage nor the illicit leaving of the. house to sin with a woman, even though done frequently and furtively, constitutes the crime. When tlqe flight of this canon is difficult to prove, as is often true, an investiga-tion is to be made as to the existence of a marriage ceremony. It is rare in such cases that the woman does not insist on some form of marriage ceremony. (b) Probably the motive of the ,flight must be the satisfaction of lust. The iaecessity of such a motive is implicit in the text of the law and is part of the common notion of running away with a woman. Ordinarily this motive is to be presumed as soon as the other notes are verified.2° (c) Probably the woman must have attained puberty and not be a relative by blood or marriage in the direct line (mother, grandmother, etc.) or in the first degree .o~ the collateral line (sister) of the religious man. Puberty in a girl is attained can-onically on the day after the twelfth birthday, in a boy on the day after the fourteenth birthday (c. 88, § 2). The correspond-ing relatives will apply in the case of a religious woman, i. e., father, grandfather, brother. The necessity of this note is founded on the extrinsic authority of several authors. It has little foundation in the text of the law. The sense of the law is rather that the lustful motive is presumed not to exist with such persons but, if proved, the crime exists. Otherwise, the state of the woman is indifl:erent. It is of no import that she z°Cf. Tabera, Ol~. cir., 11-1930-416; Goyeneche, oil. cir., 209; Vermeersch, Periodica, 19-1930.122". 286 September, 1957 DISMISSAL IN LAY INSTITUTES is married, unmarried, capable or incapable of contracting marriage validly;. (d) Probably proof must exist of the preceding, requisites. The probability of this doctrine arises from the fact that the other two crimes of canon 646, public apostasy and marriage, are of their nature capable of proof and from the extrinsic authority of some authors. If the religious has verified the other notes but the crime is so secret that this fourth note is not verified, he is not dismissed by law."~l Any proof that gives moral certi-tude suffices, e. g., the testimony of reliable witnesses. (e) Excommunication (c. 2385). Obviously the flight described above will usually also imply apostasy from religion if the religi-ous has perpetual vows and thus the incurring i/)so fdcto of an excommunication reserved to the ordinary.-~" 26. "A religious who attempts or contracts marriage, even the so-called civil marriage" (c. 646, § 1, 3°). The crime is the contracting (validly) or the attempting (invalidly) of marriage by any type of Catholic, non-Catholic, or civil ceremony pro-vided both parties gave a naturally valid consent. The form of celebration of a civil marriage must be valid according to the civil law of the place of celebration. A solemn vow of chastity renders marriage invalid; a simple vow forbids but does not invalidate marriage. The crime presupposes a marriage consent valid" from the natural law and is not verified if the consent is vitiated in either party by an essential defect, e. g., ignorance, simulation, physical violence, grave fear. However, it is to be presumed that true consent was given; and this pre-sumption is sufficient to declare the religious~dismissed. In itself, the invalidity of the marriage does not exclude the crime, i. e., the crime is still verified if the marriage is invalid because it was attempted outside the Church or because of a diriment impedi-ment. ~lGoyeneche, Quaestiones Canonicae, II, 153; Schaefer, op. cir., n. 1578; Bas-tien, op. cir., 446, note 2; Jone, o~0. tit., 572; Jombart, RevUe des Communautets Religieuses, 6-1930-148. 22 Cf. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, May, 1957, 158. 287 JOSEPH ~. GALLEN Review for Religious Excommunications (cc. 2388; 2319, § 1, I°~; 2385). By presum-ing to attempt marriage, both a solemnly professed religious and the other party incur an excommunication reserved simply to the Holy See (c. 2388, §.1); if the vows of the religious are simple but perpetual, the presuming to contract or attempt marriage is punished in both parties by an excommunication reserved to the ordinary (c. 2388, § 2). If the marriage is attempted before a non-Catholic minister, the punishment of a Catholic is an excommunication reserved to the ordinary (c. 2319, § 1, 1°). A marriage ceremony implies an intention never to return to the institute and thus results in an excommunication for apostasy from religion reserved to the ordinary in the case of a religious of perpetual vows (c. 2385). A civil ceremony is not punished by the code, but in some dioceses of the United States it is punished by an excommunication reserved to the o~dinary and in some others it constitutes a reserved sin. 27. Effects (c. 646, ~ 1). Upon the commission of any of the three crimes, the religious is immediately an.d i~pso facto dis-missed, by canon 646. This dismissal by law is a legitimate dis-missal and produces all the effects of the ordinary dismissal by decree. Therefore, in the case of a professed of temporary vows, the effects are ~he same as those described in n. 14; if the religious is. of p.erpetual vows, the effects are those of the'ordinary dismissal exp!ain~d in n. 21. 28. Declaration of fact (c. 646, ~ 2). This canon commands the higher superior with the consultive vote of his council to make a declaration of fact concerning the crime. Some con-stitutions restrict this right to the superior general, and some also demand a deliberative vote of the council. In monasteries of nuns, the declaration is to be made by the superioress of the monastery with the consultive or deliberative vote of the council or chapter as commanded by the constitutions. The declaration of fact is merely a description of the pertinent points of the case, the headings of the proof, e. g., a copy of the marriage record, statement of witnesses, etc., and the conclu- 288 September, 1957 DISMISSAL IN LAY INSTITUTES sion that the religious ~was dismissed in virtue of canon 646. The local superior is ordinarily in the best position to secure these proofs, e. g., the statements of witnesses. Frequently a trustworthy man such as a lawyer or priest should be deputed to secure some of the proofs in the case of an institute of women, e. g., the copy of the marriage record. The declara-tion and proofs are to be retained in the secret files of the house of the higher superior who made the declaration. The pur-pose of the declaration is to possess proof of the automatic dismissal and to prevent future doubts and difficulties, particu-larly for the eventuality of a recourse by the subject to the local ordinary or the Holy See. V. Provisional Sending Back to Secular Life (c. 653) 29. Subject. The subject of thi~ provisional return is any pro-fessed religious, man or woman, and any aggregated member of a society living in common (c. 681). Canon 653 speaks explicitly only of the perpetually professed; but afortiori, from afialogy of law, the common opinion of authors, and the practice of the Holy See in approving constitutions, the same canon applies to the professed of only temporary vows and to the aggregated members whose bond with the society is only tem-porary. 30. Reasons required. The reason must be either of the fol-lowing: (a) Grave external scandal. This is a culpable defamatory act, committed within or outside the religious house, which is well known outside the house or known only to a few externs, who, however, will not keep the matter a secret, e. g., a sin against good morals. (b) Very serious imminent injury to the community. This is an extraordinary injury or harm certainly and proximately threatening at least reductively, not merely one or some individ-uals but the religious house, province, or institute. The religious must be the cause of this harm but it is not certain that he 289 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review for" Religious must be a culpable cause. Examples of this reason are the proximate judicial accusation of a defamatory crime in either the moral or political order; sexual actions with students in an institute devoted to education when it is foreseen that these wil][ become public and bring infamy on the house, province, or institute; a serious threat to set the house on fire or against the life of a superior or another member of the institute; and a serious loss of temporal property of the house, province or institute. (c) Three conditions required in both cases. Since such an extraordinary action should not be taken against a religious because of mere probability, conjecture, or suspicion, the ex-istence of the cause must be certain; it must also be impossible to avoid the scandal or harm in other ways, e. g., by transferring the religious to another house; and there must be at least prob-ability that the scandal or harm can be averted or appreciably diminished by the provisional return to secular life. 31. Competent authority. (a) Ordinarily. Canon 653 gives the right for such action in lay institutes to the higher superior with the consent of his council. The right is therefore given by the ~ode also to provincials, even though the constitutions may affirm it only of the superior general. In prudence and if possible, the provincial should refer the case to the superior general or at least consult the latter. In a monastery of nuns, "the competent authority is the superioress with the consent of her council. (b) In a more urgent case. In a case in which the time re-quired for recourse to the superior general or provincial would imperil the avoidance of the scandal or injury, the competent authority is the local superior with the consent of his council and also the consent of the local ordinary. If it is impossible to have recourse to the local ordinary and the case will not admit _.3 Berutti, De Religiosis, 349; Bouscaren-Ellis, Canon La~w, 319. 290 September, 1957 DISMISSAL IN LAY INSTITUTES o~. delay, it is.safely probable that this action may be taken by the local superior with only the consent of his council.'~4 32. Final adjudication of the case. (a) Report. A report of the case should always be made out without delay and submitted to the authority competent for a final decision of the matter. The report is to contain the religious and family name of the subject, date, age, date of entrance, date of temporary or perpetual profession, house to which he was assigned at the time of the return to secular life, cause of this return, proofs and present state of this cause, a brief record of the past of the religious insofar as it is pertinent to the cause 6f his return and dismissal, the name and rank of the superior who effected the return, the fact that the consent of the council and of the local ordinary, when prescribed, was obtained; and, if the latter was not secured, the report is to state the reasons that'justified its omission. (b) Authority competent for a final decision. Canbn 653 states that the case is to be referred to the Holy See without delay. This canon, however, is to be interpreted in the light of the other canons on the competent authority for dismissal; and it is admitted doctrine that the authority competent for an ordinary dismissal by decree is competent also for the final decision in the case of a provisional return to secular life.~'~ Therefore, the case is to be referred, according to the nature of the institute and the vows of the subject, to the authority competent for dismissal by decree stated in nn. 2-5. 33. Effects. As soon as the provisional return is decided, the re-ligious puts off the religious habit and leaves the institute. The return to secular life is a provisional measure. It is not a dismissal and does not produce the effects of a dismissal. The competent authority mentioned above decides for or against dismissal and 24Cf. Tabera, 0p. tit., 14-1933-58; Goyeneche, De Religiosis, 221, note 31; Palombo, op. cir., n. 192; Schaefer, 0iL cir., n. 1609; O'Neill, The Dismissal of Religious in Temporary l/o~vs, 104. 25Cf. O'Neill, op. cir., 103-104; Schaefer, op. cir., n. 1636; Wernz-Vidal De Religiosis, 490, note 13; Bastien, o~0. cir., n. 645, 4; Palombo, op. cir., n. 195; Tabera, op. cir., 14-1933-57; Vermeersch-Creusen, Epitome luris Canonicl, I, n. 807. 291 JOSEPH F. GALLEN decrees the dismissal in the t~ormer case. The charitable subsidy is to be given to a religious woman who is provi~ionally sent back to secular lithe.2° SOME BOOKS RECEIVED [Only books sent directly to the Book Review Editor, West Baden College, West Baden Springs, Indiana, are included in our Reviews and Announcements. The following books were sent to St. Marys.] The 1957 National Catholic Almanac. Edited by Felician A. Foy, O.F.M. St. Anthony's Guild, Paterson, New Jersey. $2.00 (paper cover). Does God Exist? By Alfred M. Mazzei. Translated by Daisy Corinne Fornacca. Society of St. Paul, New York, N.Y. $3.50. St. Bernadette Speaks. By Albert Bessi~res, S.J. Translated by The Earl of Wicklow. Clonmore & Reynolds Ltd., 29 Kildare St., Dub-lin. 10/6. Queen of Heaven. By Ren~ Laurentin. Translated by Gordon Smith. Clonmore & Reynolds Ltd., 29 Kildare St., Dublin, 12/6. Le Ciel ou l'Enfer. II. l'Enfer. By Chanoine G. Panneton. Beau-chesne et ses Fils, Rue de Rennes, Paris. Methods of Prayer in the Directory of the Carmelite Reform of Touraine. By Kilian J, Healy, O. Carm. Institutum Carmelitanum, Via Sforza Pallavicini, 10, Rome. Some Philosophers on Education. Edited by Donald A. Gallagher. Marquette University Press, 1131 Wisconsin Ave., Milwaukee 3, Wis-consin. $2.50 (paper cover). Wellsprings of the Faith. By Most Reverend John C. McQuaid, D.D. Clonmore & Reynolds Ltd., 29 Kildare St., Dublin. 18/-. The Reluctant Abbess. By Margaret Trouncer. Sheed and Ward, 840 Broadway, New York 3, New York. $3.75. Quadalupe to Lourdes. "By Frances Parkinson Keyes. Catechetical Guild Educational Society, St. Paul 2, Minnesota. $0.50 (paper cover). The Mystery of My Future. By Jean De Larhove. Society of St. Paul, 2187 Victory Blvd., Staten Island 14, New York. $2.50. Of the Imitation of Christ. By Thomas a Kempis. Translated by Abbot Justin McCahn. The New American Library of World Literature, Inc., 501 Madison Ave., New York 22, New York. $0:50 (paper cover). The Caiholic Booklist 1957. Edited by Sister Mary Luella, O.P. Rosary College, River Forest, Illinois. $0.75 (paper cover). ¯ _,6 Cf. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOt;S, September, 1956, 235-36. 292 Our Supernat:ural Organism Daniel J./~. Callahan, $.J. GOD IS THE author of all things. The more science ad-vances, the more does it disclose the wonders of His crea-tion. Even a superficial reading of a manual of biology or physics or chemistry or astronomy wrings from us the words of the Psalmist: "How great are thy works, O Lord. Thou hast made all things in wisdom; the earth is filled with thy riches" (Ps. 103:24 ). These divine masterpieces, especially as mani-fested in man, qualify us by analogy for the marvels of the supernatura! order. God gives life in the embryonic state and with it an or-ganism capable of developing the tiny creature into the pleni-tude of its specific perfection. The fundamental natural prin-ciple of this evolution is the vital principle within it, which energizes it and is the source of its least activity. Its separation from the bodily element would mean the termination of growth, deterioration, death. In us the human soul is the basic source of our natural life; its faculties or powers are the immediate cause of our vital activities and these in turn bring to perfec-tion our human life. To all this the supernatural is closely analogous as will appear from a brief study of the components of its organism. Sanctifying Grace Appropriately this may be styled the soul of the higher life in us. Only from divine revelation do we know its exis-tence and nature, and it will be useful to recall here what rev-elation tells us about this precious endowment. It is something most real; a spiritual quality inherent in our soul and of such an excellence'that only God could be its principal cause; it is a stable quality, an adornment abiding in the soul till forfeited through mortal sin; it is a totally free gift to which no one of us could lay claim and which transforms us into God:like 293 DANIEL J. M. (~ALLAHAN Review for Religious beings resembling our eternal Father and enabling us to share, in a finite manner, in His life. That life comprises the infinite contemplation;, love, and possession of His uncreated perfec-tion. To this no creature by its native powers could aspire. By a privilege entirely gratuitous God destines us for the immediate visiofi of Himself in heaven and adapts us ~or it through sanctifying grace. Attended by faith; hope, and charity such grace equips us to know, love, possess God, imperfectly, of course," as He knows, loves, and possesses Himself; and thus we enter into the divine life and become truly His children. And while this life is distinct from our natural life, it is not merely superimposed on the latter: it penetrates it through and through, elevating and transforming it. Leaving intact all the natural goodness that is ours, sanctifying grace imparts a new orientation to everything within us, establishes new relations to the Blessed Trinity, and inaugurates on earth the life of the blessed. To aid us in the apprehension of this prerogative, writers resort to many comparisons and illustrations. They liken the soul to a living image of the adorable Trinity., divinely impressed on the soul as the seal leaves its image on the wax, lavishing on it an entrancing beauty since the prototype and the artist is no other than God. Again such a soul is compared to a trans-parent body receiving the sun's rays and, all aglow" itself, radiating them in all directions; to a bar of steel plunged into a furnace and sharing the heat, brightness, and pliancy of the fire; to a branch engrafted into a plant, maintaining its identity while partaking of the life of the plant; to the union in us of soul and body where the soul quickens and energizes the body even as grace communicates a new life and effects our most intimate union with God. Finally, an analogy with the hypo-static union in Christ is introduced; and, though the soul's union with God is only accidental, yet it is the union of a substance with a substance; and, while the hypostatic union results in the God-man, the union through grace issues in a God-like being, 294 September, 1957 OUR SUPERNATURAL ORGANISM whose actions are performed at once by the Creator and His creature, even as in Christ His actions were shared in by both His divine and human nature. And though our union with God is neither hypostatic nor substantial in the proper sense, for we always retain our personality and the union is only accidental, it is not merely the intimacy of two friends, for it rests on a/physical quality abiding in the soul and on physical bonds intensifying and safeguarding that union. The three Divine Persons are immediately presefit to the soul in a com-pletely new way and are possessed and enjoyed by it. Though the precise nature of this extraordinary inhabitation continues to exercise theologians, we are assured that it is capable of indefinite expansion up to the last breath of life here below, and this in p.roportion to our surrender to the Holy Spirit through the removal of all barriers and the cultivation of the infused virtues and the gifts of the Holy Ghost. The Infused Virtues In the natural order our soul functions through its faculties or powers. It thinks through the intellect; .it loves through the will; it senses through our different senses. These faculties bestowed on us together with the soul, by means of their varied activities, are susceptible of tremendous development. In the supernatural order grace parallels the soul, and the infused virtues are its chief faculties. These emanate from sanctifying grace, elevate our mind and will, enable us to perform supernatural, meritorious deeds. Virtue may be described as a good habit designed for action. It is natural if it has been acquired through the repeti-tion of the same specific act and communicates facility in doing so; if directly granted by God and if it confers the ability to do something, it is called infused. The natural virtues facilitate nat-ural righte6usness; the infused confer the power to act on a superhuman level. These latter are usually divided into theologi-cal and moral. The former have God for their formal and principal material object; in the concrete they are faith, hope, and charity and unite the soul directly to God. The moral 295 DANIEL J. M. CALLAHAN Review for Religious virtues have for their objective some moral good distinct from God, serve to eliminate the hindrances to divine union and to stabilize it, and are commonly listed under the four cardinal vi£tues. The theological virtues certainly accompany sanctifying grace and integrate the process of justification, and it is the generally accepted doctrine that the moral virtues also are then bestowed. ¯ All of these virtues are susceptible of increment and 'do increase proportionally with the increase of grace, just as the branches of the tree ke~p pace with the expansion of the trunk. Apart from the complete loss of the virtue, may they diminish? In general, any activity that is discontinued or exercised bnly rarely tends to decline or even to cease. Venial sins, especially when frequent and deliberate, considerably impede the practice of virtue and thus diminish the facility previously attained. Neglect of actual graces may likewise occ~lsion the privation of such helps as notably conduce to acts of virtue and add vigor and polish to them. And though venial sins do not directly decrease or destroy the infused virtues, it remains true that such failings open the way for serious lapses and the destruction of th.e virtues. Do all grave sins deprive us of these? Faith is destroyed only through a mortal sin of infidelity, hope through the same and that of despair; charity and the infused moral virtues, through any mortal sin. Relative to the duration ot~ all such virtues, in the lost none of them persists; the theological remain in the souls in purgatory; in heaven there will be neither acts of faith nor of hope relative to God, and most probably not relative to objects distinct from Him. And whereas neither the moral virtues nor those of faith and hope will endure in the blessed, these will retain the virtue of charity and live a life of the purest actual love. The Gifts of the Holy Spirit There is unanimity among Catholic theologians about the existence of such gifts, but their specific nature is widely contro-verted. In accordance with the doctrine of St. Thomas (Summa, 296 September, ~957 OUR SUPERNATURAL ORGANISM I-II, q. 68, a. 3), the most prevalent opinion is that they are supernatural habits, distinct from the virtues, implanted in the soul conjointly with sanctifying grace, which impart a recep-tiveness, a docility to the impulse of the Holy Spirit, a more prompt and more generous cooperation with His grace. They would appear to be, at least in the early stages, not operative habits like the virtues, but rather dispositive, adjusting the soul for a better reaction to the divine intervention. Their func-tion, then, is that 0f perfecting the exercise of the virtues. There is no certainty about their number; and, while conferred simultaneously with grace, a more copious outpouring may be the fruit of the sacrament of confirmation. The docility issu-ing from these' gifts improves perceptibly through prayer for fidelity to grace, through a life of faith and recollection, through the cultivation of the moral virtues and due control over our passions, for unless these latter are consistently mortified, the inordinate attachments in the soul will hamper us in discerning, accepting, and responding to the inspirations of grace. We must combat the spirit of the world which is diametrically op-posed to the divine and school ourselves in prompt, magnani-mous compliance with God's will. The more complete our surrender' to Him, the more will He be pleased to enlighten and inflame us. Actual Grace just as in the natural order we cannot bring power into motion without the concurrence of the Almighty, so also in the supernatural. Such cooperation is known as actual grace to distinguish it from habitual grace previously considered. It is a transitory aid imparted by God, consisting in the illumina-tion of the mind and the urge of the will for the performance of a supernatural act. It sets the intellect and heart in motion and enables them to function on a superhuman level. In the concrete, it is a holy thought, a salutary incitement of the will, produced by God who directly influences our rational faculties, stimulating them to operate, and cooperating with them to 297 DANIEL J. M. CALLAHAN Review for Religious elicit a good thought and a salutary desire in keeping with the special need of the moment. The thought is most real and comes directly'from God; it is a holy thought, designed for the spiritual benefit of the individual. When we say "salutary desire," we understand any good act of the will, for instance, the love of good, hatred of evil, fear of divine punishment, sorrow for sin, joy 'in well-doing. It is a real act of the will. Antecedent to our activity God lovingly takes the initiative and continues to act within us and with. us for the accomplishment of a deed that will conduce to life eternal. This assistance is not permanent; it persists only while its purpose lasts; and it influences us in a moral way through attraction and persuasion and physically by adding energy to our intellectual faculties too weak to act of themselves. As religious we are to be profoundly penetrated with the conviction of our need of such divine assistance. It is necessary for the achievement of every supernatural act: for the prelim-inary acts of faith, hope, sorrow requisite for the remission of sin. The constant endeavor to resist temptations which assail even the just, as well as our steadfastness in good living, are the fruits of actual grace. Obviously, then, we have not the power to persevere in religion and even to reach perfection through our unaided strength. Christ's memorable words, "Without Me you can do nothing" (Jn. 15:6), are pertinent to the natural and supernatural levels. Everyone who attains the use of reason needs this grace and all such receive it. It proceeds from the love of God; the ordinary channels for its dispensation are the sacraments, prayer, and'our meritorious deeds; and the more generous our cooperation with grace received the more will be granted, for here, as in the entire economy of salvation, God takes the initiative, awaits our free reaction, and assures us that He will" bestow th~ necessary help for the completion of our project. Conformity to the divine will, consequent peace of soul, trust, and magnanimity are supremely important in the struggle for real sanctity. 298 September, 1957 OUR SUPERNATURAL ORGANISM Appreciation "If thou didst know the gift of God" (Jn. 4:19) spoke Jesus to the Samaritan woman, referring to the supernatural life which He communicates to us through His vivifying action, here compared to water springing from an unfailing source. Religious have totally consecrated themselves to God; to Him they belong entirely; and there must be in them the life that is His. In them the supernatural must always be dominant. It is a treasure to be courageously safeguarded even at the cost of sacrifice; it is an endowment to be zealously augmented; it is a life and life is essentially progressive. Cessation of growth soon induces recession. In the wake of tepidity and lethargy spiritual death follows closely. The law of spiritual gravity is to be counteracted through p.urity of intention at all times, through earnestness even in small affairs, through fervent, per-severing prayer, and through the frequent reception of the sacraments of penance and Holy Communion. "Walk in a manner worthy of the calling with whic'h you are called," wrote 'St. Paul to the Ephesians (4:1 ff.), "with all humility and meek-ness, with patience bearing with one another in love, careful to preserve the unity of the. spirit iri the bond of peace; one body and one 'Spirit . . . one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is above all and .throughout all and in all." Surely a relevant injunction for all religious. OUR CONTRIBUTORS BONAVENTURE BALSAM is engaged in parish work at St. Anthony's Priory, 4640 Canal Street, New Orleans, Louisiana. JOSEPH F. GALLEN is professor of canon law at Woodstock Col-lege, Woodstock, Maryland. DANIEL J. M. CALLAHAN is profes-sor of ascetical and mystical theology at Woodstock College, Wood-stock, Maryland. 299 Survey ot: Roman Documen!:s R. ~. Smil:h, S.J. IN THIS survey only those documents will be considered which appeared in the ./Iota/lpostolicae Sedis (AAS) during the months of April and May, 1957. Hence all page references throughout the survey are to AAS of 1957 (v. 49). The African Missions On Easter Sunday, April 21, 1957 (AAS, pp. 225-48),. the Holy Father issued a new encyclical letter which is entitled Fidei Donum (TheGift of Faith) and which treats of Africa and its missions. After noting that man'.s gratitude for the gift of faith is best shown by spreading the light of Christ's truth, His Holi-ness remarks that while he is not unaware of the grave and pressing problems attending the spread of the Faith in all parts of the world, yet special attention is needed in the case of Africa, for this continent now finds itself on the threshold of its political and cultural maturity and faced with circumstances the import-ance of which is rivaled by nothing in the previous history of /~frica'. The Vicar of Christ then begins the first of the four sections into which the encyclical letter is divided. This first section is devoted to an over-all picture of the missionary scene in Africa. Most of the countries of the continent, the Pope says, are in the midst of profound social, economic, and political changes which will have a lasting effect on the fut.ure lives of these nations. The Church which has seen the rise and growth of so many nations cannot but be intensely interested in the peoples of Africa who are now attaining their civil rights. It is at this point that the Holy Father exhorts the coloniz-ing nations to grant civil rights to peoples who are prepared for them; and at the same time he urges the colonial peoples of 300 ROMAN DOCUMENTS Africa to be grateful .for .~vhat they have received from the vari-ous countries of Europe. Only such a harmonious attitude will exclude prejudice and exaggerated nationalism and will permit the peoples of Africa to experience the entire range of benefits which flow from the religion of Christ. Pius XII is especially concerned that in many countries of Africa atheistic materialism has been spreading the seed of its doctrine, thereby arousing jealousy between nations, inducing false perspectives in the matter of temporal prosperity, and excit-ing to rebellion. The presence of this atheistic materialism in Africa, thinks the Pontiff, is particularly grave owing to the fact that the peoples of Africa, because they wish to accomplish in a few years what ~he peoples of Europe took centuries to achieve, are psychologically vulnerable to the specious .promises which materialism offers. The H01y Father continues by remarking that of all the missionary regions of the world, Africa is the one with the greatest needs. African mission posts which have been estab-lished in the last ten or twenty years cannot expect a sufficient number of native clergy for a long time, while the missionaries in such stations are few and widely scattered throughout large regions where, moreover, non-Catholic religions are also spread-ing their doctrines. The gravity of the situation can be illustrated by one region of Africa where there are 2,000,000 inhabitants but only 50 priests whose energies, moreover, are completely absorbed in the care of the 60,000 persons already converted to Catholicism. Twenty more missionaries in such regions at the present time would mean, the Vicar of Christ sadly comments, the spreading of the banner of the cross in places which twenty years from now will be impossible of access. Moreover, twenty more missionaries would mean that the Church could educate in such regions a corps of African Catholics equipped to meet the social and political needs of the continent. Nor are difficulties lacking in African missionary centers which have long been established. Such centers too feel the 301 R. F. SMITH Review for Religious extreme lack of missionaries. Moreover, the bishops and vicars apostolic of Africa are obliged to provide for their flocks a full Catholic life; and this necessitates in turn schools, colleges, social institutes, all the modern communication arts. Such needs can be met only by a great flow of material and apostolic help to the continent of Africa where 85,000,000 human beings are still attached to the practice of paganism. The Holy Father centers the second part of his encyclical around the theme that the problems of the Church in Africa are not merely local difficulties, but are of vital concern to the entire Mystical Body. Bishops, those preeminent members of the Mystical Body, should have a special concern for the Church in Africa, for they as the legitimate successors of the apostles retain the duty of preaching to all nations. Moreover, continues the Holy Father, there ig not a Catholic in the world who should not be interested in the problems of the Church in Africa. Nothing that is characteristic of the Church should be absent from the mental outlook of the individual Catholic. If then catholicity or universality is one of the characteristics of that Church which is the mother of all nations, breadth of outlook must also mark the individual Catholic. In the third part of the encyclical the Holy Father dis-cusses the means by which Catholics can aid the missions of Africa. ~The first means is that of continual and earnest prayer. The best prayer, of course, will be that which Chris~, our High Priest, daily offers on our altars. And while the faith-ful should be instructed that it is good to offer Mass for their private intentions, still they should also be taught to give atten-tion to those petitions with which the Mass is primarily and neces-sarily concerned and "which include the we~Ifare and propaga-tion of the entire Church. To prayer must be added alms or material help, for present needs far exceed the help now being given. The faithful in other parts of the world should compare their conditions with the 302 September', 1957 ROMAN DOCUMENTS situations of missionary countries and see who are the real need~i of the Church. Hence the Vicar of Christ urges that each Catholic make an examination of conscience to consider if there is not something tl~at can be given up in order that material aid might be given to the missions. The third way of helping Africa is through the fostering of vocations to missionary work.~ Bishops should train their flocks in such a way that there will always be members of that flock ready to heed the Lord's command i~ Genesis 12:1 to leave one's land and the house of one's father. Dioceses with a suffi-ciency of priests should give of their workers to the missions; and even dioceses which themselves suffer from a scarcity of priestly workers can still offer their mite as did the widow in the gospel story. The problem of missionary recruitment, however, can be met only by the ~oncerted work of all the bishops who should encourage the Missionary Union of the Clergy, foster the work of pontifical missionary associations, and be aware of the needs of those religious institutes which do missionary work but which cannot increase the number of their vocations without th~ under-standing assistance of the local ordinary. Finally, the Holy Father approves the practice of a diocese lending some of its priests to missions for a limited time. The fourth part' of the encyclical consists of a brief conclu-sion in which the Holy Father repeats that he is as interested in all the missions as he is in those of Africa. To all missionaries of the entire world he extends his gratitude and his congratula-tions and exhorts them to labor fervently in the work to which they have been called. Lenten and Easter Messages On March 5, 1957 (AAS, pp. 208,15), the Holy Father gave his usual Lenten allocution to the parish priests and Lenten preachers of Rome. The present year, begins the Holy Father, marks the fifth anniversary ot: the inauguration of the movement 303 R. F. SMITH Review for Religious "Fora Better World." After detailing the work accomplished in the diocese of Rome during that period and after noting the things yet to be done, His Holiness then urges his listeners to sow the seed that is the word of God. To preach anything but the word of God, he warns them, is to sow destruction. He gives special attention to the matter of Sunday preaching, insist-ing that nothing can achieve so much as this regular and familiar custom so long in use in the Church. Finally,. he recalls to his listeners the fact that the true sower of the good seed is God and that they are but instruments in His hand; what changes then would sweep the world if all who preached did so as ones truly coming with the power of God. The Holy Father's Easter message, delivered on April 21, 1957 (AAS pp. 276-80), was a meditative reflection on the phrase "O truly blessed night" of Holy Saturday's E, xultet. The night preceding the Resurrection, His Holiness begins, was one of desolation, tears, and darkness: Christ is dead; His flock is scattered; all is apparently in ruin. Nevertheless, even in that night there are signs of the dawn to come: the body of Christ suffers not the slightest taint of corruption and Mary prays in quiet confidence and expectation. That night before the Resurrection is also a symbol, adds the Vicar of Christ, of the night in which modern men find themselves: they must live in fear; their intelligences are cap-tured by error; immorality has reached a new depth. Neverthe-less, there are signs of a new day dawning. Science is provi-dentially multiplying the means to a fuller and freer life, while technology is providing the way to make these means available on a large scale. Moreover, men are now beginning to realize that the night of modern times is here because Christ has again been betrayed and crucified. Day will finally come to modern man when Christ restores grace to the individual soul and takes His rightful place in human social life. The Holy Father con-cludes his Easter message to mankind with a prayer that Christ may send the angel of the Resurrection to remove the obstacles 304 September, 1957 ROMAN DOCUMENTS which men have built up :but which they are now powerless to remove. To Hospital Sisters On April 24, 1957 (AAS, pp. 291-96), Pius XII spoke to some 2,000 Italian hospital sisters who had met for the first time in a national meeting to discuss their common problems. The Pontiff began with a forceful statement of the part that religious women play in the life of the Church today, remarking that many branches of the Church's apostolate, especially those concerned with education and with works of chariiy, would be inconceivable without the existence of religious sisters. This said, the Holy Father then began to discuss with them the ideals of their relig-ious life. It is.a truth of our faith, he notes, that virginity is higher than the married state; for through virginity the soul achieves an immediate relationship with God that is one of absolute and indissoluble love. The virginal soul takes everything that God has given her to be a wife and mother and offers it back to Him in a complete and perpetual holocaust. In order to love God, the vi,rginal soul does not reach Him through other loves: noth-ing is interposed between such a soul and God. Hence it is that a religious must be a true spouse of our Lord, uniquely, indissolubly, and intimately united with Him. Hospital sisters then must take care that their assistance to the sick does not interfere with their spirit of absolute and perpetual devotion to God, guarding against all disordered activity which leaves them neither time nor repose for prayer to Christ. They must also guard themselves against long and frequent withdrawals from common life, that strong protection of the interior life. And they must watch carefully over their spirit of individual and collective poverty, making certain that their hospitals do not assume the character of merely money-making organizations. Turning now to their work for the sick, the Vicar of Christ notes that the existence of special institutions for the care of the 305 R. F. SMITH Review for Religious sick stemmed historically from the charity of the Church. Even today, when so many are interested in the care of the suffering, the Church will never abandon her task of caring' for the sick, for no one can take the place of the Church at the side of one who besides a body also possesses a soul whose needs and claims are often greater than those of the body. It is for this reason that the Holy Father urges hospital sis-ters to continue their work. Besides being perfect religious, they must also know and use the latest scientific methods and ap-paratus. They must train themselves to a motherly kindness that is linked with a strong element of firmness. They must lead a fully dynamic life and still retain their calm and serenity. Here the Holy Father adds that superiors must see to it that community time-schedules and practices do not make the sisters' work ineffi-cient and more difficult. In conclusion the Holy Father dwells at some length on the recommendation that the sisters train themselves always to see Christ in each of their patients. If they do so, he notes, then it will be easy to pass from the chapel to the sick room; religious observance and care for the sick will not interfere one with the other; and there will be no interruption of the sisters' union with Christ. The Holy Father then blessed the assembled sisters and concluded ~ith a remark that all hospital sisters will treasure: "The Church, the Pope, are depending on you: on your complete dedication, on your abilities, and on your spirit of love." Miscellaneous Matters Under the date March 19, 1957 (AAS, pp. 176-77), the Holy Father issued the rnotu proprio Sacram Co~nmunionern in which he provided that henceforth local ordinaries (with the exception of vicars general) may permit daily celebration of after-noon Mass provided the spiritual good of a notable part of the faithful warrants such a permission. His Holiness also further mitigated the Eucharistic fast. The drinking of water does not 306 September, 1957 ROMAN DOCUMENTS break the fast'; and the time element for the Eucharistic fast is the following: Before the celebration of Mass in the case of priests and before the reception of Communion in the case of the faithful, solid food and alcoholic drink must be abstained from for three hours, while non-alcoholic drink must be abstained from for one hour. These time regulations extend both to morning and afternoon celebration of Mass and reception of Communion; and they must also be observed by those celebrating Mass at midnight or at the early hours of the morning as well as by those receiving Communion at such times. Finally, the Holy Father grants to the sick, even those not confined to bed, the .permission to take non-alcoholic drinks as well as liquid or solid medicine at any time before the celebration of Mass or the reception of Communion: Three documents of April and May of this year concerned the saints. The first of these is an apostolic letter of the Roman Pontiff which is dated June 8, 1956 (AAS, pp. 199-200), and which appoints St. Dominic Savio the patron of all choir boys. The other two documents are decrees of the Sacred Congre- - gation of Rites, both being dated January 22, 1957 (AAS, pp. 251-56). In the first of these decrees the congregation affirms the heroic virtue of the Venerable Servant of God Sister Mary Celine of the Presentation, professed nun of the Second Order of St. Francis (1878-97); the second decree affirms the heroic virtue of the Vdnerable Servant of God Sister Teresa of Jesus Journet Ibars, foundress of the Congregation of Little Sisters of the Indigent Aged (1843-97). Priests will be interested in the Holy Father's letter, dated March 25, 1957 (AAS, pp. 272-75), and sent to Cardinal Feltin of Paris on the.occasion of the 300th anniversary of the death of Jean-Jacques Olier, founder of the Society of St. Sulpice. - Olier, the Holy Father notes, recalls to the present generation the truth that the greatness and power of a priest consists in being a man of God and a man of ihe Church. As a man of God the priest must have two indispensable qualities: prayer 307 R. F. SMITH Review for Religious exercised especially through meditation and the Divine Office; and asceticism, manifested principally by a perfect chastity of heart and body. The priest then must always be aware that union with God is the indispensable prerequisite for apostolic fecundity and that the cross is the only instrument of salvation: evil is still cast out only by prayer and fasting. As a man of the Church, concludes the Holy Father, the priest must realize that all personal sanctity and apostolic effectiveness must be founded on constant and-exact obedience to the hierarchy. ¯ Several documents of the period surveyed are concerned in one way or another with matters educational and intellectual. On March 24, 1957 (AAS, pp. 281-87), the Holy Father addressed a group of 50,000 college students of Rome and gave them some detailed advice on their studies, urging them to dedicate them-selves completely to the pursuit of truth. A month later on April 25, 1957 (AAS, pp. 296-300), His Holiness spoke to the members of the eleventh plenary assembly of Pax Romana, telling them that no Catholic can be indifferent to the new world com-munity now in process of formation. This is especially true, he says, of Catholics engaged in intellectual work, for it is their task to spread Catholic truth and to give it practical application in all areas of human activity. Educational and intellectual matters also figure in two decrees issued by the Sacred Congregation of Seminaries and Universities. In the first of these decrees, dated-November 4, 1956 (AAS, pp. 219-20), provision is made for the canonical erection of a faculty of theology in Sophia University in Tokyo. In the other decree, dated December 20, 1956 (AAS, p. 308), . a faculty of philosophy was canonically erected in the Catholic University of Quito. Thre~ documents of April and May of this year pertain to political matters. On February 16, 1957 (AAS, pp. 201-5), a c-onvgntion was ratified betweeri the Holy See and the German Federal State of North-Rhine-Westphalia concerning the estab-lishment of a new diocese of Essen. On March 28, 1957 (AAS, 308 September, 1957 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS pp. 287-88), the Pontiff:addressed a group of young Berlin Catholics, telling them that the state must always respect the rights of individuals and of families and adding a plea for a united Europe and for the moral conditions without which such a union can never be realized. On Aprii 28, 1957 (AAS, pp. 300-301), the Pope gave a brief address on Communism, empha-sizing that the events of the last fdw months have clearly shown' to all men the aberrations of that way of life. Two other documents may be mentioned by way of conclud-ing this survey. On March 6, 1957 (AAS, pp. 215-17), the Holy Father sent a radio message to the school children of the United States exhorting them to be generous in contributing help for the needy children of other countries. And on Apri'l 23, 1957 (AAS, pp. 289-90), His Holiness spoke to a small group of Paris lawyers, extolling their° dignity as men devoted to the defense of law and of humanity and remarking that their profession is noteworthy as showing the value of humanism in a world where technical and scientific education is at a premium. Questions and Answers [The following answers are given by Father Joseph F. GaIlen, S.J., professor of canon law at Woodstock Coll~ge, Woodstock, Maryland.'] 29 Are the professed of temporary vows obliged by canon law to return to the motherhouse two months before perpetual profession, remain there, and prepare for this profession? No. You are applying to the professed of temporary vows what an instruction of the Sacred Congregation-of Religious, November 3, 1921, had commanded only for novices employed in the external works of a congregation during the second year of noviceship. The code does not even command a retreat before perpetual profession. The constitutions almost universally prescribe such a retreat, and the usual duration is eight full. days. A shorter retreat is also found, for" 309 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Review for Religioue example, five or six days. It seems evidvnt enough that the constitu-tions or customs should command a retreat before perpetual profession. It would also be reasonable and profitable to prescribe a longer period of greater recollection .before perpetual profession. REVIEW FOR RE-LIGIOUS, September, 1953, 267; November, 1955, 313. --30-- Hasn't the movement of renovation and adaptation suggested any new laws whatsoever concerning poverty? This movement is primarily spiritual, theological, educational, formative, and apostolic. It is only very secondarily canonical or legal. Therefore, in the matter of poverty the emphasis of the move-ment is on the striving for detachment that. leads to an intensified love of God (REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, November, 1955, 302; September, 1956, 269-70). No new laws on poverty have been enacted by the Holy See, and no important suggestion for a new law has been made by authors with regard to the poverty of solemn profession. In the 'matter of the poverty of institutes of simple vows, suggestions have been.maple for inclusion in constitutions that are being origitxally approved or revised. The purpose of these suggestions is to make the poverty of simple p*ofession at least approach that of solemn profession. They are founded on the principle that in itself it is more in accord with evangelical poverty to give away one's property than to retain it for life and to be deprived or restricted in the right of acquiring property for oneself than to retain this right in an almost unlimited manner. The su.ggestions are thus reducible to two headings. 1. Right of acquisition. A limitation of the right of acquisition is according to the mind of the Sacred Congregation of Religious. In new or revised constitution~, congregations of men or women may in-clude an article of the following type: "After profession, whether of temporary or perpetual ~,ows, the religious acquire for themselves only property received as an inheritance or legacy from relatives to the second degree. All other temporal goods are acquired for the con-gregation." This practice may be followed only by institutes that have such a provision in their approved constitutions. An article of this nature would effect a purer poverty and would also eliminate some practical 310 September, 1957 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS difficulties and abuses. The meaning of relativ.es may be confined to blood relatives or extended also to relatives by marriage. The degrees would be computed according to canon law. 2. Giving away or renouncing one's property. New or revised con-stitutions of women may contain an ~rticle of the following type: "A professed sister, whether of temporary or perpetual vows, may not alienate the ownership of her property by a free gift effective during her lifetime. However, the professed of perpetual vows may (or, are counselled to) give all the property they own to the congregation under the form of a dowry." The similar article for institutes of men would be: "A professed religious, vShether of temporary or per-petual vows, may not alienate the ownership of his property by a free gift effective during his lifetime. However, the professed of perpetual vows may (or, are counselled toI give all the property they own to the congregation under the condition that the capital sum will be restored to them if they should leave or be dismissed." Either of the practices of the preceding paragraph, since they are not contrary to the code, may be ~ollowed even if not contained in the constitutions. The second sentence in Zither article may be introduced by an apt spiritual phrase, e. g., lCor their greater sancti-fication, for their greater poverty, for the greater purity of their evangelical poverty. There would be no difficulty also in applying either practice to the professed of temporary vows. In both cases the capital sum of the property will be restored to a religious who leaves, is excluded from further profession, or is dismissed. This fact would pro.tect the right of the religious to leave, if he wishes to do so, aad ,~iould also prevent want in the case of a departure, both of which constitute the purpose of the retention of property in congregations. Neither practice would prevent the religious from applying part or all of the income oa his property to other good purposes, e. g., to needy relatives, nor, with the permissioa of the Holy ~;ee, all or part of the capital sum of his personal property. However, it does not seem contrary to the mind of the Sacred Congregation for new or revised constitutions not merely to permit or counsel but to impose either practice with regard to all the personal property of a religious (REvIsw FOP, RELIGIOUS, September, 1953, 258-59; Escudero, /Iota et Documenta Congressus Generalis de Statib'us Per[ectionis, I, 377; Muzzarelli, ibid., 430-31). 311 ~UEsTIONS AND ~NSWERS ~31m What is the law for the last Gospel according to the simplified rubrics? The last Gospel is always that of St. John except in the third Mass on Christmas and low Masses on Palm Sunday at which the palms are not blessed. Cf. Bugnini-Bellocchio, De Rubricis ad Sira-pliciorem Formam Redi#endis, 69; Bugnini, The Simpli/ication of the Rubric, s, 113; J. B. O'Connell, Simpii[yin# the Rubrics, 71; The Cele-bration o[ Mass, 178. What Mass may be said on the Saturday of Our Lady (S. Maria in Sabbato)? The Mass of the Saturday of Our Lady; the Daily Mass of the Dead and any votive Mass that is not of the BlesSed Mother, but both of these, if low, are forbidden during the three periods of January 2-5; January 7-12; and Ascension-Vigil of Pentecost; and the Mass of an occurring simple feast or mere commemoration, e. g., on Jan-uary 5, 19; July 13, 27; August 3; September 28; October 5, 26 in the ordo of the Universal Church for 1957. As stated above, the only Mass of the Blessed Mother permitted is that of S. Maria in Sabbato. Cf. Wuest-Mullaney-Barry Matters Liturgical, n. 252. --33-- What should be done if a check in a small amount is received for your own personal, use? Endorse the check and drop it in the treasurer's box. The inten-tion of such a donor is certainly not that the religious should sin by using the money without permission. Neither are we to presume that a donor intends that the religious should make use of the gift in a way that is contrary to the greater perfection of the religious. Externs are fully conscious that the religious is in the state of perfection and that his life should be distinguished by renunciation and self-denial. They are readily scandalized at the lack of these qualities. If you have any material necessity, the more perfect time to ask for it is not on the occasion of receiving a gift. Cf. gEVlEW FOg gELIG~OUS, January, 1949, 39. 312 Book Reviews [Material for this department should be sent to Book Review Editor, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, West Baden College, West Baden Springs, Indiana.] THE ROMAN CATACOMBS AND THEIR MARTYRS. By Lud-wig Hertling, S.J., and Engelb~rt Kirschbaum, S.J. Translated from the German by M. Joseph Costelloe, S.J. Pp. 224. The Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee I. 1956. $3.50. It is a pleasure to ir~troduce this excellent hook to readers of the REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. The subject is nowhere so well presented, to my knowledge, within the compass of one modest volume. It is com-petent; it is well ordered; it is readable; it is warm with the sympathies of the Christian tradition of culture. Archaeology, in all its branches, has a remarkable appeal to many people today, no doubt becauseit brings to them a new and vivid revelation.of the community of human nature with itself. The catacombs of Rome, with their touching expression of the pi.eties of our forefathers in the faith, reveal to Christians the communion of saints. A Catholic feels wonderfully at home in these ancient resting places of our dead. The authors are professors of ecclesiastical history and of achae-ology, respectively, in the Gregorian University and scholars of estab-lished authority in their fields. Father Kirschbaum was one of the four commissioned by Pius XII to investigate the reputed site, under the high altar of St. Peter's, of the apostolic tomb. A brief account of the results Of their quest is among the points of major interest in this book. Father Costelloe'meets with ease the two great exigencies of the translator's art, faithfulness to the thought of his author and to the idiom of his reader. A skilled initiate in Roman archaeology, he can write so clearly about these matters which he understands so well. With the praiseworthy permission of Fathers Hertling and Kirsch-baum, he has added his own notes to theirs and some quite new matter in the body of the book, known through the advance reports of explorations yet unpublished. By this positive contribution, he gives to English readers a welcome revision as well as a sound version of the original. 313 BOOK REVIEWS Review' for Religious The scope of the book may be indicated by running down the titles of the chapters: The Exploration of the Catacombs;. The Ceme-teries; The Tombs of the Popes; The Tombs of the Martyrs; The Tombs of the Apostles; The Persecutions; On the Way to Martyrdom; The Eucharist; Baptism; The People of God; The Art of the Cata-combs; The Creed of Catacombal Art. Forty-five plates and eight figures make an important complement to the text. By some fault of printing, twoor three of them, in my copy, are rough to the touch. Generally, the publisher has done 'a good job, and at a remarkably low price.--ED~;~,g R. SMOTH~P,S, S.J. FRANCIS OF THE CRUCIFIED. By Myles Schmitt, O.F.M.Cap. Pp. 152. The Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee 1. 1956. $3.00. Father Myles Schmitt, of St. Francis Capuchin College, Washing-ton, D. C., offers his readers a series of conference-chapters on the Franciscan way of perfection. Writers of general treatises on spiritual theology, such as Tanquerey and de Guibert, can present a .particular way of perfection only in skeletal form. Father Schmitt develops at suitable length the Franciscan way. At the same time, he is constantly concerned to relate it to the Christian way. For, at root, all Christian perfection is one, no matter the diversity of ways proposed for arriv-ing at it. In a way reminiscent of Gerald Vann's The Heart of Man, Father Schmitt organizes the life of perfection around the Beatitudes. His book is not as complete and detailed as Theodosius Foley's Spiritual Conferences for Religious Based on the Franciscan Ideal. Nor does it follow the life of St. Francis as closely as de Tour's Franciscan Perfection. But his choice of the Beatitudes as an organizing principle keeps the main line of argument simple, strong, and progressive and still gives him room enough to touch on a variety of subjects. Father Schmitt is especially good at describing the spiral move-merit of growth in perfection. Not only must ofie try to live more and more in accordance with his vision of the ideal; but, at the same time, one's vision must grow correspondingly in depth and p~netration. This spiral movement is particularly clear in St. Francis's religious life which began with what might be called an "inaugural vision" and grew as that vision' deepened and matured. Father Schmitt takes great pains .to delineate the initial vision of the Franciscan way, to map out 314 September, 1957 BOOK REVIEWS the s~ag'es of progress of that vis~ion, and to relate to it all growth in perfection. Basically, then, the Franciscan must focus his attention on the imitation of Christ crucified through a living out of the gospel life as envisaged by the Beatitudes. The foundation of this life is poverty leading to that poverty of personality called humility. Keeping before his eyes his nothingness in the presence of God, the~ Franciscan makes a sacrifice of himself and .thus fulfills simple justice. With mercy and simplicity, he takes on the role of peace-maker, courageous!y overcoming the opposition of a world set against Christ and at war ,with itself. His is a life of love, of devotion to the Eucharist, of love of Mary sorrowful. And oil such is his .vision, his necessary response will be apostolic action. Obviously the book's usefulness is not limited to Franciscans. Inasmuch as all the means proposed are the common heritage of Christi

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 64.3 of the Review for Religious, 2005. ; lglous Witnessing The Spirit QUARTERLY 64.3 2005: Review for Religious fosters dialogue with God, dialogue with ourselves, and dialogue with one another about the holiness we try to live according to cbarisms of Catholic religious life. As Pope Paul VI said, our way of being church is today the way of dialogue. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published quarterly 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 ¯ ~Veb site: www.reviewforreligious.org Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393 Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP ¯ Pontifical College Josephinum 7625 North High Street ¯ Columbus, Ohio 43235 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. ©2005 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. ev'iew for religious Editor Associate Editor Canonical Counsel Scripture Scope Editorial Staff Wetrmaster Adv#ory Board David L. Fleming sJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Eugene Hensell OSB Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Judy Sharp Clare Boehmer ASC Steve Erspamer SM Kathleen Hughes RSCJ Louis and Angela Menard Bishop Terry Steib SVD Miriam D. Ukeritis CSJ QUARTERLY 64.3 2005 contents 228 prisms Prisms community chapters 230 Where Two or More Are Gathered Ted Dunn explores some of the unique challenges and opportunities pertaining to religious chapters of election, especially highlighting the differences between politics and discernment. 242 Chapter Delegates, Once and Future Sister Marie de Lourdes Mates IHM recapitulates and refurbishes some earnest practical suggestions about what to look for in chapter delegates. 252 Community Chapters: Seven Personal Beliefs Melannie Svoboda SND presents an outline of concrete expectations for a religious congregation's chapter meeting. Reflection and Discussion 226 259 religious life Invisible--Even to Ourselves? Marie Brinkman SCL emphasizes that visible unity-- community bonds--must become the sign of Christ and his church that religious life is meant to be. Review for Religious 269 Living in Community: Continuing the Conversation Doris Gottemoeller RSM returns to the discussion about the place of community living as an uncommon and striking witness to the power of the gospel and the dynamism of a congregation's charism. Psalm Prayer Reflection and Discussion 281 witnessing With Love from Calcutta and Lisieux: Letters of Mother Teresa and St. Thdr~se Mary C. Carroll SSSF gives witness to the wisdom of a loving friendship expressed in the letter exchanges of Mother Teresa of Calcutta and Father Michael van der Peet SCJ and Thdr~se of Lisieux and Maurice Barth~l~my-Belli~re. 296 Alfred Delp SJ and the Heart of Jesus Mary Frances Coady focuses on Alfred Delp's devotion to the Heart of Jesus that sustained him in his Nazi imprisonment and eventual death by hanging. 301 the spirit Led by the Spirit: St. Basil the Great Andrew Ryder SCJ enters us into St. Basil the Great's contributions to our theological understanding and appre-ciation of the Holy Spirit as the third person of the Trinity. departments 316 Scripture Scope: Encountering the Parables of Jesus 321 Canonical Counsel: Additional Comments on Interpretation 326 Book Reviews 64.3 200~ prisms The prevalent theological cat-egory in describing the church is the word com-munion. It is significant that this choice of word confronts the most serious need of our times. Communion emphasizes what binds us together. Theologians today want to say that this word most captures what the church is all about. Pope Benedict xvI, in his initial addresses as the leader of the Roman Catholic commu-nity, has called for a renewed effort among all peoples of religion to look to some kind of bonding or communion. The essential witness that any Christian gives is that of bonding. There is no working for justice unless there is a bonding with the "other." There is no exercise of charity unless there is a communion with the ones being served. As Jesus pointed out consistently, each one of us as a follower comes to serve and not be served--like him. We do not serve justice or charity out of a superior stance; we can only be on the same level, as with our sisters and broth-ers, and it is there that we work. Perhaps we may look like good secular social workers. As Christians, we want more; we are looking towards communion. If marriage in the Christian community has no greater rate of fidelity than secular marriage, then as Christians we are failing. If men and women in religious life commitment do not give Review for Religious witness to a life in common, then they fail in the most essential witness of their religious life. It is not just in entering upon a vocation and it is not just in generous service that we show ourselves to be Christian. The "proof of the pudding" is whether we truly are people who "bond," who live in communion because commu-nion is entering into God's life, the life of the Trinity. How in our times have we lost some ways of "bond-ing," of being in communion? It seems we no longer recognize that there are three progressive steps which Jesus has identified for us in the Gospels. First, there is detachment ("leave your father and your mother," "go, sell") or what we might today call availability. We come with so many non-negotiables; we come with our needs and our demands. Many of us Christians are unavailable to God and to one another. And. so the first step in bond-ing or communion is being available. The second step is generosity or being in service ("come, follow"). We often pride ourselves on how much we do for others, extending ourselves generously with our time and tal-ent. No doubt we are people of service, but is it all on our terms? Are we covetously in control of all our works of justice and charity? Both the first and the second steps can be half steps in living as a Christian. Are half steps any steps at all? The third is, simply, sharing or, rightly understood, surrendering ("take up your cross"). Commun. ion hap-pens when we are available, when we give. generously in service, and when we share our lives unstintingly--as God does with us. Communion or bonding is our 21 st-_century quest as a Catholic community. It is a quest that Jesus tells us is within our ~raced reach. David L. Fleming SJ 64.3 2005 TED DLrNN Where Two or More Are Gathered community chapters It has been said, "Where two or more are gathered, there is politics." Though many religious communities have embraced communal discernment as their preferred means for electing leadership, they are still not immune to the pulls and trappings of politics. Seeking to hear the voice of the Spirit through communal discernment can, at its best, eclipse and far surpass the influence of politics. Communal discernment, however, no matter how well practiced, will neither eradicate politics nor guarantee that there will be no regressive pulls in chapters of election. But awareness of the differences between discernment and politics can help chapter participan~ts resist the forces of politics and secure the grace-filled opportunities of discernment. Ted Dunn, a clinical psychglogist, wrote for us in our 63.3 issue (July 2004). His address remains Comprehensive Consulting Services; 6209 Mid "Rivers Mall Drive, Suite 294; St. Charles, Missouri 63304. Review for Religgous When discernment and politics collide, how can chapter participants make sense of all the forces in play? During a chapter of election, what are some of the regressive urges that may work against a community's efforts at discernment? What are some of the differences between "political" conversations and "discerning" ones? These are questions I address in this article. We are not likely to rid ourselves of politics completely, but I am confident that, if communities commit themselves to communal discernment, they can grow in their capacity to use it well. From my years of facilitating communal discernment, I am confident that goodwill and good ways of channeling it can enhance discernment and diminish politicking. This, in turn, can help communities to seek God's will more fully and thereby discern their choice of leadership more wisely. In line with this I plan to point out some differences between discernment and politics from three angles, namely, numbers, powers of persuasion, and so-called winners and losers. But first I want to set the context by elaborating on regression (returning to old patterns). Regression often emerges during chapters of election and, if left unrecognized and unchecked, can blight a community's desire to put discernment ahead of politics. Regression in the Face of Discernment For a chapter to be a success, its participants should check their human propensities to constrict the movement of the Spirit, and instead work Collectively toward welcoming the Spirit present among them to liberate and enlighten. They should seek ways of enhancing their own spiritual freedom and that of the group, avoiding anything that might hinder it. They need to be alert to personal and group patterns of regression and strive to eliminate them. I would guess that every 64.3 200Y Dunn ¯ Where Two or More Are Gathered community has had, at one time or another, a dark moment in which its chapter of election fell far short of its best intentions and let, for example, politics take precedence over discernment. I would also guess that-- although such a moment tends to recede from the community's consciousness between chapters--it often returns at the beginning of the next chapter. It is as if the walls of the chapter hall hold the memories and, when the chapter is convoked, so too are the memories. Despite such experiences, or perhaps because of them, individuals and communities I am acquainted with have made courageous efforts to move beyond the pain of past elections and write new memories upon the walls. I have witnessed participants building new bridges, mending frayed relationships, offering and accepting olive branches, and all in all seeking greater unity. Communities yearn to grow in discernment and put forth their best green-gold efforts when given the opportunity. Yet I also know that, as in all growing, communities are at risk. They repeat old patterns of tension and vulnerability. As a psychologist I recognize that regression is a natural and normal response in the face of threat. It is a coping mechanism that people use when new ways of behaving seem shaky or are perceived as failing. Think of the first time you tried a new prayer form and it was not working for you. You likely sought refuge, at least temporarily, in the tried and true. Recall a return to your family of origin. Despite your growth in other relationships, in a difficult interaction with a relative you may have returned to a once-outlived means of coping (withdrawing, clashing, and so forth). Recall your community's initial efforts at the more fluid processes of communal discernment and the simulta_neous urges to return to the familiar confines of Robert's Rules and carefully orchestrated conversations. Review for Religious When it comes to elections, politics is what is most familiar to us. It is part of our culture and is no less a part of religious life. Discernment is newly learned and also countercultural behavior. And so, when tensions arise during a chapter, you have any number of urges to return to old patterns, the patterns of politics. You may have urges to-rally around your friends, to defend perceived "victims," to speak for those not speaking. You may want to tune out, or argue with what you do not want to hear, or go silent in the hope of being rescued by others more vocal. You may want to have the meeting outside the meeting (in the halls and over coffee) instead of in the assembly room. You may want to campaign for some, and against some others, and so on. The good news is that such urges do not have to be your destiny. Your next chapter presents you with the challenge and opportunity to write new memories on the walls of your assembly room. It is a chance to further reconcile and redeem the pain of past elections. It is a chance to weave new patterns of interacting into the collective experience of chapters of election and place discernment ahead of politics. But the undertow toward politics will, if left unrecognized, take away your freedom and wreak havoc upon your desire to grow beyond your past. If it is recognized, however, communities have the opportunity to catch themselves and choose instead the grace and gift of communal discernment. Politics as an Impediment to Discernment We humans have an insatiable appetite for politics. Enquiring minds want to know: Who's on first? Who's it Discernment is' newly learned and also coun~ercultural behavior. 64.3 2005 Dunn ¯ 14~bere Two or'More ~lre Gathered going to be? Who's ahead in the polls? In an election year, politics and politicians dominate the evening news, CNN, and the front page. Political talk is with us at meals and up and down hallways and sidewalks. Religious communities, it seems to me, are no less involved with politics. In fact, if politics means involvement, interest, and concern for how you govern yourselves, religious are just as political as any other segment of society. They desire to understand what is going on in the world, in the church, and in the community and to participate in shaping the future. Politics, then, has its good points, but it is important to understand its pitfalls and get beyond them in order to do the deeper work of communal discernment. One risk is that politics and discernment have definite similarities. Both lead to an informed vote in an election. Both seek understanding and involvement. In both methods, information serves to influence people and to moderate that influence. And both methods are about power. There are other commonalities as well, but there are definite distinctions to be drawn too. Where does politics end and discernment begin? Numbers. First let us talk numbers. Numbers sometimes talk long before people get acquainted with the candidates and their character. In the politics of our day, there are endless permutations of the numbers. Numbers are the heartbeat of American pre-election activity. Pollsters keep taking political pulses and making election prognostications. There are more permutations of polls than there are stats on the Super Bowl. Results are statistically projected hours before the polls close. Such results are not official, of course, but they cause people to think and say, "Why vote? It's a done deal." In discernment, however, the significance of numbers is little or none. In many discernment processes a Review for Religious member needs only one endorsement to enter into it. And entering is far more important than trying to forecast where you will end up. Entering the mystery, walking the Emmaus journey, searching out your future together by collectively seeking God's intentions--these things are not concerned with numbers. Numbers will not answer a community's quest for healing, yearnings for a stronger partnership, desires for deeper understanding, or efforts to resolve differences. Counting numbers, wondering how many votes you or someone else might get, will not help you hear the voice of the Spirit. You cannot take a poll to find out what God wants. Numbers at the moment of election have a different, though still secondary, importance. Ideally, numbers are the result of, not the means for, discernment. Ideally, they are the outcome that confirms the will of the Spirit mediated through the chapter. I do not know about your community, but in some communities, once the balloting begins, discernment goes out the window and people start listening to the numbers. They write the numbers down, tally the votes, and track who is getting what. Like a runaway train people start following the numbers instead of the Spirit. The numbers take over. It is important to work as a chapter body to prevent a numbers-oriented election. Facilitators need to intersperse .processes into the election itself to help the community discern its way through to the end. Ideally, the election process should be the culmination of the discernment process, not detached or separate from discernment. In my experience, when an election keeps the integrity of the discerning body and its discernment process intact, then numbers, if used at all, are of negligible importance. Pozver~ of Persuasion. In politics, power is .sought from a variety of sources through a variety of means. Power is 64.3 2005 Dunn ¯ Where Two or More ~qre Gathered found first in the money used for campaigning. Money pays for ads and buys favors from special-interest groups that in turn lobby for their candidates. In one form or another, money runs the machinery that shapes the information that people receive, which is of course the ultimate means of influence. In American politics "information is power," and, if you want to know who has it, "follow the money." While voters want information about what their candidates hope to accomplish, and while politicians vow that they will "stick to the issues," too often there is regression toward name-calling and mudslinging. Politicians know that there is great power in casting doubt upon their opponents. So-called "negative campaigning" persists despite the public outcry against it, in large part because research shows that when used skillfully it works. Political elections, as we have witnessed, are not about how you play the game; they are about winning, no matter the cost. Politics centers on persuasion as a means to attain desired outcomes. Spin doctors seek to persuade by parsing the truth. Political strategists provide different information for different target groups, strategically timing the leakage of news, all in an effort to sway specific voters. Party politics uses these powers of persuasion to garner support for their respective camps, which in turn support their candidates. Selective information to induce fear or call for party loyalty is among the powers of persuasion in American politics. In discernment, though, how you play the game and what kind of power you use make all the difference. The power of discernment rests on faith. It rests on your ability to pray, reflect, and journey together in such a way as to discover your collective truth, to experience the movement of the Spirit among yourselves. Paradoxically, Review for Religious the power of discernment is inversely related to persuading others or controlling the outcome. In fact, detachment from the outcome, rather than attempting to engineer the outcome, is a hallmark of discernment. Discernment requires conversations about the direction your community is moving, the issues you face, and the ideal team to facilitate the desired movement. It is about who can complement whom, not who is better than whom. It is not about camps competing around special interests. It is about cooperating in the interests of the whole. Instead of trying to convince others of your truth, communal discernment invites you to discover the community's collective truth. Discernment is not about campaigning, convincing, and cajoling, but about listening, sharing, and deepening the common understanding. Chapter participants are not chosen to elect favorite, candidates to represent personal interests, but rather to come up with a team of persons who together can best serve the interests of the entire community. I believe that the power of communal discernment is in direct proportion to a group's determination to be enlightened by one another and by the commitment of all to the common good. This power is present in direct proportion to your freedom, individually and collectively, to respond to the Spirit echoed in the voices of all the chapter members. It is present to the degree you are interiorly free from whatever might bind you, be it your loyalties to others, passions around your own agendas, fears of being hurt or hurting others, or haunting and hurting memories. It is present when people are free of 64.3 2005 Dunn ¯ Where Two or More Are Gathered prejudice and free of gossipy reputations, of labels that persist year after year. Being flee, however, does not mean an absence of anxiety and fears. Rather, it means a willingness to name, claim, and, if possible, work through your fears rather than succumb to them. It means acknowledging your desired outcomes while simultaneously relinquishing any efforts to control them. It means a willingness to enter the unpredictability and mystery of your personal and communal faith journey. If you are free enough to embrace a truth larger than your own--free of efforts to hide from uncomfortable truths or blind yourselves to a common good that may ask more of you than you want to give--then your power to discern is enhanced. The power of such spiritual freedom is yours to claim. No one can claim it for you or work towards it for you. Freedom is inherently yours to begin with. If you do this work collectively, if you maintain deep roots of knowledge, passion, and conviction while holding all things lightly, then you will have access to the Spirit moving through you and among you, The movement of the Spirit and your own search for enlightenment and understanding are at the heart of discernment. Discernment is the polar opposite of politics. It is a continuous focus on winning, not on having won and resting on our laurels. Winners and Losers. Let us talk about so-called winners and losers. Who is better? The St. Louis Rams or the Dallas Cowboys, the French or the Irish, African Americans or Caucasians or Hispanics, rich or poor, tall or short, women at the well or men at the "Y," a lilac ora rose? We humans are prone to thinking in categories and classes. We have carved up God's creation into categories. We have boxed and labeled the people and things of our world as good or bad, right or wrong, winners or losers. Review for Religious ¯ We have prejudices, biases, preconceived notions, assumptions, and conscious and subconscious judgments that put price tags on so many things that God looked at and said are "good." God sees us all as both blessed and broken, but we seem to view ourselves as good, better, best, less than good or less than evil, depending upon our looks, ethnicity, friends, affiliations, or supposed motives. Children not chosen for this or that often feel "excluded" and "hurt." Out of such feelings we form judgments and begin to think in terms of winners and losers. From facilitating many community discernments over the years, I consider all participants winners. All community members who are endorsed, who come to discernment gatherings, who respond to the call to serve in elected leadership are winners. They take risks that have brought hurts in the past and perhaps even made them say to themselves "Never again." COmmunal disdernment i~,~[fOiJ[: ~de" }in g women ~ ~or men ~who,brzn~ g together a complement of gifls tha~;~in its ~isimportant for ~he :enti@ ~com~u~ity. Those who participate in discernment are asked to reach deep inside themselves to find hope again, when staying disengaged would be easier. Individually and together they are winners as they extend themselves beyond their comfort zone in response to calls from their community. Conventional politics would suggest that those who are elected have the "right stuff" and those who are not elected do not. Communal discernment, however, is about electing women or men who bring together a complement of gifts that, in its unity, is important for the entire community. 64.3 200Y Dunn ¯ Where Two or More Are Gathered Not long ago my wife and I attended our daughters' graduations, Kelly from high school and Colleen from middle school. For the occasion we went out to buy them some flowers. The florist asked, "What are their colors?" I was taken aback, having expected to pick out bouquets from the showcase and be done with it. She escorted us to a refrigerator, showed us a vast array of flowers, and urged us to have a whiff and take a good look at them. Before long we had flowers and greenery and paper strewn over the counter. Other customers watched us try various combinations to see what would best fit each girl's particular likes and sense of beauty. There were lilacs, roses, and other flowers whose names escape me. In combination, some were not the right color and some not the right fragrance. Some got lost alongside others. All were beautiful in their own right, but some fit better than others in the bouquets. At last we had two unique bouquets, each beautiful, each saying what we wanted to say. In your next communal discernment, remember that every individual has a beauty all her own. Blessed and broken, gifted and flawed, they are on the same journey as you. Some combinations of their beauty will express what you want to say, what you hope leadership to be. Others will not. This makes them no less wonderful, no less worthy. Their beauty will find other bouquets. In your next discernment, honor all these women (or men) with your prayers. Support all of them with your encouragement. Affirm them for their courage in walking deep into discernment with you, opening themselves up in personal ways to you, to each other, and to God. Walk gently with them. Your next chapter of election will be a continuation of the work you have begun at earlier chapters. It presents you with an opportunity to grow in communal discernment and Review for Religious be more faithful on your personal and communal faith journey. Anticipate, identify, and resist any regressive tendencies. Keep the election a matter of the Spirit, not a matter of mere numbers. Do not let it be about winners and losers. You are all winners, for you are all on the same team. Be gentle with yourselves and with your mistakes, for mistakes will surely be made. In your efforts to write new memories on the walls, may the Holy Spirit be your guide, and, where two or more of you are gathered, may you find Jesus in your midst. The Transient Seed To go wherever you would lead Will mean ourselves to die, Forsaking self and every need For you, risen, on high. Buried with you, the transient seed Awaits your Spirit-cry Creating us anew, rubied By blood from Calvary. Walt Bado SJ 64.3 2005 MARIE DE LOURDES MATES Chapter Delegates, Once and Future ~onh~hne m qyu arleigtiieosn aanl dsu rpeesrpioonr saisbkileidti ems eo tfo c shpaepatekr delegates, my response was typically prophetic. I screamed into the phone: "What? Me? Why me? Don't you think I'm a bit too old for this? You're twenty-five years too late! I know a lot of people who could do a better job." She listened politely and then replied, "Well, will you at least think about it?" So I did, and for some reason I just could not say no. Father Robert Morneau's article (1977, almost thirty years ago) was suggested as the basis for what I might say. Since I did not have a copy of it, I began to make my own list of qualities a delegate should have. I came up with a dozen or so. To my surprise, when the article arrived I discovered that the future bishop and I were thinking along the same lines. I thought to myself, "Maybe I should have been a bishop!" Many of you could Marie de Lourdes Mates IHM, who has taught at all levels of K-12 and published various articles, resides at the IHM House of Prayer; 140 West Mill Street; Nesquehoning, Pennsylvania 18240. Review for Religious come up with a similar list. I admit, though, that I learned a great deal in getting this presentation ready and even experienced a kind of conversion. That is what I will share with you now. The first word that came to my mind was articulate. I wanted delegates who would speak out loud and clear. But almost immediately I had a second thought--Whoa! Suppose they go too far and destroy what our unique history has gifted us with. No, another thing that must be present is a listening ear. This slowed me down, and I pondered the word dialogical, which Bishop Morneau had used. I called upon Webster for help: "dialogue: a talking together, a conversation." Not sufficient! Definition 2: "an interchange and discussion of ideas, especially when open and frank, as in seeking mutual understanding and harmony." Perfect! In other words, the listening has to be of a special kind, but so also does the speaking. To be articulate means to speak easily and clearly; you have to be pretty well convinced about what you are saying. Let me interject here a little story about listening. An interaction years ago with a freshman girl stopped me in my tracks and made me realize I was not truly lis-tening. Her parents were divorced. Her father was out of sight. The thirteen-year-old and her mother lived together, but in time the mother became interested in another man. She left her teenage daughter to fend for herself every weekend while she traveled by plane to spend two days with him. When. the daughter told me this story, I tried to explain that her mother had needs also. She looked up at me with tear-filled eyes and said in a shaking voice "But what about me?" I knew at once I had failed to enter into her world. I have never for-gotten her words, and even now they haunt me, still find-ing it hard to really listen. 64.3 200.q Mates ¯ Chapter Delegates, Once and Future Our delegates need to speak easily and clearly, but they also need to listen with a compassionate desire to enter into the speaker's world, not necessarily agreeing but at least understanding. Besides speaking and listen-ing well, Bishop Morneau said delegates must have trust. I thought, "Oh, this is an easy one. Isn't it a given that members of a religious community have a deep abiding trust in each other, as their polite conduct habitually shows? The thing that stymied me was that Morneau went on to say that they must have trust also in themselves. I puzzled over this long and hard. I came to realize that persons who have trust in themselves will speak their own insights and convictions with a certain self-confidence. I realized, too, that to do this they must spend time and energy listening to others and be willing to say inside chapter what they say outside chapter. Coupled with trust is another virtue, desire for truth. Regardless of who speaks--a retired sister, a young novice, a former mother general, an infirm sister, an artist (musician, painter, sculptor, poet, and so forth), or just one of the rest of us--the delegate's desire for truth must help her listen and then evaluate. She needs to turn off the stream of consciousness that runs all day long and sometimes washes past others, hardly slowing down for them. Our delegates should be prophetic persons. The Old Testament prophets acquiesced to God's call only reluc-tantly. Consider the following. Isaiah says, "What a wretched state I'm in. I am a man of unclean lips." Review for Religious Jeremiah says, "Look, I do not know how to speak; I am a child." Jonah--well, he just ran away. But God was insistent. With Isaiah: "Let's see if this live coal touching your lips will help." With Jeremiah: "Don't say you are a child. Go, now!" With Jonah, a storm at sea begins to get him to pay some mind to God. Consider the great-est prophet of all, Jesus: "Father, if it be your will, let this chalice pass. However, not my will, but yours be done." Being prophetic does not appear to be a much-sought- after vocation. I am mentioning these things about prophets because the women we elect as delegates will automatically assume the role of prophet. They will be missioned by us to determine the future direction of our IHM commu-nity. If this direction is to be in accord with the will of God, certain characteristics should be evident. They should be women who are perceptive, sensitive to the here and now. We hope they will walk unshod the way of the lowest and the least. We want them to come up with new and exciting ideas for all of us--the old and infirm, the young and ambitious, those nearing retirement, those changing their apostolates. We want them to respond sensitively to the question "But what about me?" as each group asks it. We also want them to be sensitive to our roots and traditions, knowing enough of our history to stand firmly on the shoulders of the courageous holy women who were here before us. Prophets are courageous. Consider some from our own time. Dorothy Day, who did jail time for civil disobedi-ence and also (as Father Richard McSorley said) "led the way within the Catholic Church on solidarity with the poor, racial justice., all those big issues., she brought the name Catholic to all of them. These issues that pri-vate Catholics see as politics she saw as faith, and knew it had to come from faith and be alive with faith." 64.3 200~ Mates ¯ Cbapter Delegates, Once and Future Consider our foundress, Mother Theresa Maxis, who was forced to live outside the community she had worked so hard to establish. Consider Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who embraced lepers and opened her heart to the poor-est of the poor. Consider Joan Chittister, Benedictine sister, ' whose outcries for justice and peace have been heard and will continue to be heard by many around the world. Perhaps now as we prepare for the chapter of 2006, some new courageous happenings will occur. Courage can be manifested in all kinds of ways. It might be just bringing an issue to the forefront for consideration. It might be putting some relationships in jeopardy because of what some see only as boldness or outspokenness. The model delegate should be a person of vision-- but what exactly does that mean? It definitely does not mean they live in la-la land. Sometimes, however, I think that the term vision triggers a picture of someone out in space. So let us bring it down to earth. Simply, an IHM sister of vision sees something that many do not. That "something" could be anything from a cute idea to a unique dream. It could be something so commonplace as a one-on-one learning environment, only one teacher and one learner. It could be a duck farm. A friend called me one day and asked if she and her cousin could use my computer and set up a conference call with a con-struction company. I said yes, thinking it was a matter of great import. It turned out that he was just starting to plan a duck farm. His long-range plan was to raise ducks for gourmet restaurants. To me this seemed crazy, but when he promised me a duck dinner I thought--who knows?--that maybe in the not-too-distant future he would be a man of means. The sister who has vision will see value in what at first seems crazy to most people. I am suggesting that Review for Religious we have to look beyond the ends of our noses to deter-mine the best direction for our aging community. We need to have some answers for the young, the old, and the in-between in our community when they ask, "But, what about me?" Victor Hugo, author of Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, had this to say about visions: "Progress will be carried forward by a series of dazzling visions." I love that word "dazzling." The visions have to be startling; they have to awaken us and get us moving. Long before Victor Hugo, the prophet Habakkuk also had something to say about "the vision." I remember it from a time about twenty-five years ago. In her morning talk a speaker had created an air of excitement, but in the after-noon session the excitement disappeared. I left the assem- .,,. Prophetie delegates need t6 be pcrsoqs, of " ,de ray&;: especially script al prayer. bly feeling rather down, but I remembered the words of Habakkuk from the day's Scripture reading. It is time to hear those words again: Write down the vision clearly upon the tablets, so that one can read it readily. For the vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint. If it delays, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not be late. (Hab 2:2-3) As I said, being a prophet is not a fun thing. Prophetic delegates have to work hard: read, study, do research. They have to make decisions, some very hard decisions. They have to make them decisively, with cer-titude (as Morneau says, referring to Newman), and then hold themselves responsible for what results. They need to be persons of deep prayer, especially Scriptural prayer. 64.3 200Y Mates ¯ Chapter Delegates, Once and Future Such prayer will illuminate their understanding of con-temporary issues. Dorothy Day can help us here. In her autobiography The Long Loneliness, she describes herself at the age of ten. "We lived in a house with an attic, and I spent hours one rainy Sunday afternoon reading the Bible. I remember nothing that I read, just the sense of holiness in holding the book in my hands. I did not know then that the Word in the Book and the Word in the flesh of Christ's humanity were the same, but I felt I was handling something holy." Dorothy's love of the Scriptures persisted throughout her lifetime and even-tually led to her conversion to Catholicism and to her lifelong work with the poor. Scriptural prayer should be the mainstay of every chapter member. It already plays a major role in all of our lives in the Christian Prayer that we pray three times a day. It would be worth the while of every chapter delegate, in fact every sister who puts her name on the list of nom-inees, to ponder well the words of Hebrews 4:12: "The Word of God is something alive and active: it cuts like any double-edged sword but more finely; it can slip through the place where the soul is divided from the spirit, or joints from the marrow; it can judge the secret emo-tions and thoughts." And then suddenly in verse 13 it switches from the Word of God as an "it" to the Word of God as "the one": "No created thing can hide from him; everything is uncovered and open to the eyes of the one to whom we must give account of ourselves." Dorothy Day at age ten was assuredly an inspired person. You might wonder why I have referred to Dorothy Day more than once. When I was a junior in high school, I joined the Martin de Porres Club at Harrisburg Catholic High. Every Thursday my friends and I traveled to an inner-city house run by a woman named Mary Frecon. There we taught little African American children, helping Review for Religious them with their school work and interacting with them. One Thursday I noticed that the work space was spruced up as if for something important to happen. About the middle of the session, Mary came through accompanied by an elderly woman with white hair. They simply paused for a few minutes, and I simply ignored them, being involved with the children and their work. Afterwards Mary came back and exclaimed, "Do you know who that was?" I shrugged my shoulders. She said, "That was Dorothy Day." I shrugged my shoulders again. Later on in life, I got to know about Dorothy Day. I have never forgotten her favorite quotation, taken directly from Dostoyevsky's The Possessed: "All my life I have been haunted by God." To that I add: All my life I have been haunted by Dorothy Day! To me her life seems the per-fect response to the question of the poor, the addicted, the sick, the helpless when they ask "But what about me?" Morneau ends his article about chapters by portray-ing the delegate as a wounded healer, the term that Henri Nouwen had introduced. Most of us would admit to being wounded people, people who have experienced some deep hurts, which sometimes seem beyond heal-ing. But out of those hurts can come deep compassion for others who are hurting. Without being told, one can sense it. Compassion heals, not only the one to whom the compassion is directed but also the one who is showing compassion. Hopefully, the delegates we choose will be women of compassion. Persons of compassion do not make judgments on the motives of others. If you have ever been the object of judgmentalism, your experience helps you avoid inflicting such destructiveness on others. A delegate should be able to balance tolerance of per-sons with an intolerance of falsity. Do not be dismayed if you are chosen to be a chap-ter delegate and you do not have all these qualities. It 64.3 2005 Mates ¯ Chapter Delegates, Once and Future will be an elegant sufficiency if the chapter assembly itself contains individuals who together have these qual-ities. It would be a miracle if anyone had all of them. Here let me quote, what Morneau quotes toward the end of his article (Micah 6:8): "This is what Yahweh asks of you: only this, to act justly, to love tenderly, and to walk humbly with your God." I would emphas!ze the first challenge: "to act justly." I believe it encompasses everything that has been said up to this point. If we work to act justly, to DO justice, everything else will fall into place. As a community we are already becoming more involved in works of justice. We are responding to the poor and the needy here in the United States and in Haiti, Peru, and Chile. We are attentive to the question "But what about me?" and are alleviating pain and suffering where we are able. One day in Louisville, Kentucky, at Fourth and Locust, Thomas Merton suddenly realized that he loved all people and no one was alien to him. As a community we are growing in that same realization. For me there occurred a profound conversion to justice in the sum-mer of 1973, while I was studying physics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. One weekend a Franciscan sister took me along to her motherhouse in Buffalo. We visited Niagara Falls, and I was duly impressed. But later we drove upstream to view the Niagara River, the flow of which creates the falls--and mesmerized me. The river's swiftness took my breath away. The sunlight glittering off the surging waters filled me with a kind of supernatural joy, while their force to sweep everything before it--and me too if I let it--fright-ened me. I have never forgotten that impression. The memory awakes in me every time I read the prophet Amos (5:24, l~SV):."But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." Review for Religious Can you imagine what our world would be like if more and more people let their justice roll down like a river? For us I think the time is ripe. Let's ROLL! The Crossing John 6:17 The crossing is hazardous: fragility 6fold wood in a fretful sea, the weight of oars against contentious waves, implacable darkness, absence of horizon, ominous thunders. Then - the skin grows cold with terror - like a brooding spirit he comes gravely across the water: fathomless radiance, first light of a new world. They stammer in recognition and welcome him into the boat where no one dares question what darkness he has crossed to bring them safe to land. Kate Martin OSC 64.3 2005 MELANNIE SVOBODA Community Chapters: Seven Personal Beliefs y personal beliefs about this chapter we are ~. iv .1. beginning amount to seven, the perfect biblical number. 1. This chaplet won't be easy. I say this not because I have some secret knowledge of what will transpire here these next few days. I say it because this chapter is a part of life and life is not easy. As we know, in the Bible the primary image of life is a journey, and any journey is fraught with difficulties. It takes courage even to embark on a journey, because we must leave where we are, we must let go of the known. We cannot start on a journey and stay put at the same time. Once we have taken to the road, we must negotiate unexpected turns, steer clear of dangerous potholes, plan regular "pit stops," devise detours around roadblocks, interpret road signs, and check the fuel gauge regularly. (Recently I saw a cartoon of two men walking away from their car. They had run Melannie Svoboda SND, provincial of the Sisters of Notre Dame of Chardon, Ohio, presented this material as part of the opening of their chapter of December 2003. Her address is 13000 Auburn Road; Chardon, Ohio 44024. Review for Religious out of gas. One man says to the other, "I thought the E meant Enough!" It is one thing to see signs, another to interpret them correctly!)Journeying is hard work. Small wonder that we are often tempted to forsake the life journey by going back into the past (it is familiar and feels safe), by stopping altogether, or by taking a side road that is easier but leads to no place worth going. At this chapter let us recommit ourselves to the hard work of daily living, to the hard work of our earthly jour-neying. And let us commit ourselves to the hard work of this particular chapter--four days of undeniable self-discipline, the discipline of sitting, listening, speaking, praying, discerning, waiting in line. Talk about modern asceticism! 2. This chapter will be fun. It will be fun because we are here--and just look at us! What a unique group we are! Has God got a sense of humor or what? This chapter will be fun because where we are there is bound to be some joy and laughter. When we did the recent inter-views for the Appreciative Inquiry, how many of us said that one reason we were drawn to the Sisters of Notre Dame in the first place was their joyfulness! This chap-ter will be fun also because the planning committee has thought up some fun activities for us to do. But, most of all, it will be fun because we know who is ultimately in charge of this chapter. Not me, not our facilitator, but God! Yes, at this chapter we will discuss some seri-ous issues. Yes, we will make some serious decisions. Yes, there may even be a few tears as we try to express what is deepest in our hearts. But I hope we will do the work of this chapter with a lightness of heart that comes from our charism: that deep experience of God's goodness and provident care. Jesus is at this chapter. Maybe we should have made a folder with his name on it, Jesus is here in word, in 64.3 2005 Svoboda ¯ Community Chapters 254 sacrament, in each other. It is in Jesus' name that we are gathered here, and, as Jesus promised, "Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I will be!" Jesus is with us. Emmanuel. That fact cannot help but bring smiles to our faces! 3. This chapter needs me. This chapter needs every sis-ter regardless of her age, education, health, ministry, temperament, background, mood. It needs every sister regardless of her chosen level of participation. In the name of all of us, then, I welcome every sister to speak. And I welcome every sister to listen and to pray. Throughout these days we will have times of formal dis-cussion. But we will also have times of informal sharing as we gather around the coffee urn, eat lunch together, meet in the hall, or ride back and forth in a car. The Spirit can use even these times to move hearts. Perhaps I may never say anything at the open mike, but I can still influence this chapter by some.thing I say in my small group or even while standing in line for the restroom. 4. This chapter must be rooted in the real world. God is found only in the real world--not some fantasy world of our own making. No, in the real world. And what does the real world look like? First of all, it is a world of incomparable beauty--from stars to snowflakes, roses to mountains, sunsets to the Grand Canyon. So much beauty! It is a world filled with innumerable people of goodwill--in all lands, in all cultures--people who live their lives with faith and love. But the real world is also a world steeped in war and violence. Historians tell us the 20th century was the bloodiest century in human his-tory. Ours is a world of the obscenely unfair distribu-tion of the world's limited resources--where 1.2 billion people live on less than one dollar a day. The Jesuit Jon Sobrino calls this reality a "macro blasphemy." It is a world filled with hunger, poverty, greed, corruption, and Review for Religious wanton disregard for the sanctity of human life. I could go on. But, the fact remains, this is the world into which Jesus was born over two thousand years ago, the world in which he still lives. And it is the world he calls us to serve today. This chapter, therefore, must acknowledge both the beauty and the ugliness of the real world. It must take into consider-ation both the light and the darkness in the world--the world not only out there, but the world in here, in °,. ,,. ~ .~' .' our community and in our own hearts. We began our chapter with a reconciliation service. That was no accident. May forgiveness and rec-onciliation be an underlying theme of everything we do here these days--and beyond. 5. This chapter can't do everything, but it must do some-thing. When we contemplate all the needs of the world, we can become overwhelmed. So many voices crying out for help! Yet our resources are so limited. At times the inces-sant cry of the poor can even paralyze us. We can find ourselves crying, "We can't do everything!" And that is true. We cannot. But, for God's sake, let us do something. I believe this chapter will do something. I do not know what, but it will. That something might be the passing of a proposal dear to my heart--or the defeat of one I cher-ish. Maybe this chapter will result in a single step in a new direction or an old one. Or maybe this chapter will begin to name the content of our next province plan, the focus of future province summer assemblies, or the agenda for the next provincial leadership team. Whatever this chapter does, I hope and pray it will result in some definite corporate movement forward. But °our chapter i ith recOnciliation service? 64.3 2005 Svoboda ¯ Community Chapters I also hope this chapter will challenge me on a deeply personal level. I hope it will make demands upon me, stretch my thinking, and cause me to question some of my daily choices--and cause me to alter them in per-haps subtle but very real ways. 6. This chapter will not be perfect. That is because we are not perfect. And imperfect people do not a perfect chapter make! Sometimes I hear sisters say, "I don't expect much from this chapter, because all we do is talk about the same stuff over and over again. I'm tired of it!" Well, I'm not! I am not tired of the fact that we often end up talking about the "same stuff"--like community, ministry, prayer, the vows, mission. I am not surprised or disappointed either, because that "stuff" lies at the very core of our identity as women religious. The way I see it, we will always be talking about these things--we should be! Why? Because we are on a journey, and, as we go forward, life will continuously challenge our under-standing of who we are and what we should be about. Could we ever exhaust the topic of prayer? No. Will we ever be "finished" with mission? No. Will we ever be able to say, "Well, we have no more problems with community living." Or, "Well, we've got poverty down pat now, so let's move on to something else. How about chastity?" No. In the novel The Secret Life of Bees, August, a middle-aged black woman, says to the little girl Lily, "There is nothing perfect. There is only life." We could say something similar: there is no perfect chapter. There is only this chapter. The feast of Christmas reminds us that Jesus came into our broken and messy world. He did not wait for the ideal time to come. Let us not let our hopes for the ideal chapter prevent us from doing some-thing good with this real one. 7. This chapter must be about loving. Let there be no mistake: we are gathered here these four days for one Review for Religious purpose only: to become better lovers. That is the bot-tom line. This chapter must help us to love better the incredible God who seduced each one of us into mak-ing a lifelong commitment of "chastity, poverty, and obe-dience according to the spirit and content of the Constitutions of the Sisters of Notre Dame." God seduced us. I know of no better word to describe the experience we all underwent. As consecrated religious we have the duty to keep ourselves in this ardent, pas-sionate, and dangerous state of loving. May this chapter rekindle our wholehearted and reck-less love for God, for Jesus. May it remind us that we are partners with Jesus in his mission--not because we have signed up for a cause, but because we have said a loving yes to a person. May this chap-ter rekindle our love for the. church. Oh, the church! Our poor, poor church! The terri-ble scandals! The unspeakable crimes! The betrayal, the deceit! But may we remember that this church is still our church. It is still Christ's church. As Archbishop Sean O'Malley, of Boston, said at his installation ceremony, "though we are living through a ~ad chapter in the church's history, we must recall that it is a chapter, not the whole book!" And then he said these profound words: "We come here today to ask God to make our pain redemptive." What fitting words for us, as Sisters of Notre Dame who have a 153-year-old history of being marked by the cross and a 153-year-old tradition of loy-alty to the church. And, finally, may this chapter rekindle our love and devotion to one another. May it remind us that, by mak- , H'a~v .e. .w. e :ever tho:u g h t ¯of a chapter as having onepuNoseonlY) :to become ,better.lovers ? 64.3 200Y Svoboda * Community Chapters ing our vows, we have bound ourselves to one another for the term of our whole lives. We have promised to live religious life not in the abstract, but within this partic-ular, concrete congregation, the Sisters of Notre Dame. For most of us that means being embedded in the province of Christ the King of Chardon, Ohio. We live in a culture that deifies privacy, individualism, and con-trol of one's destiny. Such a culture desperately needs our witness of community, the witness of diverse indi-viduals living and working together--selflessly and joy-fully-- in Jesus' name to bring about the kingdom of God. My final prayer is a simple one. May this chapter rekindle in us the hope-filled daring of St. Julie, of Sister Aloysia, and of those countless sisters who have gone before us. And may our hope-filled daring be an inspi-ration for those Sisters of Notre Dame who will come after us--in whatever country they may be. In his apos-tolic exhortation Vita consecrata (§110), Pope John Paul says these words to us: "You have not only a glorious history to remember and recount, but also a great history to be accomplished." May this chapter be one small step toward the accomplishment of that great history. 258 Reflection Questions 1. What are the personal beliefs I would list about an upcoming chapter in my congregation? 2. What are some of the ways that we, could bring a sense of joy and a sense of passion into the ordinary busi-ness of a chapter? Review for Religious MARIE BRINKMAN Invisible-- Even to Ourselves? It comes as something of a shock to learn that some people of the Catholic faith community do not know what we are up to--we women reli-gious, that is. Engrossed in ministry as we are most of the time and in close touch with asso-ciates, colleagues, and other friends who by now take for granted our attire and our social or pro-fessional habits, we hardly realize that some still wonder where we have gone or why we live as we do.~ Others see almost nothing of our pre-sent community life or our ministries born of renewal, for we have made ourselves invisible. Unless they happen to know one or two us per-sonally, young women see little of the differ-ence we make to the church and less to attract them to the vowed life we lead. This is a claim many of us might question or debate, but few young women are knocking at our doors to give themselves to our enterprise. ] 259 I :. Marie Brinkman SCL wrote for us in 1971 and 2001. She may be addressed at Sisters of Charity; 4200 South Fourth Street; Leavenworth, Kansas 66048. 64.3 2005 Brinlrman * Invisible ~ Even to Ourselves? I want a other generation Of sisters for the ture mission and life of our community? This is not the place or time to raise moot questions about discarded religious symbolism. Options have been made available, freedom to discern how we will dress and where or with whom we will live in relation to ministries that we believe witness to the gospel. Yet, forty years after the beginning of our renewal, people ask if we are going to survive as vowed communities or congregations. How have we failed to convey to ,:~ them that we are not only alive and well but also are planning for a future even more vigorous and effective than our past? Given our reduced numbers and what some perceive as a disappear-ing act, that may sound like a pipe dream: Women's intu-ition, unreliable. Wishful thinking. Plain presumption. We stand open to such charges, but we do not accept them. Our young sisters are realists and pose questions of their own. Let me mention a few I encountered as we. were preparing for our sixteenth general chapter. In the reports from the council, from task forces, and from standing committees, notes from sisters fifty-five and younger were given careful attention. Calling themselves "Between Alpha and Omega," these sisters--who stand between the community's past and future--asked about the quality of community life, the diffusion of ministries, and a "visioning process" for looking at our future. A few paradoxes appeared as well as concerns we should all share. Repeatedly they asked for direction from com-munity leadership. ¯ Does the small size of local houses limit choices of how we can live in community? Review for Religious ¯ Are local communities willing to support a new kind of associate program allowing young people to live with some of us for a limited or extended time? ¯ How can we envision the future of relationships between SCLs and HCLs (our North American sis-ters and our hermanas of Latin America) and between our sponsored works and new ministries? That is, how can we deepen our unity of mission?2 Questions from the Associate Program director sug-gest the need for greater unity with the laity with whom we have intentionally allied ourselves for the past twenty years. Ties have been forged, and leadership within our institutions has been handed over; the identity and roles of our 180 associates are not so clear. One of them asked me how they might become more aware of the issues we face in chapter and beyond. That suggests a need for better communication and stronger collaboration with our associates--a stage other communities have already reached and gone beyond.3 A fundamental question the director of vocation min-istry posed to chapter delegates was a challenge that implied more than prayer and moral support. She asked us to ask ourselves: "Do I want another generation of sis-ters for the future mission and life of our community?" A firm yes in reply would bring a pledge to tithe a percent-age of time for the effort. Extrapolating from her recom-mendations suggests ways of committing time and talent. For example, the communication office for promotion of religious life in every channel of the media could draw on the volunteer services of active retired sisters. Houses of hospitality throughout the community could use the services of partially employed or volunteer sisters.4 A startling question came from the director of ini-tial formation, speaking in chapter on behalf of the fifty-five- and-under group. She wondered whether we realize 64.3 200~ Brinkman ¯ Invisible --Even to Ourselves? that, as women religious deepening our renewal of mis-sion and ministry, we are living "on the fringe" of the church in its present hierarchical operation,s Given facts from which the question comes, I would have replied that on the contrary we are at the heart of the church renewing itself. It is a matter of perspective, but I think she is the more realistic about the present and a consid-erable piece of the future. During a chat after an inter-congregational gathering, a novice, expressing what she felt, said in effect: "Where's our vision? Let's not be dis-tracted by a future of diminishing numbers and advanc-ing age. I want to hear us talk about the present and our potential and what we can do now to make a new future come to be.''6 She wondered whether so many small dwellings and so little cultural diversity can offer com-munity to new members. That is the voice of new life and promise. That is the echo of our founders, who knew nothing but risk and challenge. What they did we can do on new frontiers and in new ways. In her report a community councilor considered our progress in living out the vision statement of the 1998 general chapter, pledging us "to love the poor, to love one another, to live simply, and to unite the whole of our lives in the poor and loving Christ." Some of her questions challenged us to assess our lives in the light of priorities we have set for ourselves: to partner with the poor for mutual transformation, to simplify our lives in the spirit of our founders, and to make our local com-munity a welcoming experience and genuine support for each member--rather than a comfort to ourselves. Other questions challenged us to deeper awareness of what globalization has brought to the poor, to all our ministries, and to the life and mission of the church. They asked us to examine what "gospel values" and "work for systemic change" mean--in terms, for example, Review for Religious of personal and house budgets. They asked if we wish to--or even can--remain an ethnically homogenous group in the face of cultural diversity that is literally changing the face of the country we live in. Does our advocacy for the poor change us as it should?7 The councilor's questions carried implications. We may not be aware of who we really are or have become. Deeply different experiences of religious life and com-munity living divide us even within our day-to-day unity. The reconciliation we struggled to achieve during renewal chapters allows for a degree of hid-den complacency. Different perspectives on how our ministries--individual and community-sponsored-- manifest our mission may hinder further transforming action. Do we know what we are capable of and to what the Spirit now calls us? It is only fair to remark here that the chapter confronted these and other prob-ing questions persistently and with no little vision and courage. Writing the story of our community's last fifty years, I have learned something of the potential residing in institutions we sponsor and in various ways still staff. Their growth over these decades of diminishment reveals what women have always done in times of retrenchment: put people first, get purposes clear, find means where there were none, and never take no for an answer. The deluge of facts and figures took shape in patterns of change and renewal that most congrega- 64.3 2005 Brinkman ¯ Invisible -- Even to Ourselves? tions could duplicate or surpass. They include: ¯ mergers and coordinated systems of parochial schools, moving from strength of programs into lay administra-tion and staffing, and continuing commitment to under-served or inner-city areas ¯ the maturing of a small liberal-arts college for women into a coeducational university offering baccalaureate and masters' degrees to working adults, getting under-prepared minority students ready for college, educating youth to service ¯ incorporation of hospitals--regional leaders in health-care-- under a centralized health-services system com-mitted to community education and the care of all persons in need regardless of their ability to pay ¯ operating clinics staffed by sister or lay administrators and volunteer professionals to serve uninsured families and individuals ¯ transforming homes for parentless children into com-plex professional partnerships for treatment, care, and schooling of emotionally disturbed youngsters in both residential and day programs ¯ staffing missions in Latin America through forty years of growth into native leadership in formation and expan-sion of catechetical and healthcare ministries. As separate incorporation and lay boards for hospitals, homes, and the unive~'sity became advisable and advan-tageous, community sponsorship maintained the charism of the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth through strong programs of mission integration. Certainly such collab-orationand continued presence in institutions that serve cities, states, and regions affirm an identity and confirm a religious mission. Are numbers, uniform dress, and common quarters necessary for recognition and symbolic significance to those who care anything about it? If not, what then is lacking? Why are those who retain such out- Review for Religious ward signs drawing young candidates, and why are we who faithfully minister without them relatively invisible? Individual ministries have witnessed to the gospel and offered religious presence in unprecedented ways during the last four decades. Pastoral ministry drew early numbers; women took leading roles in liturgical renewal, youth ministry, and the adaptation of the RCIA to cate-chesis and religious formation. Degrees in theology, min-istry, and canon law led sisters to chancery offices and marriage tribunals, to social services and diocesan hous-ing, and to spiritual direction and retreat centers. Choices of hospital chaplaincy, ministry to the dying and their families, guidance in holistic health, and counseling of delinquents, single parents, and families meant personal encounters that called on a deep prayer life and com-munity bonds. More rare but equally demanding have been calls to scholarship, writing, and the creative arts. Potentially paradigmatic in their effectiveness and extent are individual ministries to AIDS patients, admin-istration of mission and even city parishes in the West, and repair and renovation of houses for poor families in urban areas. Partnering with civic agencies is integral to such ministries. Our Office of Social Justice and Peace has allied our communi~ for these thirty years with the lobbying forces of Network, with religious and lay groups committed to creating a sustainable environment and combating systemic poverty and oppression, and with the humanitarian offices of the United Nations. Such collaboration is common to most religious congrega-tions. The community's leadership has allied us with the Charity Federation and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) in their proactive agendas of renewal and mission. All of these ministries and alliances are familiar to professed religious. To allude to them is to make a point, 64.3 2005 Brinkman ¯ Invisible --Even to Ourselves? 266 namely, that the renewed unity of mission and ministry that many now seek and a renewed visibility in service to the church consist in much more than celebrating our differences and prioritizing our use of limited resources. Our unity and visibility consist, on the other hand, in more than freedom to diversify our ministries in part-nering with the poor. Making our mission and commu-nity manifest requires that we discern the Spirit's call to all women religious who believe that in their unity the people of God have a unique source of power. Our vis-ible unity must become the sign of Christ and his church that religious life is meant to be. Our unity is a crucial response to the Spirit, whose power alone can transform the church and turn back the global tide of cultural enmity and systematized violence. One of the foundations for our own faith in our future is the solid work of renewal that has continued through decades of loss and diminishment and through a period of relative immaturity in dealing with new free-doms to dress, drive, reside, and relax as we chose. This renewal effort hungers for deeper prayer life while seek-ing more effective channels of action. This renewal effort calls for community bonds that will hold firm across dis-tances and separations. Once realized, it is communion, the ultimate grace of vowed life on earth. The unity we seek requires deliberate decisions like these, adaptable to our individual communities: ¯ To find common ground for all our ministries, individ-ual and communal, in the church's mission to transform social and economic structures of oppression into resources of human growth. This means conscious commitment to uncover and combat causes of the suffering we constantly work to alleviate. ¯ To create a community culture that is welcoming and visible to young women who may desire to live and work Review for Religious with us for varying periods of time as associates com-mitted to the gospel. This means opening certain con-vents to women of various ethnic and educational backgrounds willing to learn of our charism and mission without seeking a vowed life. ¯ To make of our community communications a min-istry (rather than simply sources of information), a min-istry that lets our various publics know that all our ministries are part of the broad mission of the church on earth. Admirable models of print and electronic media exist that show salaried personnel and volunteer workers dedicatedly pursuing the goals of the religious commu-nities that own or sponsor the various large or small institutions and initiatives. ¯ To seek new ways of bringing gospel values into the national conversation: new forms of education at all lev-els (like the Jesuits' Cristo Rey schools), or public lec-tures and dialogue inspired by the community's mission (like the Benedictines' Atchison Threshold or the Global Institute at Leavenworth's University of Saint Mary). This means collaborating imaginatively and being will-ing to take some risks. ¯ To seek collaborators among associates, alumni/ae, and other friends for ventures into the public arena that do not depend on financial support or common allegiances. This means engaging partners as Vincent de Paul and Louise de Marillac and other founders of apostolic con-gregations did, perfecting the art of bridge building between those with means and those without. ¯ To create offices of mission and ministry that assist sisters in transition or nearing retirement to discern where best to contribute their services, within commu-nity- sponsored institution( or in partnership with sisters and associates in other activities that can use their help. This may well mean active/retirement residences for the 64.~ 200~ Brinkman * Invisible ~ Even to Ourselves? mutual support of those more active and less active. If we energetically choose some paths like these to a renewed unity of mission and ministry in our communi-ties, a new visibility will surely follow. Notes t A case in point is John Fialka's Sisters: Catholic Nuns and the Making of America (St. Martin's Press) and Ken Woodward's review in the New York Times Book Review. 2 Sister Elizabeth Youngs SCL, "Between Alpha and Omega," Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Report for the Sixteenth Chapter, June 2004, pp. 117-119. 3 Sister Sharon Smith SCL, "Associates Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth," in SCL Sixteenth Chapter, pp. 105-107. 4 Sister Sharon Smit,h SCL, "Vocation Ministry," in SCL Sixteenth Chapter, pp. 99-101. s Sister Mary Beth Minges SCL, "Initial Formation. 1998-2004," in SCL Sixteenth Chapter, pp. 102-104. 6 Conversation with Sister Erica Berg SCL, May 2004. 7 Report from Sister Constance Phelps SCL, community councilor 1998-2004, in SCL Sixteenth Chapter, pp. 16-25. ,Review for Religious DORIS GOTTEMOELLER Living in Community: Continuing the Conversation Scix years ago I published an article titled "Living in ommunity: Beginning the Conversation." In it I suggested that the unwillingness or inability of contem-porary religious congregations to discuss this aspect of our way of life may well be our Achilles' heel, the point of vulnerability that diminishes our integrity and threat-ens our future. The article included some definitions, theological underpinnings for community living, sup-portive spiritual practices, reflections on the role of lead-ership in creating and sustaining community, and some special challenges.1 The dozens of responses to this article that I received from readers in the United States and abroad convince me that I touched on a neuralgic point. I would say the responses fall into three categories: (1) Yes, you have touched on a vital topic, tell us what to do; (2) Yes, you have touched on a vital topic, but it is too late--we have lost too much to ever regain a commitment to commu- Doris Gottemoeller RSM last wrote for us in our 62.2 issue of 2003. Her address remains Catholic Healthcare Partners; 615 Elsinore Place; Cincinnati, Ohio 45202. 64.3 200Y Gottemoeller ¯ Living in Community nity living; and (3) No, you do not know what you are talking about; it is the wrong issue and the wrong premise. In these pages I would like to dialogue with these groups. "Tell Us What to Do" The first two groups affirm the significance of com-munity living, but seek direction for its revitalization, so I will respond to them together. Several authors offer helpful insights. In a talk given to the National Religious Vocation Conference Study Days in September 1999, Nancy Schreck OSF addressed "The forces that push us toward and pull us away from community.''2 She begins with the assumption that community involves persons living together in shared space with shared resources, not in order to re-create family relationships, but in order to create the possibility of a radical following of Jesus. She develops a force field analysis in which com-peting forces or energies impinge on the reality of com-munity. The driving forces that she identifies include cosmic awareness, the struggle with diversity, the need for prophetic witness, the action of the Spirit, the iden-tity of religious life, mission effectiveness, a new desire in the members, the desire of new members, and lim-ited resources. The forces that move against community include paradigm paralysis, U.S. mainstream culture, patriarchal influence, drift, lowest-common-denomina-tor performance, adjustments made in good faith, lack of need, lack of energy, community as an event, ability of members, public witness, the asceticism of personal growth, and participation in multiple communities. This is not the place to analyze these competing forces. They are, however, part of the ambiance of religious life today, and have to be taken into consideration in any effort to energize community living. Her article could be a won- Review for Religious derful starting point for a conversation in any local com-munity or congregation. Another analysis of the current reality comes from women religious under fifty in their newsletter Giving VOICE. The December 1999 issue addresses this topic in a number of thoughtful reflections) The editor, Jan Hayes RSM, reports that the editorial team received "an avalanche" of responses to the questions: How do you define community? Does it include communal living or doesn't it? VVhat is your experience of communal living? VV-hat is it that you bring to group living situ-ations? What is it that you need? Does communal liv-ing add to the vitality of the larger community or doesn't it? Is communal living still an integral part Do ,we findit~ helpful to compare' the loosening of communal bonds: in American society tO the ~ame phenomenon in 'women's ,religious life ? of religious life? Space precludes summarizing all of the excellent contributions on this issue, both in the articles and in the comments received from emails and letters to the editor. The overall tenor of the contributions, however, affirms the centrality of communal living to the sisters' understanding of their vocation and their desire to grow in this dimension of their life. The sociologist Mary Johnson SNDdeN addressed the issue in these pages in her article titled "Bowling Alone, Living Alone: Current Social Contexts for Living the Vows.''4 She responds to an article by Robert D. Putnam titled "Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital"S and to my earlier article. Putnam's the-sis is that there has been a .loosening of communal bonds across U.S. society in the last thirty years. His provoca- 64.3 2005 Gottemoeller ¯ Living in Community 272 five title comes from his observation that persons tend to bowl alone or in small groups today, rather than joining leagues, which require regular attendance. He has pre-sented this viewpoint in Vghite House conferences and national workshops and in other publications as well, and he has been quoted frequently. In Putnam's analysis, communal bonds, norms, and networks constitute "social capital" that facilitates coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit. He cites evidence of decline in religious involvement, labor-union membership, involvement in parent-teacher associations, and volunteering in civic, fraternal, and women's organizations like the Red Cross, the Boy Scouts, the Shriners, the Jaycees, and the League of Women Voters. He acknowledges that groups like the Sierra Club, the National Organization for Women, and the American Association of Retired Persons have seen a dramatic rise in membership in recent decades. But, as Johnson notes, while the political clout of these orga-nizations is considerable, the nature of involvement is vastly different from the organizations discussed previ-ously. Putnam says: "For the vast majority of their mem-bers (Sierra, NOW, AARP, and so forth), the only act of membership consists of writing a check for dues or per-haps occasionally reading a newsletter. Their ties, in short, are to common symbols, common leaders, and perhaps common ideals, but not to one another. From the point of view of social connectedness, the Environmental Defense Fund and a bowling league are just not in the same category." Similarly, Johnson adds, "a group of friends that meets quarterly, a prayer group that meets monthly, and a support group that meets weekly are just not in the same category as a c.ommunity that lives under the same roof and interacts daily." Johnson goes on to compare the loosening of communal bonds in American society to Review for Religious the same phenomenon in women's religious life. As evi-dence she cites research findings, funded by the Lilly Foundation, from a national survey of women who entered apostolic, monastic, and evangelical orders since 1965. Her data, based on responses from 70 percent of the women's institutes (whose membership constitutes 84 percent of the sisters in the United States), indicate that 69 percent of religious houses consist of one or two sisters. When asked "If you had your preference right now, with how many sisters would you prefer to live?" these post-Vatican II sisters responded as follows: with none (11%); with one other sister (14%), with two other sisters (12%); in a group of 4-7 sisters (45%); in a group of 8-10 sisters (6%); in a group of 11-15 sisters (2%); in a group of 16-20 sisters (4%); in a group of more than 20 sisters (6%). The gap between what sisters experience and what they would prefer is intriguing. No doubt the restrain-ing forces cited by Schreck above would help explain the disparity. There is much more in Johnson's article, but overall she believes that "the work of sharply defining and rebuilding community is essential to the mission and future of apostolic religious life in the United States and other nations where religious life struggles to free itself from the hegemonic hold of middle-class values." This probably summarizes the opinion of most of the respon-dents in this first group. Now to another viewpoint. "Wrong Issue, Wrong Premise" The most explicit argument is voiced by Barbara Fiand SNDdeN in Refocusing the Vision: Religious Life into the Future.6 In chapter 4 she differs strongly with Johnson and me (pp. 147-149). Citing both of our articles, she accuses us of a bias toward living together and a "high-handed" rejection of other experiences, saying that some- 64.3 2005 Gottemoeller ¯ Living in Community thing new is evolving from the grassroots which needs to be taken into consideration. Because of the diversity of living situations today, she says, "the whole tenor of what used to be called 'community living' has changed." She adds that the alleged desire of potential new members for residential community living needs to be probed fur-ther lest it be mistaken for an adequate reason for becom-ing a religious. Finally, she suggests that Johnson's bias toward community living prejudices her as a professional investigator. Fiand seems to believe--as do others with whom I have spoken--that promoting communal living today would be an example of restorationism, a regrettable regression into some prerenewal version of religious life. It is regarded as giving way to nostalgia, a selective mem-ory about the benefits and joys of living together. Nostalgia screens out, she says, the struggles and dys-functions that were part of the reality. In response I would suggest that to restore an earlier practice with a renewed understanding of its value and with suitable adaptation to changing circumstances can be a valuable retrieval. Others object to efforts to restore community living on historical grounds. They charge that women religious lived "in community" only because the hierarchical church imposed this on us. Or, similarly, they say that something which was essential to monastic life was inap-propriately required of evangelical and apostolic reli-gious life as well. This objection would require substantial historical research. Investigation would prob-ably show, for example, that the Council of Trent's effort to insist on cloister for women's religious orders was widely resisted, as much by bishops as by women them-selves, since the works entrusted to them required the ability to be out and among the people. Cloister or papal Review for Religious enclosure, of course, is not what today's supporters of communal living envision for their apostolic lives. Investigation would probably also show that various founders from the 16th century to the present have had different ideas about the significance and modality of community living, and so the research would need to make a congregation-by-congregation review. The most neuralgic point in any discussion of com-munity living is whether a congregation should express and promote any norms around living "in common," that is, in groups of two or more. The most helpful resource here is Sandra Schneiders IHM's treatment of the issue in Selling All: Commitment, Consecrated Celibacy, and Community in Catholic Religious Life.7 The premise and context of her discussion is life in a "mobile ministerial religious congregation." Her thesis is that community life, "an intrinsic and constitutive dimension of minis-terial religious life, is theologically necessary for all mem-bers of the congregation, but that it can be embodied on the personal level in a plurality of lifestyles, both group and individual, which are related to each other as equally valid variations, not as legitimate to aberration, normative to exceptional, or superior to inferior" (p. 350, italics added). Specifically, she discusses congregational group living. (pp. 317-330) and three varieties of indi-vidual living. She defines each and spells out the cir-cumstances which may prompt it and the major advantages and challenges each brings. The three forms of individual living are living singly (pp. 330-335), living alone (pp. 336-339), and living in solitude (pp. 339-349). The first is the case of someone who would not choose individual living, but is compelled to do so by educational, ministerial, or personal respon-sibilities (such as the care of aging parents). Vghen the circumstances change, persons in this category are likely 64.3 2005 Gottemoeller ¯ Living in Community 276t 7 ~ to return to group living. The second is the case of some-one who is self-marginalized, on a sort of exclaustration without going through the formalities. This is the per-son who probably has not been seen at a community event in anyone's memory. The third form of individual living is the case of per-sons who seek and choose solitude for their own spiritual development and psychological health. Schneiders describes them as neither alienated nor estranged, but deeply committed and actively involved, perhaps even holding congregational leadership posts. They are fully accountable to congregational leadership in regard to finances, ministry, and personal lifestyle; they are fre-quently involved in very demanding ministries; they are actively committed to the justice agenda. My observation about sisters in this third category is that they are the very persons with whom I would like to share community living and that, for every one of them who opts for solitary living, there is one less com-panion available to those who desire healthy group liv-ing. And so I do not agree with Schneiders that the choice to live individually is without consequence for the rest of the group, or that a norm favoring group liv-ing would be inappropriate. Each member's choice enlarges or diminishes options for others. The more often healthy and active sisters choose to live alone, the more the impression may be given that those who choose to live together are immature, dependent, and nonre-newed. Creating the Future What are some considerations for sisters who want to break through the hesitancy and silence that surround the issue of community living? Here are four sugges-tions. First, the venue for choice of a norm around com- Review for Religious munity living is the congregational chapter. By the very nature of what is involved--an authoritative interpreta-tion of the commitment to community--an individual sister or small group of sisters cannot be determinative. As with any norm, interpretations in specific cases and exceptions for specific individuals can be made by the leadership. This authority to interpret the Rule and to apply it in specific circumstances is one of the highest obligations of leadership. If done sensitively and consis-tently, it will build up the common good and respond to individual needs. Exceptions, then, will not detract from the clarity of the ideal embraced by the membership and the good-faith efforts to strive toward the ideal. Second, congregations will legitimately differ in their interpretation of their commitment. Their history, tra-ditions, and present circumstances may prompt some to choose the norm of living in common, others of living singly, and others of honoring individual choice. Clarity about what the normative interpretation of community is may lead to less diversity in lifestyle within a congre-gation and more diversity among congregations. This clarity should be valuable in describing a congregation to the larger church and to potential new members. Third, in discerning their choice around community living, each congregation should factor in how its choice influences its practice of poverty, of obedience, of celibacy, of prayer, and of ministry. Each of these ele-ments of religious life is meant to interact with the oth-ers to create a synergistic whole. How is a communal spirituality built up through the daily efforts of the mem-bers? How is the sharing of goods implied by poverty realized in practice? And so forth. In a way the manner of community living chosen creates a template for the realization of each of the other elements. The discern-ment should also project the possible impact of the 277 ¯ 64.3 2005 Gottemoeller ¯ Living in Community 278] choice into the future. What will be the possible impact of the congregation's present choice a generation from now? Fourth, the congregation's choice of a norm around community living must be supported by appropriate resources, both material and spiritual. If it is true that forty-five percent of sisters desire to live in groups of four to seven, and this is consistent with the congrega-tion's norm, then housing must be found to make that possible. The loss of parish convents is one of the factors that led to the drift into individual living, and apart-ments will seldom accommodate more than two people. Of course, the investment in living space requires a good-faith commitment on the part of groups to use the space. Congregational leadership has to invite and promote the dialogues that lead to these choices. Leaders .also have to make available other resources, such as materials for group prayer and ritual, occasional group facilitation, intervention in crisis situations, and a general climate of encouragement and support. The intention in pursuing this conversation is not to simplify what is a very complex issue, having historical, cultural, sociological, and theological dimensions. Nor is it to minimize the experience of anyone living religious life today. Rather, the purpose is to call attention to a principal dimension of religious life and to invite a cor-porate discernment. Few questions cut closer to the real-ity of a congregation's identity than its norm or lack of norm around community living. Attempts at dialogue are sometimes stalled by the prospect of choosing between ministry and community living, with the assumptions that members cannot be expected to bring energy to both and that ministry is to be preferred. A better perspective would be to view both ministry and community as equally valuable expressions Review for Religiozts of mission, each strengthening the other. The presence of adults living together in simplicity and harmony, shar-ing prayer, hospitality, and the duties and struggles of daily living, is an uncommon and striking witness to the power of the gospel and the dynamism of a congrega-tion's charism, so much so that it deserves to be called a prophetic stance. Six years ago I closed with the phrase that is the sub-title of the Vatican document on community, "The Love of Christ Gathers Us into Unity." This phrase captures the motive and dynamism of community life. Only the love of Christ is enough to support and sustain this way of life. Love attracts and gathers us. The process is never finished, always calling us to greater unity, greater gen-erosity, greater zeal. We will all fall short of this ideal, but it is one that will never be approached unless it is artic-ulated in behavioral expectations appropriate to a con-gregation's charism and mission. Notes ~ Review for Religious 58, no. 2 (March-April 1999): 137-149. See also my article "Community and Communion: Making the Connections," Review for Religious 60, no. 2 (March-April 2001): 139-151. 2 Horizon, Spring 2000, 7-15. 3 Giving VOICE 1, no. 3 (December 1999). Contributors include Denise Starkley OP, "Community: An Essential Part of Charism"; Rayleen Giannotti RSM, "A Common Life and a Vibrant Spirituality"; Janice Bader CPPS, "Commitment Grows through the 'Rubbing of Elbows'"; Debbie Wells CPPS, "Generation Xers in Community: A Cultural Expert--No Experience Necessary!"; and Kathy Wright SL, "Community ls for Mission." 4 Review for Religious 59, no. 2 (March-April 2000): 118-130. s Journal of Democracy 6, no. 1 (January 1995): 65-78. 6 Barbara Fiand SNDdeN, Refocusing the Vision (New York: Crossroad Publishing Co., 2001). 7 Sandra Schneiders IHM, Selling All, Vol. 2 of Religious Life in a New Millennium (New York: Paulist Press, 2001). 279 64.3 200Y Gottemoeller ¯ Living in Community Prayer: Psalm 122:1-3, 6-9 I rejoiced because they said to me, "We ~ill go up to the house of the Lord." And now we have set foot within your gates, O Jerusalem-- Jerusalem, built as a city with compact unity. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem! May those who love you prosper! May peace be within your walls, prosperity in your buildings. Because of my relatives and friends I will say " Peace be'within you!" Because of the house of the Lord, our God, I will pray for your good. Reflection and Discussion What is my personal experience of community support and sharing in our congregational vocation and charism? Religious community life mirrors the secular cultural breakdown of social groupings. Do we agree or disagree? If we agree, what kind of changes would we want to work for in religious life? What would be some "norms" that a religious congrega-tion might establish to support and sustain a healthy living "in common"? Review for Religiou~ MARY C. CARROLL With Love from Calcutta and Lisieux: Letters of Mother Teresa and St. Th~r~se When Father Michael van der Peet SCJ, A col-league of mine and seminary spiritual director, lectured on Mother Teresa of Calcutta, it was not just his reporting of particular facts but the heartfelt friendship he had with this remarkable woman that inspired me.~ Because of my com-pelling interest, Father shared the twenty let-ters he had received from Mother Teresa and spoke at length about their conversations and his continuing sense of her presence in his life. I was reminded of another friendship and the poignant letters exchanged between Maurice Barth~l~my-Belli~re, an aspiring seminarian, and Th6r~se of Lisieux. As he departed from France for the African missions, Maurice was deeply consoled by the assuring words of Th~r~se that somehow she would be with him. What is it that motivates and sustains such relationships? Mother Teresa wrote her letters in Mary C. Carroll SSSF is a professor and spiritual director at Sacred Heart School of Theology; .7335 South Highway 100; P.O. Box 429; Hales Corners, Wisconsin 53130. witnessing 64.3 2005 Carroll ¯ With Love from Calcutta and Lisieux 282 the midst of enormous travel demands, and Th~r~se of Lisieux wrote even when she was extremely ill. What is it that so strongly moves people to assist one another on the spiritual journey? Examining these two relationships may provide insight into Jesus' admonition to "abide in my love" (Jn 15:9). My purpose here is (1) to describe the origins of these two friendships, (2) to explore the contents of select letters and conversations, and (3) to share the wisdom of the relationships. Mother Teresa of Calcutta and Father Michael At a bus stop in Rome, Father Michael--a native of Holland and something of a world traveler himself-- noticed that the diminutive woman patiently waiting was Mother Teresa. Considering how rare such a respite must have been for her, he thought of giving her just a nod of recognition. But then he thought: "Here is a saint and I am a sinner. At least I can ask her to pray for me." Fortuitously the conversation that ensued included an invitation to give a talk to Mother's congregation, the Missionaries of Charity, in Rome. Arriving early and sitting in the chapel, Father Michael noticed the Ego Sum (I Am) on the tabernacle door. This became a prayer focus and filled him with a sense of "holy ground." This day concluded with another invitation, for a retreat. Mother requested continuing contact because, as she told him, "You kriow Jesus and you know us.''~ In her first letter Mother says: I would be grateful if I could turn to you for spiritual help, but I am absolutely too small and empty. Only Jesus can stoop so low as to be in love with one such as me. Pray for me--that "No" does not pass through my heart and lips---when Jesus asks. (Letter 1, 11/16/75) Because of traveling, Mother apologizes for a delay in her next letter; she assures Father Michael, however, that Review for Reli~ous a holy hour follows every Mass so that "I get the two hours with Jesus before people and sisters start using me. I let Him use me first" (Letter 2, 3/6/76). Several months later Mother is in New York and invites Father Michael to a private meeting, during which he suggests leaving after an hour. Mother's response is "No. The morning is for us, and the media don't know where I am." On. another occasion Father Michael raised a question: "Wherever you go, Mother, people con-sider you to be a heroine or saint. You received all those beautiful prizes. The Holy Father admires and praises you. You were the guest of Indira Gandhi, of Queen Elizabeth, and of President and Mrs. Reagan. How do you handle all of that?" She laughed and said: "Father, [pointing to her ear] it goes in here and comes out there. I am too small to contain it all. Jesus has given me a great grace, and that is the absoluteconviction that I am nothing without Him. If He could find a poorer woman than I, He would not choose me but He would choose that woman." This theme of "littleness" appears again in a letter: I want to write, but I have nothing to say, but that wonder at His great humility and my smallness--noth-ingness. I believe--this is where Jesus and I meet-- He is everything to me--and I--His own little one--so helpless--so empty--so small that all these things that people keep pouring at and round me, can-not enter within me. Maybe because of the darkness I do not see. Maybe He just wants it to be so. I let Him have His way. I smile at the cardboard box [referring "If He co ld find a poorer w man than!, He would noLchoose me but He would choose tha woman." 283 64.3 2005 Carroll * With Love from Calcutta and Lisieux 284[ to herself] getting filled--with all kinds of things-- Big things, most of which I do not understand, but I know that I am being used--only--for and by them so that they proclaim the presence of the Poor--and their concern for the poor. And so I accept everything with a smile in their name. (Letter 3, 5/29/76) In another letter the theme of an unconditional love-- despite the inexplicable darkness that encircles Jesus within her--is quite pronounced in the last paragraph: My love for Jesus keeps growing more simple and more I think personal. Like our Poor, I try to accept my poverty of being small, helpless, incapable of great love, but I want to love Jesus with Mary's love, and His Father with Jesus' love. I know you are praying for me. I want Him to be at ease with me--not to mind my feelings--as long as He feels alright--not to mind even the darkness that surrounds Him in me-- but that in spite of everything Jesus is all to me and that I love no one but only Jesus. (Letter 4, 6/19/76) Within a few months Mother is writing of Brother Roger of Taizd's presence in Calcutta and marveling at someone so full of God and willing to live right in the slums. She promises Father Michael more sharing when her table is "a little empty of letters" (Letter 5, 11/6/76). There is a specificity of issues--providence and faith-fulness- mentioned in the following letter. First Mother refers to their wonderful "chance" meeting in Rome. We have received much from accepting to meet-- without being consulted or prepared. I do not know how He does with you--but with me He always does so--just to make me realize His tender concern for me and my nothingness--His fullness and my empti-ness- His infinite Love and my childlike love. (Letter 6, 11/26/76) Then she addresses Father Michael's personal concerns: Review for Religious "Let not your infidelity and hesitancy as you say--pre-occupy you, but accept all that He gives and give what-ever He takes with a big smile. For this is holiness: to do His will with a big smile" (Letter 6, 11/26/76). But that smile is difficult for her too as she handles her celebrity status in a visit to the United States. "It was all one act of blind obedience. I began to understand the Stations of the Cross with a deeper meaning. The Police, the crowds, it all seemed as if Calvary was being re-enacted all over again" (Letter 6, 11/26/76). The significance of the Missionaries of Charity and the Eucharist are recurring themes as well. Mother is impressed by a priest who points out that God has to exist or else the MCs have "no meaning at all." She agrees, but adds that the essential source for this ministry is the meekness and humility of Jesus: To be able to eat the Bread of Life--we need meekness and humility--if we want to feed Him in the hungry one. I would be happy if you [Father Michael] wrote about the hunger of man and the Bread of Life, the hunger of God and the Hungry One in the distressing disguise of the Poor. (Letter 6, 11/26/76) Regarding hours of adoration, Mother confides, "Here lies our strength and our joy." She concludes: "I ask you to tell Jesus--when at your wordwthe bread becomes His Body and wine becomes His Blood--to change my heart, give me His own Heart so that I can love Him as He loves me" (Letter 6, 11/26/76). Within the year, Mother makes a similar plea with deep affection: "My prayer is very close to you. I do hope you will keep me close to you in your prayer--and love Jesus for me, for all the times when my heart is cold and empty" (Letter 7, 6/20/77). A short time later Father Michael is planning an extended time of reflection and Mother has some pas-toral words for him: 64.3 200~ Carroll ¯ With Love from Calcutta and Li~'eux It is just like you to ask to spend the [three] 3 months with Jesus alone, but if during this time the hunger for Jesus in hearts of His people is greater than yours for Jesus you should not remain alone with Jesus for all the time. You must allow Jesus to make you bread to be eaten by all those you come in touch with. Let the people eat you up--by the Word and presence you proclaim Jesus. (Letter 8, 2/17/78) She then lays out a tentative plan for her scheduled time in St. Louis: I wish you would be there. We could--maybe have Adoration every day and so bring . . . our lives [together] with the Bread of Life. No greater love, not even God could give than in giving Himself as Bread of life to be broken to be eaten so that you and I may eat and live, may eat and satisfy our hunger for love--and He seemed yet not satisfied for He too was hungry for love, so He made Himself the Hungry One, the Thirsty One, the Naked One, the Homeless [One]. (Letter 8, 2/17/78) Mother claims that she can understand Jesus' majesty because He is God, but "His humility is beyond my understanding because He makes Himself the Bread of Life so that even a child as small as I can eat Him and live." In further reflection on the Eucharist, she recalls an awesome memory: Some days back, when giving Holy Communion to our Sisters in the Mother House, suddenly I realized I was holding God between my [two] 2 fingers. The greatness of [the] humility of God. Really no greater love--no greater love than the love of Christ. You, I am sure must feel often like that when, at your word ¯. the [b]read becomes the Body of Christ, the wine becomes the Blood of Christ. (Letter 8, 2/17/78) Her closing comment is characteristic: "He [Jesus] Review for Religious can do with me just as it pleases Him without even a thought of consoling me. I iust want to be His own lit-tle one, if He so wants. Otherwise I will be happy to be just Nothing and He everything" (Letter 8, 2/I 7/78). After more than a year's lapse, a subsequent letter includes an apology for a "long silence." She refers to the Silver Jubilee celebration since, with the foundation in Beirut, twenty-five tabernacles are established in MC houses around the world. With reference to the Eucharist, she again ponders the ineffable: "I just under-stand less and less the humility of God-made-man for love of us" (Letter 9, 5/30/79). A few months later, at the time of the congregational chapter, Mother makes a request: "Ask Our Lady to take care of our Society, which was born at her pleading and grew under her care. I would love to be just a simple Sister. I will not ask--let Jesus do whatever He wills without con-suiting me, for I belong to Him" (Letter 10, 9/22/79). She also offers an apology for leaving Father Michael and oth-ers at a profession in New York to join Cardinal Terence Cooke in meeting with the boat people: "The sea has become an open Calvary where the Passion of Christ is being relived . You only wonder how people can suffer so much and never break. Looking at them I feel physical pain right in my heart" (Letter 10, 9/22/79). Mingled with joy in the expanding congregation, the letter contains signs of a dark night of the soul: "As for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear. The tongue moves but does not speak. Helpless yet daring." Mother asks for prayer so that "I let Him have a free hand and even if He chooses to cut me to pieces that every single piece, however small, be only His." Mother ends with "Ask Our Lady to take care of me as she took [care] of Jesus" (Letter 10, 9/22/79). 64.3 2005 Carroll ¯ With Love from Calcutta and Lisieux 288 There is a postmark from Rome on the next letter. "A bishop told me that I will spend my Purgatory in writing letters, because I am so bad in answering" is her opening statement. Even so, she claims that, "however long Purgatory may be, there is the beautiful hope of seeing Jesus, one day." Her delay is, to some extent, due to her presence at a synod. She expresses amazement to be "with all the big people of Church" (Letter 11, 10/18/80). At the synod Mother requests that the bishops and the Holy Father "give us holy Priests." She then reflects on Father Michael's priesthood: "How tenderly Jesus must love you as to use your tongue to change [b]read into the Body of Christ and through your absolution take away the sins, wash the sins with His precious Blood." Mother is delighted that soon "we shall have Priest-Co-workers." She closes with "Let us keep the joy of loving Jesus in our hearts and share this joy with all we meet" (Letter 11, 10/18/80). During the next decade Mother's letters are less fre-quent but, with reference to Father Michael's corre-spondence, she repeats, "They are my strength" (Letter 12, 12/29/82). Upon returning from Ethiopia she somberly says, "I only saw an open Calvary, where the Passion of Christ was being relived in the bodies of crowds and crowds of people." She hopes, however, to send more sisters to be Jesus' gentle presence to them (Letter 13, I/1/1985). "Often I have wanted to write, but not knowing where you are--it was [a] good excuse not to write" is one of the opening lines of her next letter. With so much poverty around the world, the three hundred and fifty MC houses in seventy-seven countries console her. In her imaginative way she says: St. Peter must be wondering what is happening in the homes of the MC's, as each one who dies in our homes Review for Religious goes to heaven with a ticket for St. Peter. [Twenty-three] 23 thousand have died with us only in Calcutta out of the 53,000 that we had picked up dying from the streets. Same is happening in New York. Already [fifty] 50 have died a beautiful death . At the begin-ning St~ Peter would not let me enter Heaven, because there were no slums in Heaven. Now Heaven is full of slum people. Jesus must be very happy to have those thousands coming to Him with love from Calcutta. (Letter 14, 1/1/88) Although there is a short typed note expressing grat-itude, the last hand-written letter arrives in March 1992. Mother repeats an earlier refrain, "Your letter brought me great joy that you still remember me and pray for me after such a long time." She is happy with an expanding congregation but hopes that the "Society remains only all for Jesus through Mary" (Letter 17, 3/3/92). Then, until Mother's death in 1997, the notes are short and typed but her spirit comes through, especially in the final letter: "God's blessings be on you as you continue to satiate the burning Thirst of Jesus." The last line concludes with "Please, pray for our Society and for me that we may not in any way spoil the works of love" (Letter 20, 3/10/97). In reflecting on his experience, Father Michael mea-sures each word as he says, "With her, you inhale God's presence." Mother's decorum is not "pietistic or exag-gerated." There is a flow of "something genuine, natu-ral, and spontaneous." At the ceremony for the beatification of Mother Teresa, Father Michael watched carefully at the unveiling of her picture and with grati-tude said in his heart, "There is my friend." In the years that have followed since her death, Father Michael says, "She has never been far from me." Whereas Father Michael and Mother Teresa met numerous times and exchanged over fifty letters, Maurice 289 64.3 2005 Carroll ¯Witb Love from Calcutta and Lisieux 290 Belli~re and Th~r~se of Lisieux never met, and exchanged only twenty-one letters. Nevertheless, their correspondence also provides a rich dynamic of a grow-ing friendship. Let us now turn to the genesis of that relationship and some excerpts from Th~rEse's letters. Thdri~se of Lisieux and Maurice Barth~l~my-Bellii~re Like Father Michael van der Peet, Maurice Belli~re --a twenty-one-year-old French ~eminarian--reached out for someone to pray for him by writing to a Carmelite convent. Mother Agnes of Jesus, Th~r~se's older sister Pauline, received the letter in which Maurice introduced himself with the words, "The grace of God, which impelled me toward the Sanctuary, has not washed away the last traces of a thoughtless life., and in spite of my efforts I have a hard time absorbing the spirit of the Church and holding myself to all the demands of the seminary rule." 3 Subsequently, while in the mundane surroundings of a laundry room, Pauline asked Th~r~se to become a spir-itual sister to Maurice by praying for him. Th~r~se was delighted, and, although they never met, thus began a significant friendship manifested in the letters exchanged, largely during the last year of her life. When Maurice Belli~re sent his first letter to the Carmel of Lisieux, he was desperate because his manda-tory military service was interrupting his seminary stud-ies and it could negatively affect his vocation. Within a week Pauline assured Maurice that a "little saint" would be praying for him. His next letter is quite idealistic, for he does not want to come back from military service "without bringing some souls back to the true Light." En route to the barracks in Caen, he drops off a postcard recommending prayer for the seminarian-soldiers and their saddened families. Review for Religious It is another nine months before Maurice sends a let-ter revealing a man, fresh from the seminary, whose per-sonal confidence in his ideals have been severely challenged. What exactly happened in the army is mys-terious; obviously, Maurice is disillusioned. He writes again, to the new prioress, Mother Gonzague, who turns the correspondence over to Th~r~se. With alacrity and sisterly concern, Th~r~se responds and soon learns that Maurice--having finished his military stint and returned to his religious pursuits--is now anxiously awaiting acceptance in the Missionaries of Africa (White Fathers). Excerpts from Th~r~se's first letter (December 26, 1896) are full of encouragement for the aspiring missionary: Let us work together for the salvation of souls. We have only the one day of this life to save them and thus to give Our Lord some proof of our love. The tomorrow of this day will be eternity, when Jesus will reward you with the hundredfold of those sweet and lawful joys which you are giving up for Him . I hope, Monsieur l'Abb~, that you will continue to pray for me, who am no angel as you seem to think, but a poor little Carmelite who is very imperfect--yet who in spite of her poverty wants, like yourself, to work for the glory of God. Thtr~se includes some of her poems. Maurice is grateful, apologizing for his "rough and ready" prose but saying he feels that something in her communication is working in the depths of his soul. Th~r~se responds with equal gratitude: "Truly, only in heaven will you know how dear you are to me. I feel our souls are made to understand each other." In this same letter Th~r~se articulates her "little way" by saying: "Since He Himself has chosen me to be your sis-ter, I hope that He will not take notice of my weakness, or rather that He will use that very weakness to do His work: 29i 64.3 200~ Carroll ¯ With Love from Calcutta and Lisieux 2921 for the Strong God likes to show His power by making use of nothing." Th~r~se has lofty desires that can be accomplished by being the "small flower" in the apostolic garden. For Thdr~se, the Divine One is not giving awards to the competent but rewards to the humble who are con-fident in Him, It is not entitlement but instrumentality. There is an increasing intimacy in Thdr~se's saluta-tion in the next letter. "My dear little Brother" replaces the formal "Monsieur l'Abb&" Fearing an overestima-tion of her person, she says, "I beg you to believe me that the good God has given you as your sister not a great soul." But she hastens to add: "Don't think that this is humility which prevents me from recognizing the gifts of the good God. I know that He has done great things in me, and every day I sing to Him with joy for doing so." Her motivation has also crystallized. "I under-stood my mission was not to crown a mortal king, but to make the King of Heaven loved, to conquer for Him the kingdom of hearts." Just months before her death, Thdr~se takes advan-tage of the privacy afforded her in the infirmary to answer Maurice's letters. She makes it clear that she is facing the end and assumes that, when he receives her letter, she will have left this "land of exile." There seems to be a sense of urgency when she says, "I would like to tell you a thousand things which I understand as I stand at the door of Eternity." One thing is clear: "I under-stand more than ever that only one thing is necessary, and that is to work solely for Him." A month later Thdr~se says, "The Spouse is at the door." Facing her own demise, she wants Maurice to know that their relationship will continue. "When my dear lit-tle brother leaves for Africa, I shall follow him not only in thought and in prayer; my soul will be with him for-ever." But Maurice is devastated when he understands Review for Religious that TMr~se's days are numbered, for he has found "a lovely home" in her friendship. He lets her know that she has been instrumental in his finding Jesus. Maurice soon expresses his anxieties and moral weak-ness. Thdr~se uses the image of an elevator of love, not fear, that takes us to God. She gives the exam-ple of two children who are disobedient. One withdraws in fright, but the other throws himself into their father's arms to beg forgiveness. Thdr~se promises to help Maurice remedy his hesitancy with God. "I think it will be easier for you to live with Jesus once I am there at His side forever." Thdr~se knows she must wait for the next life to further converse on these profound realities. In Thdr~se's last letter she speaks of knowing that her passport for heaven is ready and credits her deceased father for the grace of that awareness. Once again she assures Maurice that, whatever his faults, he is .dealing with the infinite mercy of God. She closes with: "ADieu, dear little brother, may God give us the grace to love Him and to save souls for Him." In the meantime Maurice is on board a ship destined for Africa. He recalls looking up at the stars and praying for Thdr~se, unaware it was the night she died. His first day in Africa is Thdr~se's first day in eternity. Later he is convinced that his peacefulness and joy are attributable to her. If today one goes to Maurice's grave, there is a plaque on the wall of the nearby church acknowledging this relationship: Maurice Belli~re, Spiritual Brother and Protdgd of Saint Th4r~se. A Dieu, dear littlebrother, may God give us the grace to love Him and to save soulsfor Him," 1293 64.3 2005 Carroll * With Love from Calcutta and Lisieux 294 Summary Observations These two women--sending letters permeated with affection, gratitude, and insights--gifted both Father Michael van der Peet and Maurice Barth~l~my-Belli~re. Mother Teresa's themes are more broadly based: retreat requests, Eucharistic insights, concern for an expanding congregation, global poverty, and a thirst for God whet-ted by an acute spiritual darkness that seem to hollow her out for a greater fullness of Jesus' presence. In each MC house she had the phrase "I thirst" given a prominent place as a reminder of Jesus' longing for souls, and per-haps as a reflection of her own longing for God. Th~r~se and Maurice were in their twenties and fer-vently idealistic. Th~r~se articulates the "little way" to accompany her dreams. She uses the face of Jesus and the phrase "King of Hearts" to focus her image of her Beloved. There is immediacy in Th~r~se's writing because it is penned as she stands at the door of death while whispering secrets to Maurice. Although cloistered in life, she promises that in eternity she will travel with him as a spiritual companion. Both women view themselves as God's instruments: a cardboard box, an insignificant flower. In life, many know similar images of themselves and reluctantly accept them, but these women rejoice in them. Both knew they are not sources, only conduits, of love. Both women say to their friends what John the Baptist once said: "He must increase, and I must decrease" (Jn 3:30). But, most especially, both women testify to a divine indwelling through Jesus that makes true friendship possible. "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love" (Jn 15:9). Notes ~ Father Michael van der Peer, a member of the international Congregation of the Priests of the Sacred Heart (SCJ), served on the Review for Religious commission for the beatification of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. He has graciously given me permission to quote from her letters and has answered numerous questions. Further resources regarding her expe-rience with spiritual direction are J. Neuner SJ, "Mother Teresa's Charism," and Albert Huart SJ, "Mother Teresa: Joy in the Night," Review for Religious 60 (September-October 2001): 479-493 and 494- 502 respectively. 2 Words quoted here and below (whether Mother Teresa's or Father Michael's), if not otherwise documented, are from my interviews with Father van der Peet. 3 Patrick Ahern, Maurice and Tberese: The Story of a Love (New York: Doubleday, 1998), p. 15. Below, other quotations longer than three words are from the following pages of this book: 25, 65-66, 82 and 86, 82, 103 and 108, 104-I05, 106, 130, 129-130, 152 and 155, 153,188, and 211. At Cana Before time was, She was in God's eye, As a bloom in the bud Awaits its moment. And the moment, too, Was in God's eye, That sees and saves, Counts hairs on heads, Yet defers to her, Her.unspoken wish Already his command. Leonard Cochran OP 64.3 2005 MARY FRANCES COADY Alfred Delp SJ and the Heart of Jesus 296 O n the first day of December 1944, a thirty-seven- year-old Jesuit, imprisoned in Berlin and awaiting trial for treason against the Third Reich, edged himself between the plank bed and table of his small cell and with manacled hands began to write a reflection on the Heart of Jesus. His name was Alfred Delp, and he had been arrested four months earlier in an all-out purge following a failed attempt on Hitler's life the previous July. He had been interrogated and tortured. In letters smuggled out of prison by two women who brought clean laundry and other supplies to prisoners, he had written about his fear, his struggles against despair, his optimistic hopes for acquittal and release, and his desire to leave his fate in the hands of God. The date, 1 December, that he began putting his meditation to paper is significant, for as the day dawned he realized it was the first Friday of the month, the day honoring the Heart of Jesus. This devotion held a cen- Mary Frances Coady published With Bound Hands, about Father Delp, at Loyola Press in 2003. She writes from 35 Cowan Avenue; Toronto, Ontario; M6K 2N1 Canada. tral place in Delp's prayer life. The veneration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, with its deep biblical roots, had grown to enormous popularity with the revelations to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in the late 17th century. This obscure Visitation nun received visions of Jesus in the chapel of her convent in the town of Paray-le- Monial, in Burgundy. In these visions Jesus exposed his heart to her, saying, "Behold my heart, which burns with love for all humanity." He added that those who received Communion for nine consecutive first Fridays in repa-ration for sins against his love were assured of dying in the state of grace. In the following centuries and under Jesuit influence, the Sacred Heart devotion ushered in a new and more gentle approach to the Christian spiritual life--one of self-abandonment, trust, and surrender--as a means of combatting the cold, harsh spirit of Jansenism that had permeated the church. The Litany of the Heart of Jesus was given official church approval in 1891. Along the way, however, the devotion became encrusted with infe-rior art, sugary sentimentality, and obsessive supersti-tions regarding the nine first Fridays. Alfred Delp, the product of a Catholic-Lutheran mar-riage, grew up without Catholic devotions because his father insisted he be brought up a Lutheran. The Sacred Heart caught up with him, however, after his adolescent embrace of his mother's Catholicism and his subsequent entrance into the Society of Jesus in 1926. A book of Jesuit devotions, one of which was the Litany of the Sacred Heart, was sent to him in prison. Delp had studied philosophy and political theory, but his prayer life as a Jesuit had been fashioned by the Catholic piety of the time. As a preacher and writer, he had tried to infuse his philosophical work with his deep-ening sense of the divine mystery at the core of his devo- 64.3 2005 298 tions. On the first Friday of December, in his cold prison cell, his hands in manacles, he pondered the love of God as the driving force of the universe. In the extremity of his situation, he realized the immensity of God's love for him, that God was holding him and protecting him with a love that was infinitely greater and more powerful than the forces imprisoning him. And so he began to write his meditation on the Litany of the Heart of Jesus. The heart represents the essence, or center, of a per-son, and he had earlier written of the heart as the only way to God. Now, in a preamble to his meditation, he lamented the dissociation of the devotional from the the-ological. Without a theological foundation, he wrote, the devotion can dissolve into mush, and without the devotion the theology becomes dry and devoid of personal passion. He described the arc that moves between the divine and the human: the basis of this devotion is the cry of the creature in need and the offer of help from God through Jesus Christ. The answer from God takes two forms: a healing, redemptive help and a call for humanity to share in that healing. And so this is not a just a "me and God" approach to the heart of Jesus, but a proposal to be a graced presence for others as well. The language used in the prayer is the language of love, but the theological framework is there. The prayer expresses a deep, myste-rious relationship between God and humanity, he wrote, and must not be demeaned by sentimentality. As with other litanies, the Litany of the Heart of Jesus follows an antiphonal course; the response "Have mercy on us" follows each of the various titles attributed to Jesus. What follows is my translation of an excerpt from Delp's reflection on the first invocation: "Heart of Jesus, Son of the eternal Father." "We call upon the Heart of the Son of the eternal Father. In this invocation there are particular consider- Review for Religious ations for us to contemplate. Heart: here, as in the whole litany, we are calling upon the love of God. The Heart is the symbol of God's innermost being and God's fun-damental relationship with us. A person who does not believe in God in this way should not continue praying, because that person is not up to the words of the prayer. "Heart of the Son: one ought to be able to state briefly what theology has to say about the Son. But one thing should be men-tioned as far as this devo-tion is concerned: from the beginning, the Son is the place of comfort and belonging for the world. The Word is God's image, of which we are shadows. He has always been the living incarnation of God's commitment to the worl

Issue 22.2 of the Review for Religious, 1963. ; EVODE BEAUCAMP, O.F.M. Sin and the Bible Throughout1 the New Testament the work of Christ is presented as a victory over sin. To speak of sin in this connection is to evoke an agelong experience which is highly complex and which can not be neglected if one wishes to comprehend the matter in all its extent and fullness. The word sin is a familiar one to us; yet it is no older than the Greek of the Septuagint. Before the Sep-tuagint there can not be found in the sacred text a single word exactly corresponding to it. The Alexandrian trans-lator has included under this single word the varying nuances of a number of terms; through this word he has thereby evoked all the forms which were taken through the course of centuries by the resistance of Israel to the salvific activity of God. There can be no question of giving here a study of sin in the Bible; for that is a problem entirely too large. We shall simply mark out the essential lines in order that we might have a better understanding of the problem of sin and that as a consequence we may be able to provide a catechetical presentation of sin that will be more richly nourished by the vitality of the Bible. The God of the Bible ancl the Problem o] Good anti Evil Like all the surroundin~ peoples, Israel united into one word evil and unhappiness on the one hand, goodness and happiness on the other. The first of these words is simultaneously disorder, deceit, emptiness, and death; the second is virtue, fullness of life, and peace. Every deed carries within itsel~ its own consequences: evil in-volves unhappiness while goodness implies happiness: Do no evil, and evil will not overtake you; avoid wickedness, and it will turn aside from you. Sow not in the furrows of in-justice, lest you harvest it sevenfold (Sir 7:1-3). Moreover, one finds in the Bible different ways of ex-pressing the same proverb: This article is translated with permission from the magazine Catdchistes, n. 49 (January 1, 1962), pp. 5-19. The magazine is pub-lished by Procure des Frhres; 78, rue de Shvres; Paris 7, France. 4. 4. Evode Beaucamp O.F.M., a Scripture scholar, lives at Via di Decima Kin. I; Rome, Italy. VOLUME 22, 1965 129 4. 4. ÷ Erode Beaucnmp, O.I~.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 130 Those who conceive malice bring forth emptiness; they give birth to failure (Jb 15:35). They sowed the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind (Hos 8:7). What is original in the Bible is the teaching that good-ness, physical as well as moral, has only one source: God. "O Lord," cries the Psalmist, "thou art my welfare; there is none beside thee." And for Amos the two expressions "to seek God" and "to seek the good" are perfectly identi-cal; both the one and the other offer the secret of life (Amos 5:4-14). The successful issue of human existence is found on the way which Yahweh points out and only there: For this reason will all go well with us, because we obeyed the voice of our God (Jer 42:6). You must keep his commands., that you may prosper, and your children after you, and that you may live long . (Dt 4:40). You must do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord that you may prosper (Dr 6:18; see also 12:25 and 28). The Law given by Yahweh to His people is the way of happiness: "You must keep my laws and ordinances, by the observance of which man shall find life (Lv 18:5).'° This is a point which is important to remember when the idea of the Law is presented; the love of the Jews for the Torah is incomprehensible if it is not realized that Yah-weh is legislator precisely insofar as He is father, bene-factor, shepherd, and defender of His people. Moreover, this throws light on the well-known problem of reward. The Bible does not say that happiness is received as a recompense for goodness but that happiness is the fruit of goodness and that it is to be found at the end of the way. Evil is not treated in the same way as is goodness; the God of the Bible never attributes to Himself a paternir.y with regard to evil. For the Psalmists, evil is the absence of God; and it is towards Him that one must turn to be freed from it. Nevertheless, it is in relationship to God that evil is defined: evil is the reverse of what He wills, of the course of :action that He teaches. As the author of Chapters Three and Four of Genesis has carefully sho~qn, the evils which weigh on humanity are not imputable to the Creator; the responsibility falls on man who has at-tempted to find his happiness outside of God, to flee his dependence on Yahweh by himself possessing the key of good and evil. Man has set himself on the desperate route that leads far from Paradise: Woe to them that have wandered away from reel (Hos O Lord, thou hope of Israel, all who forsake you shall be put to shame; those who prove faithless to you in the land shall be brought to confusion, because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living water (Jer 17:13). Let us remark in passing that the God of the Bible never reproaches man for his thirst for greatness and happiness; what is reproached is the attempt to satisfy this outside of God. Unlikei the gods of Surher and Baby-lon, Yahweh has the intention of giving His creature the fullness of life and happiness, but He teaches that this must be done by Him: If my people would but listen to me, if Israel would only walk in my ways, I would quickly humble their foes . he would be fed with the finest of the wheat; and with honey from the rock would I satisfy you (Ps 81:13-14, 16). Although man punishes himself by separating himself from God (see Jb 22:3 ft.), the Bible, nevertheless, does not hesitate to show us Yahweh personally intervening to punish with all the power of His anger. It is He who hardens the pharaoh, as it is He who brings evil upon His unfaithful people: I am watching over them for evil and not for good (Jet 44:27). I will set my eye upon them for evil, and not for good (Amos It is curious to observe how the inspired writers can com-plain both that Yahweh hides His face and remains dis-tant from His chosen ones (Ps 88:14) and that He turns His face against them (Jer 44:11): "The face of the Lord has scattered them; he no longer regards them" (Lain 4:16). And some of the sacred writers are heard to cry out: Will you never take your eye off me, nor let me alone till I swallow my saliva? (Jb 7:19). Turn your gaze away from me, that I may be glad (Ps 39:13). Yahweh never ceases to assert His exclusive right to bestow good on His chosen ones even when they turn away from Him to their own loss. In the evils which then beset them, there can always, be detected the avenging pursuit of a cheated love: So I will be unto them like a lion; or like a leopard by the road I will lurk. I will rend them like a bear robbed of its cubs; and I will tear off the covering of their heart (Hos 13:7-8). Pursued by the love he has denied, the sinner sees him-self abandoned by all: "Thou has put friend and com-panion far from me" (Ps 88:18). He is abandoned even by the earth which bears and nourishes him: I am bringing upon them a disaster which they shall not be able to escape (Jet 11:11). I will rend and be gone; I will carry off, with none to rescue (Hos 5:14). Sin VOLUME 22, 1963 13! + + + Evode Beaucamp, O.F.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Behold, I am going to make a groaning under you (Amos 2:13). Unlike the Egyptian god Aten, Yahweh is not indif. ferent when He distributes life and happiness. His gifts are always made from a personal and jealous love. Hence He can not but react vigorously when man prefers deceit, nothingness, and ruin to His love. The blows which He deals as well as His tragic silence can lead the wanderer back to the road of return: I withdraw to my own place, until they realize their guilt and seek my face, searching for me in their distress (Hos 5:15). And yet it is necessary that this appeal be heard and followed: It was I that gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities . it was I that withheld from you the rain, three months before the harvest . I laid waste your gardens and your vineyards . I sent a pestilence like that of Egypt among you . But you did not return to me (Amos 4:6-10). When sin is presented as disobedience to the Law of God, it is necessary to realize that this Law is the path marked out by God and leading to life and happiness; to disobey it is to wish to conduct one's life by oneself and to run towards one's own ruin. The God whose love has been scorned will not be content to let us leave; He will inexorably bar the way that leads to peace just as formerly He posted the cherubim with their swords of fire to pre-vent Adam and his descendants from access to the Para-dise that had been lost: They are a people who err in their hearts, and do not know my ways. So that I swore in my anger that they should not enter into my rest (Ps 95:10-11). The Special Demands o[ the Covenant The Bible is not satisfied with presenting man in con-frontation with God; for the Bible the heart of the matter is the elect one in confrontation with the God who has chosen him. The peace dreamt of by the Jews of old, peace between the members of. one community, peace with the external world and the earth where men liv~.~- this peace is the fruit of the covenant of Sinai (see Lv 26:3-13; Dt 11:13-15). From the viewpoint of the history of religions, one of the most original characteristics of this alliance is the tact that the initiative belongs exclusively to God and not at all to the people; it is Yahweh who has chosen Israel and not Israel who has chosen Yahweh. From the beginning to the end of the Bible, Yahweh repeatedly emphasizes the absolute liberty of His choice, a liberty that gives Him the right to demand obedience without reserve or mur-mur. The elect one should adjust his conduct to the direc- tives given by his God; he must seek that "which is right in the eyes of Yahweh"; he must "march perfectly before Him" without "swerving" from the way "either to the right or the left." Hence.the existence of Israel was constitute~ by the acceptance of these demands;~and these;demands were unceasingly renewed nor were they ever fully completed at any given moment of history. The more Israel, through a better understanding of the obligations of the covenant, wished to submit to them, the larger the number of them grew. In its always unsatisfied thirst to stay perfectly close to the divine will, the chosen people never ceased to develop the principles at the base of the Mosaic legis-lation of the Decalogue (Ex 20:3-17; Dt 5:6-21) and of the code of the covenant (Ex 20:22-26) into the different priestly codes and the enormous growths of the rabbinical tradition. Since there existed this demand for a perfection never perfectly attained ("You must be holy; for I, the Lord your God, am holy" fLy 19:2]; "Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect" [Mt 5:48]), an exhaustive list of sins is nowhere to be found in the Bible; prophets, Psalmists, and wise men give us but certain ones among many. In every epoch and in all circumstances, the obli-gations of the covenant remain unlimited; the human party of the covenant never succeeds in rising to the level of the demands of the divine party. Basically, the sin of later Judaism will be to pretend to arrest this movement of divine improvement by attempting to imprison the divine will within the walls of a definitive and rigid tra-dition. There is no need to emphasize that the same dan-ger lies in wait for every spiritual life, that there will always be a tendency to substitute for the unlimited de-mands of Christian perfection a code of limited rules which each person can hope some day to fulfill com-pletely. The covenant not only implies the demands of a bond faithfully maintained between God and His people, but it also includes the demands of a union between the in-dividual members of this people. Yahweh expects that His people should practice among themselves the justice and mercy which He has bestowed on them. The pious Israelite must never forget to share his joy with the stranger, the orphan, the widow; for, as Deuteronomy puts it: "You must remember that you were once a slave yourself in Egypt" (Dt 16:12). For the same reason it is forbidden to retain one's brother in the state of slavery (Lv 25:55; Dt 15:15); nor ought one to treat a stranger with scorn (Lv 19:34; Dt 24:17). In this principle can be seen the first outline of the thought of the Master: "Love each other as I have loved you." ÷ ÷ ÷ Sin VOLUME 22, 1963 4. + Evode Beaucamp, O.F.M. REVIL~V FOR RELIGIOUS Hence it is that along with the infidelities of the people towards God, the absence of social justice appears as the chief accusation directed by Yahweh against Israel. From the beginning of prophetism (for example, with Elijah), the struggle is waged on two fronts: opposition to the introduction of foreign cults and the respect for the rights of the weak (Naboth's vineyard, 1 K 21). As the Lord Himself emphasized, the entire legislation of Israel re. volves around this double commandment: to love God with one's whole heart and one's neighbor as oneself. The same is to be found in the warnings of the prophets, the Psalmists, and the wise men: You have been told, O man, what is good and what the Lord requires of you'. Only. to do l'ustice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly wtth your God (Mi 6:8; see also Jer 7:5-11). It will not be useless to insist somewhat on this capital point; since we have too great a tendency to distinguish sins against God and sins against neighbor, it is necessary to show how every sin against God leads to injustice with regard to neighbor and how every sin against one's neigh-bor is a blow struck against the rights of God. The first chapters of Genesis in the Yahwist and priestly redac-tions already present evil under this double dimension. The murder of an innocent person follows the act by which Adam made himself independent of his Creator, while the union of the sons of gods with the daughters of men (probably an allusion to sacred prostitution) in-volves the unleashing of violence upon the earth. In a more general way, the Bible unites under the single He. brew word resha' the idea of both impiety and evil-doing, The person who so acts is frequently referred to through-out the Psaher; he is a person who intends to do without God and to live his life entirely by himself and who, in consequence, makes use of force, deceit, and lies: The fool says in his heart: There is no God. Such men are corrupt; they do abominable deeds; there is not one who does good (Ps 14:1; see also Ps 9; 10; 12; 52; 62; and so forth). His adversary and his victim is the just man, the man who expects salvation and justification from God alone and who therefore does not seek to take the law in his own hands nor do himself justice at the expense of others. The life of David furnishes an excellent illustration of these two cases of the evil man and the just man. Sens-ing that Yahweh would give to him the crown of Saul, David steadfastly refused to touch the sacred person of the king; for he intended to owe his royalty: to Yahweh alone and he did not wish to do things wrongly. Accord-ingly, through terrible execution or a no less terrible curse, he decisively disassociated himself from all those who wished to hasten the event by doing violence to Saul or his son or the general of his army (2 S 1:15; ~:28 ft.; 4:10 ft.). In contrast to the dynasties of, usurpers, the dynasty of David was not in its origin tainted by blood (2 K 2:5). But in the affair of Uriah, the king of Jerusalem took a completely opposite c#ur.se; here he acted,asian impious and evil person. Nathan" recalled to the guilty monarch everything that Yahweh had done for him and pointed out to him how He was still ready to do more. But David had lacked confidence; he had chosen to take care of him-sell and this he did at the expense of one of his own subjects. There is, then, no rejection of God which does not eventually turn into injustice, just as there is no in-justice which is not a disregard of the power of the God of :the covenant. For a Christian, to sin is not only to disobey the eternal laws of the Creator; it is also a refusal of the covenant and a scorning of the love of the Father of all. Human Resistance and God's Final Victory The covenant supposes a history; it is at the center of a plan that develops by stages. At each of these stages man tries to block the plan, but his actions do not prevent God from having the final word. It is interesting to follow step by step the resistances of those who were the bene-ficiaries of the covenant, for in them are to be found all the possible forms which man's refusal of God's offer can take. 1. The choice of the elect from the midst of a humanity immersed in sin. Because the human race had turned from Him and had obstinately buried itself in evil, Yah-weh drew forth from it Israel in the desire to make of it a people who would follow His directives. Hence the election of Abraham is presented in the Yahwist tradition of Genesis as the last effort made by Yahweh to prevent His creation from going to perdition apart from Him. This evil had begun when Adam, in his desire for in-dependence, had lost Paradise. Nevertheless, Yahweh did not abandon this fugitive from Him; He gave him the hope of a future victory over the evil in which he had immersed himself; He had even covered the nakedness that the guilty couple had become aware of. To the first couple, punished by their pride, there succeeded a gen-eration of murderers: Cain and his descendants. Once more Yahweh intervened to prevent fallen humanity from disappearing, from the earth under the inexorable blows of the curse of blood. The union of the sons of the gods with the daughters of men provoked such a release of violence that Yahweh decided on the complete de-struction of His work. Nevertheless, He saved from the catastrophe a just man with whom He concluded a cove- 4- 4- 4- VOLUME 22, 1963 4, 4, 4, Erode Beaucamp, O.F.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 136 nant. This was not yet the last act of the drama; the last scene of the beginnings of the human race is the episode of the tower of Babel, the dispersion of the sons of Adam after their aborted attempt to construct a tower that would reach to heaven. Nevertheless, the efforts of Yahweh to arrest man in his vertiginous descent into the abyss were not in vain; for, after the episode of the tower of Babel, a new history begins: the vocation of Abraham, the epic of the patri-archs, the covenant of Sinai. To the first scene of a uni-versal invasion of evil, there succeeds that of the increas-ingly solicitous enterprise of God with regard to a people whom He would choose for His own. Under different forms the same idea is found almost everywhere in the Old Testament. To explain the fact that Israel had taken the place of the Canaanites, the legal texts, for example, tell us that the latter were chased from their land because they had done "what was evil in the eyes of Yahweh"; He had determined to give their land to a people who would agree to live according to His will. But misfortune would come to this people if they ever dared to imitate the conduct of their predeces-sors; He would not hesitate to deprive them of the land. The falling back into the world of sin from which Yah-weh had drawn them led Judah to its ruin, as Jeremiah and Ezekiel emphatically pointed out. The sin of the elect is in fact a return to the sin of the nations after having been freed from it. Each election is pictured as a rupture: Leave your country, your relatives, and your father's house (Gn 12:1), Forget your people and your father's house (Ps 45:11). The call of God implies an ascent towards Him by the practice of what is "right in His eyes" and by a renuncia-tion of "what is evil in his eyes." This initial break must continue throughout the course of time; this requires a constant effort at disencumbrance, for the surrounding world never ceases to exert pressure on the elect to make them fall back under its law. This is the drama of every vocation, not only to religious life but to Christianity self. 2. Resistance to the hand that guides. After He had led the people from Egypt, Yahweh made them cross the desert before bringing them to the Promised Land. The desert is the sign of temptation, a testing of faith. In other words, Yahweh would not give the land of Canaart to the Hebrews unless they abandoned themselves to Him without reserve by remaining faithful to the memory of the marvelous act of liberation by which they left Egypt. But hunger, thirst, and fatigue quickly overcame the faith of the former slaves of the pharaohs. They soon forgot the extraordinary epic of the Exodus; they mur-mured and rebelled against Moses and Aaron; they be-came enraged at seeing themselves in a venture which seemed to be pointless; and they dreamed nostalgically of the onions of Egypt. They refused to march forward on the grounds that the:.P~-omised Land W~s~'fi0t good enough and because the enterprise was to their minds a doomed one (Nm 14). This lack of confidence induced the people of Moses to attempt to assure themselves of the protection of their God by placing Him at their service and by forcing His hand as they wished. This is what the Bible calls "tempt-ing God." Instead of Yahweh "tempting" and trying the people in order to make them proceed according to His will, it was Israel who tempted its God, attempting to bring Him into the service of human caprice. Hence when Moses delayed coming down from the mountain and Yahweh made them wait for His answer, the He-brews made the golden calf, a material representation of their God which would allow them to control Him and to"make Him advance according to their desires at the head of their army. This recalcitrant attitude of the elect blocked the entire matter of the election and prevented their entering the rest of God (Ps 95:11). The intercession of Moses effected a compromise: the rebellious generation died in the desert and only their children possessed the right to the heritage of the God of the covenant. 3. Profanation of God's gift. The covenant gift of the land of Canaan should have created the indissoluble bonds of a steadfast love between Israel and God. Unfortunately, Israel, once it was secure and satisfied, was quick to forget: I led them to pasture; with food came satiety, and with satiety pride; and with pride came forgetfulness of me (Hos 13:6; see also Dt 32:15). The riches of the land of Canaan, instead of constantly recalling to the people the solicitude of Yahweh, drove Him from their mind and nurtured in them the illusion of being able to escape the jealous influence of their God. With the products of their land, they attempted to buy protection abroad; this was a seeking after "lovers"--the famous theme of prostitution. Often this theme is con- [used with the closely related one of adultery. The idea of prostitution certainly includes the notion of unfaith-fulness, but it is wider than that; it is not only the betrayal of love, it is also the profanation of the gifts of love: But you trusted in your beauty, and played the harlot on your reputation; you lavished your harlotries on everyone who passed by. You took off your garments, and made yourself gaily decked shrines, on which you played the harlot. You took also your splendid ornaments of gold and silver, which I had given 4- 4- VOLUME 22, 196;1 4. 4" Erode Beaucamp, O.F.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 138 you, and made yourself images of men, with which you played the harlot. And you took your embroidered robes, and wrapped them in these. My oil and my incense you set before them; my bread which I had given you-~the choice flour, oil, and honey with which I had fed you--you set before them as a soothing odor (Ez 16:15-19). The Chosen People made use of what Yahweh had given them in order to curry the favor of the baals or to buy alliances with the peoples that surrounded them. Resistance to the hand that Ied them or profanation of the gift received represent two aspects of the rebellion of the children of God. However, none of the stages of the history of salvation exists in an absolutely pure state. Hence it is that throughout the length of our Christian life sin can put on the form of a refusal to proceed in the desert and of a prostitution when one, for his own pur-poses and independently of God, makes use of the gift which he has received from His love. The Old Testament leaves us with a vision of a check-mate: God is not able to regain the human race which from the beginning had plunged itself into sin and sepa-rated itself from Him. Unless God would make a new heart for men, they would never be able to rise up to the level of the divine demands. Even the Law which Yahweh had given His elect in an attempt to free them from the surrounding evil came in the end only to increase sin (Rom 7:7-25). The cross of Christ and the gift of the Spirit are necessary in order that we might escape the in. fernal cycle. It is then that there appears that new man according to the heart of God whom the prophets Jere-miah and Ezekiel had predicted: I will give you a new heart, and will put within you a new spirit; I will remove the heart of stone out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh; and I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances (Ez 36:26-27). There is no need to emphasize that one must not present the Law of Christ which alone can make us pleasing to God without adding that this Law is impractical if Christ Himself does not communicate to us His power so that we might fulfill the demands of the Law. Fundamental Aspects o[ the Discord Between God and Man Throughout the Old Testament the resistance of man to the work of God is presented under three clearly dis-tinguished aspects; it is essential to guard against con-fusing these three when the idea of sin in the Bible is analyzed. 1. Opposition to the work of divine justice. The prin-cipal adversary of divine justice is an individual whom the Hebrew language terms rasha', a term which is usu-ally translated by the word impious or wicked. This rasha' enters into association with the "makers of iniq-uity," "the proud," "the mockers," and the "men of blood." His weapons are cunning, lies, violence; he is constantly thinking of i~i~l~'ity"in his he;irt~ li'~ Sets traps for the innocent; his hands are soiled with blood and he is given to drink. His opposition to justice is shown in two ways: it is, first of all, undisguised hostility towards God who is thought to be too distant to'react against it; and, secondly, it is a merciless war against the just whose violated rights the God of the covenant is pledged to de-fend. For practical purposes, the rasha' and his satellites coincide with the adversaries of the covenant; for the justice they oppose is at the center of the preoccupation of the parties of the covenant. They appear from the very beginning of the human race, but more ~usually they ap-pear as the enemies of the Chosen People; in every case they constantly menace the stability of the work of God in the cosmos and in history. Gradually the distinction between the just and the impious is found within the nation itself; it is at this time that the realization of a qualitative Israel necessitates a distinction between the faithful and those who are traitors and apostates. None of the faithful aligns himself with the: rasha': Drag me not away with the wicked, with those who do wron.g, who speak of peace to their neighbors though evil is in their hearts (Ps 28:3). On the occasion of the demands of the wicked, the just man frequently prays for justice from God; this im-plies that he is the victim not the accomplice of the wicked. If the good man wishes to be heard by Yahweh, he must disassociate himself as completely as possible from the perverse machinations of the artisans of evil: "I hate the assembly of evil~toers, and with the wicked I will not sit down" (Ps 26:5). It is only on this condition that he can cry out: "Judge me"; "Do me justice" (Ps 26:1; 43:1). In the matter of justice, then, the Old Testament knows only negative confessions (Ps 5; 26; 139; Jb 31) like those that the dead recite for their justification be-fore the tribunal of Osiris. There is no avowal of an atti-tude of present opposition to justice, an attitude that the God of the covenant would have to punish; only past sins are confessed the consequences of which are already or about to be felt. This is evidently insufficient for Chris-tians. We not only have to present to the Father our past errors but also a heart which even now is evil and which we ask Him to transform. There can be no doubt that ÷ ÷ ÷ Sin VOLUME 22, 1963 139 ÷ .I. ÷ Erode Beaucamp, O~F.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS such a prayer supposes a pure intention, and this is the profound significance of our negative confessions. Man can not pray to God while desiring evil; nevertheless, pure intentions do not effect that we see exactly what God wants nor even that we feel the power to accomplish it. Our pure intentions require from us only that we aban-don ourselves,to Him in order that we might see and will the perfection which He expects from us: For I do not the good that I wish, but the evil I do not wish, that I perform . Unhappy man that I aml Who will deliver me from the body of this death? (Rom 7:19 and 24). 2. A state of rupture with God. The three Hebrew roots which are ordinarily translated by such words as sin, transgression, iniquity, fault, and so forth express, though each with different nuances, the idea of a state of rupture with the God of the covenant: The Lord's hand is not .too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear; but your iniquities have been a barrier between you and your God. And your sins have hidden his face, so that he could not hear you (Is 59:1-2). This state is a present situation the cause of which is a definite past act; hence one goes from the awareness of the rupture to an appreciation of its origin: "I have sinned." This is equivalent to saying that if God aban-dons me to my lot, I can blame only myself; it is my own fault: O Lord, the great and revered God, who keeps loving faith with those who love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned . To us, O Lord, pertains confusion of face . but to the Lord our God pertain compassion and forgiveness (Dn 9: 4-5, 8-9). The awareness of sin, then, is the awareness of being abandoned by God through one's own fault; the sinner is like a child experiencing the feeling of no longer being loved by his mother; he feels himself cut off from the one who is his source of life: My anger shall blaze against them, and I will forsake them~ and withhold my favor from them; they shall become a thing to be consumed, and many evils and troubles shall befall them, so that they will say at that time: Is it not because God is not in our midst that these evils have befallen us? (Dt 31:17). By the fact of sin--and this holds true for the relations between man and man as well as for the relations be-tween God and man--the Protector finds Himself re-leaged of His obligation 'towards His proteges; in particu-lar He is no longer bound to see justice done them and He can consider them as His enemies: We look for redress, but it comes not; for salvation, but it remains f~r from us. For many are our sins before you, and our faults bear witness against us (Is 59:11-12). Abandoned by his God and even pursued by His ill will, the sinner is sooner or later doomed to death. In the case of an individual he will use up his strength in a dis-ease that is without hope; in the case of a country it will perish under the blows of epidemics, famines, and wars. For sin breaks not only~th@,~bbnds betwe~en,~n~fi and his God; it also isolates man frbm society and even from the earth, since peace with God is the condition of peace with one's fellow men and with the entire world. In his dereliction and total loneliness, the sinner possesses only one resource: to throw himself into the arms of the One he has offended. On the whole, the Old Testament attaches more im-portance: to this state of rupture than to the nature of the acts which provoke it. Contrary to the confessions of Babylon which attempted to exorcise evil by interminable lists of all possible sins, the Bible generally reduces its inventory to the simple assertion: '~I have sinned." For the Bible, it is God, not sin, that is of interest; it is God that is considered. A sense of sin that is not a sense of God and does not suppose the experience of a valued intimacy is a false sense of sin which can lead to the greatest catastrophes as the history of Luther and Jansen-ism have shown. 3. Impurity, the state of incompatibility with the divine presence. The notions of purity an~l impurity are among the most common and primitive ones in the his-tory of religions. In them is found everywhere the same confusion between taboos of a ritual nature and ethical prescriptions in the proper sense. Sexual pollutions, for example, whether licit or illicit, make one impure, just as the shedding of blood, whether justly or unjustly, profanes the earth. And the contagious nature which is attributed to such impurity makes the notion even more difficult for the modern mind. There has been a mis-understanding of the place which the Bible gives to such a primitive category of thought in later books like Leviti-cus; many see in this a reaction to the effort made by the prophets to form the moral conscience of Israel. But presented in this way, the problem is wrongly placed. Impurity is on a completely different level than that of sin, the rupture with God. It is not concerned with the difficulties and blocks that can lessen the rela-tions of man with God but with that which appears in-compatible with the maintenance of the divine presence in the midst of the country: Because the Lord your God moves within your camp to rescue you and to put your enemies at your mercy, your camp must be clean, so that he may not see anything indecent with you, and turn away from you (Dr 23:14). If the Bible attaches a great importance to this notion sin VOLUM£ 22, 1963 141 ÷ ÷ ÷ E~ode Benuc~mp, O.F.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 142 of impurity, it is because for it the question is not re-ducible to the simple fact of not offending God; it is the much more profound matter of living with Him in His presence. The sense of purity is the awareness of the holiness which election requires, a holiness that must ex-tend to everything which conditions the existence of the elect: I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy; for I am holy; so you must not defile yourselves with any kind of insect that crawls on the earth. For I am the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God, and so you must be holy; for I am holy (Lv 11:44-45). You must be holy to me; for I, the Lord, am holy, and have separated you from other peoples to be mine (Lv 90:26). As long as Israel remained a political and sociological reality, the community of life between Yahweh and His people had necessarily to preserve a character that was both interior and exterior, implying demands both of a physical and a moral order. This combination should not, then, be surprising. It is necessary to wait for the Gospel in order that the problem of purity be elevated to a properly spiritual level, for then the kingdom of God becomes an interior reality which is not involved in the social and material conditions of the life of the elect: "It is what pr6ceeds from a man that makes him impure" (Mk 7:20). All cases of impurity, however diverse, have this in common that they create a cultic incompatibility and make the approach to the divine dangerous. But it is dif-ficult to find how this incompatibility flows from a single principle; this is a world of different and heterogeneous elements which it would be a waste of time to attempt to unify. So, for example, one type of impurity consisted of any attempt to violate a reality that was initially sacred: harvesting, the gathering of fruits, marriage, and so ford~. But impurity was likewise involved when a being was possessed by foreign divinities; the sinner fell into this category when, being rejected by his god, he became the prey of demons. Finally, every act is impure which lessens the essential integrity of a being, especially a consecrated one: the loss of blood or of seminal fluid, the cutting of the hair of a Nazirite, the cutting of a stone intended for an altar, the putting to work of an animal destined to carry a sacred object, and so forth. All this is common to the ancient world; and the Bible in this matter originates nothing, though it should be noted that matters such as sicknesses, curses, various ca-lamities, blood crying for vengeance, cadavers awaiting burial figure here as simply malefic rather than being at-tributed to foreign divinities or demons. Furthermore, it seems to us that a global impression emerges from all this chaos: a being cannot support the presence of God if its existence is diminished or threatened either by an acci-dental loss of substance or by subjection to some other power. Not being fully himself, man in such a case cannot offer himself to his God. If this interpretation is correct, then the need for purity calls out for the idea of the In-carnation, for the Priest without stain who can enter the sanctuary of the God of the covenant; this is the perfect man who has attained the fullness of his stature: "Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." Before the majesty of the King-God who was revealed to his eyes, Isaiah becomes frightenedly aware not of his sin but of his impurity: Woe to me, for I am lost; I am a man of unclean lips. and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts (Is 6:5). It is not sin but impurity which impedes the vision of God: "Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God." Whatever may have been for primitive man the deep roots of the notes of impurity, the idea should not be suppressed but moralized and spiritualized. From this an-cient notion, two elements should be kept for the profit of our own Christian life: first, our Christian life is truly a life with God, and it supposes a full realization of our stature as the "new man" according to Christ and a full posses-sion of ourselves that withholds nothing from the in-fluence of God; secondly, every lessening of our personal vitality is a lessening of the vitality of the community; every lessening of our charity detracts from the global charity of the Church, and it tarnishes her purity, since impurity by its nature is contagious, always passing from individuals to the collectivity. Solutions to the Discord Between God and Man 1. The judgment of the wicked. A victorious judgment of the God of the covenant will put an end to the opposi-tion of the wicked man. This judgment, however, is never purely negative. The wicked man is a dangerous individ-ual, and his downfall affects the salvation of the just: The righteous shall rejoice that he has seen vengeance; he shall wash his footsteps in the blood of the wicked. And men shall say: There certainly is a reward for the just; there cer-tainly is a God who judges on earth (Ps 58:10-11). As we have seen, the wicked man is generally con-sidered as unable to be converted; this is why his disap-pearance appears as the only solution to the evil of which the just man is a victim; the world will regain its peace only when God has caused this evil to fall on its authors. Gradually, however, other conceptions of the matter came into existence. Jeremiah and especially Ezekiel envisage ÷ ÷ ÷ VOLUME 22° 1963 ÷ Evode Beaucamp, O.F.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS the case of a wicked man who abandons his wickedness to practice "judgment and justice": As I live, says the oracle of Yahweh, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather in this that the wicked man turn from his way and live. Turn, O turn, from your evil waysl Why should you die, O house of Israeli (Ez 33:11). This view of the conversion of the wicked is a direct preparation for the Gospel. Christ will proclaim that He has come not for the just but for the wicked---the publi-cans and adulterers who without conversion would fall beneath the blows of the avenging anger of God. The great revolution of the Gospel is the distinction between evil and evil men; in the Our Father it is from evil that we ask to be freed and not from our enemies, as was done in the Psalms. As long as a man has not drawn his last breath, he is never to be identified with evil and we must always hope for his eventual conversion. The venge-ance of the just is no longer the extermination of the wicked but their penance and reparation. 2. The pardon of the sin. The one who has culpably lost communion with God can only hope for the gratui-tous act of clemency and pity Which the One offended can grant or not grant when pardon is asked of Him. In the rupture man took the initiative, but the initiative in the matter of reconciliation belongs exclusively to God. More than in any other case there apears here the impos-sibility of forcing His hand. Sin, the rupture of relations between God and man, is an intolerable weight from which the sinner cannot free himself by his own effort; it is a weight that only the One offended is in a position to lift: For, day and night, your hand lay heavy upon me . I said: I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the guilt of my sin (Ps 32:4-5). The Babylonians, in order to have greater certainty of their restoration to favor, frequently attempted to have another friendly divinity intervene with the angered god. In the Bible, as is evident, man is without the possibility of such a mediation. He must directly approach the God he has offended and throw himself at His feet while de-claring "I have sinned"; he must rely entirely on God's mercy. It is clear that such an act implies conversion; it is the return of the prodigal son to his Father's house. While the Bible does not permit the sinner to avoid encountering the God he has angered, still it does not leave him without arguments by which he can plead his case. He can, for example, invoke the glory of the God of the covenant whose name he still continues to bear: What will the nations think of Yahweh if He continues to leave his people defenseless? (Ps 79; 80; Ez 32:11-14). He can also invoke His justice: In abandoning His own, does not Yahweh yield to His enemies? (Ps 41). Finally, he can appeal to the shortness of life--life which a pro-lUonngfoedrt uabnsaetnelcye, owf eG coadn m naokte ds eelmayp thye aren du ,s epngsne~le sths e(Pses 9a0rg).u-ments which still retaiii,:th~ir~, validity for, oi~i~ prayer as Christians. We have already pointed out that the penitent does not dwell upon an analysis of his culpable act but keeps his eyes on the God the lack of whom he suffers and in whom he sees his only hope; the simple fact of the rupture is al-ready virtually the presence of death and it constitutes for the sinner the deepest kind of punishment than which nothing greater is to be feared. The penitent calls on the judgment and justice of Yahweh as a grace the right to which he has lost by sin. He awaits the moment of pardon which will reestablish him in the friendship of His God so that once again he will be protected in the midst of a hostile world: The anger of the Lord must I bear--for I have sinned against him--until he shall take up my case and do me justice (Mi 7:9). Once pardon h.as been granted, the remembrance of the sin disappears in the remembrance of the victorious love of Yahweh, a love which is capable of overpowering all offenses and which in its profundity and total gratuitous-ness leaves the soul of man in confusion (Ps 103); here already there is almost found the felix culpa of St. Au-gustine. Moreover, the world which the divine mercy re-constructs is always more beautiful than the one de-stroyed by sin. To illustrate this law, it is sufficient to reflect on the messianic prophecies which for the most part are prophecies of pardon (Ps 85; Is 40-55; 60; Ez 34; and so forth). 3. Purification of Defilement. Having been excluded from worship, the defiled man must purify himself be-fore coming into the presence of God.'It is a co.mmon idea among all the ancient religions that the gods have given men ritual materials and formulas that are capable of purifying them, their temples, and their country. In particular, there are appropriate rites that permit the expulsion from the impure being of the evil spirits and demons who have taken possession of him; thus, for ex-ample, spells and curses which had victimized a person were made to pass on to the body of animals wh~ch.~:were then driven far away or burned. In the Bible this liturgi-cal transfer has left only a few traces, the most notable ex-ample of which is that of the scapegoat of the D~y of Atonement (Lv 16). This animal, loaded with the sins of Israel, was not offered to Yahweh but driven far aw~iy to Azazel. 4, 4, VOLUME 22, 1963 ÷ ÷ ÷ Erode Beau~arap, O.F.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 146 In place of this image of a transfer, the Bible has pre-ferred that of cleansing through ablutions and sprinkling with blood and water. This symbol is simultaneously negative and positive: at the same time as it removes the uncleanliness, the water restores all the freshness of life. This is also, as it seems to me, the function of the blood in the atonement rite and in the sin sacrifices. But we shall not delay here on this difficuh and debated point; we will content ourselves with giving our own personal opinion. Blood seems to have as its effect the protection of the things and persons which it covers; it protects them from the various evils which are the sequel of sin just as the blood of the paschal lamb did at the Exodus (Ex 12:1-15). But to this negative effect there is added a posi-tive action; for blood is life, and it is by reason of the life that is in it that Yahweh has given it as an effector of atonement (Lv 17:10-12). Thanks to it, persons, cult ob-jects, and the country that is the abode of Yahweh find their fullness of life, their first integrity which impurity had caused to be lost. The application of this Biblical rite to our Christian life is not difficult. The sin of a Christian can be con-sidered as a stain that not only changes our personal re-lations with God but also diminishes the vital potentiali-ties of the Church and impairs her charity. Reparation, therefore, is a social duty just as it was in ancient Israel. God has given us the Blood of Christ as an inexhaustible source of love so that we can preserve for the Church the immaculate appearance which her divine Spouse initially bestowed on her: He wished to summon into his presence the Church in all her beauty, with no stain, wrinkle, or any disfigurement; she. was to be holy and spotless (Eph 5:27). Conclusion By way of conclusion, let us synthesize the results of our inquiry. In order that the notion of sin preserve all the force that the Bible gives it, it must include three ele-ments: deterioration of the order of creation; rupture with God, the source of life; and impurity which hinders all commerce with the divine. All this is what is repre-sented by the word sin at the time of the New Testament~ it is all this that Christ has come to restore, heal, and purify. Under these three aspects, sin is a flight from God, the only source of life and happiness; it represents the contrary of all the effort God has made throughout his-tory to draw us to Him; it is a return back to a past from which He has drawn us; it is our refusal to allow ourselves to be led by Him blindly; it is our squandering of the gifts we have received. To depart from God is to depart from other men and finally to find oneself alone in a hostile world: And it has brought you. w " as reconciled . ,_ o ~;. ¯ - uom~ wron~ ;-,- - "-' holiness a~a t__ )vu mrough dying, ;,,~.:_ . 6 ~-o.ugn now (Col 1:2'1_~)."ee ~rom reproa~c h. .or ~Ta~'e,'~'~vt~uas op~rensve nbcoedy) ia Sin VOLUME 22, 1963 PAUL W. O'BRIEN, S.J. The Weekly Confession of Fervent Religious ÷ ÷ Paul W. O'Brien, S.J., is the rector of the Pontifical Semi-nary in Dalat, Viet-nam. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 148 The word "fervent" in the title is not meant to frighten away those good religious for whom the article is actually written, but who usually hesitate to think of themselves as fervent. It is used rather to indicate the limited perspective of the article, a perspective however which we trust is representative of religious and hehce applicable to many. It is not unusual to find religious who have a problem with their weekly confession--a problem that seems to arise not from their being tepid but rather from their being fervent. They are serious about their religious life. They would rather do anything than deliberately offend God in the smallest thing. And yet they find a certain uneasiness, tedium, even difficulty with their weekly con-fession. Time and again they have consulted the classical authors to find ways of refreshing this exercise, but usu. ally with only transitory success. The considerations pro-posed in these manuals, while excellent and fundamental and helpful to a certain point, do not really fit. For the religious we have in mind does not come to his weekly confession as an enemy of God; he does not come with mortal sins; he has no need of being "reconciled" to the Church, much less of having divine life "restored" to his soul. His confession is not one of obligation, and con:;e-quently there is nothing that he is obliged to confess (supposing always that to ensure the validity of his con-fession, he mentions his past forgiven sins, at least in a general way). In fact he rarely (more likely never) brings unforgiven sins to the confessional. For to say nothing of the many ways that venial sins can be forgiven out-side the sacrament, his daily communion is constantly purifying his soul, and his habit of immediately turning to God in loving sorrow for any fault committed, plus the. contrition that he excites before confession, brings him to the confession with really no unforgiven matter. Clearly the basic considerations of the purgative way, which may once have applied to him, and whose grateful memory will always remain with him, are not sufficient. There is need of a ditter~ent perspective~a .,shifting of emphasis, if his confession ~is" to produce the,, fruit ex-pected by the Church. ' ¯ ~. ~ For the Church is greatly concerned about these fre-quent confessions. When som~ younger members of the clergy were diminishing esteem for the frequent confes-sion of venial sins, claiming that it was useless, consumed too much time of busy pastors, and was actually un-known in the early Church, Pope Plus XII spoke out clearly and strongly against them (Mystici Corporis 87): Equally disastrou~s in its effects is the false contention that tile frequent confession of venial sins is not a practice to be greatly esteemed. Therefore those among the young clergy who are diminishing esteem for frequent confession are to know that the enterprise upon which they have embarked is alien to the Spirit of Christ and most detrimental to the Mys-tical Body of our Savior. For a constant and speedy ad-vancement in the path of virtue, we highly recommend the practice of frequent confession, introduced by the Church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit; for by this means we grow in a true knowledge of ourselves and in Christian hu-mility, bad habits are uprooted, spiritual negligence and apathy are prevented, the conscience is purified and the will strengthened, salutary spiritual direction is obtained, and grace is increased by the efficacy of the sacrament itself. In the following lines it is not my purpose to touch on all the above advantages nor to give a form to confession nor to enter into the aspect of spiritual direction in the confessional. I wish merely to redistribute the emphasis of certain aspects and thus perhaps help towards a solu-tion of our problem. Sacrament of Loving Sorrow One of the areas that calls for reappraisal and a pos-sible reshifting of emphasis concerns our habitual way of looking on the sacrament. There is danger that a way of speaking will induce a way of thinking. Because of our ordinary practice of speaking of the sacrament of pen-ance as "confession," we may develop a wrong emphasis. Now I am not advocating a change in our traditional terminology, but we must be careful lest our way of speaking throw everything out of focus. For the actual "confession" of sins, in the type of confession we are dealing with, is one of the least important elements of the sacrament. And yet it is frequently the main source of trouble for the fervent religious: "What to say?" Such a preoccupation is understandable when there is ques-tion of the integrity of an obligatory confession of mortal sins, but how completely out of place it is in our con- 4- 4- 4- Weekly onlession VOLUME 22, 1963 ]49 P. W. O'B~i~, $.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS fessions. I wonder if our exact catechetical training, given chiefly in view of a form of obligatory confession, is not unduly transferred to confessions of devotion. At any rate, it is not rare to find the problem of confession be-coming more acute as the religious becomes more fer-vent, the problem of "what to say" becoming so empha-sized as to bring on uneasiness. But even when we think more exactly in terms of the "sacrament of penance," we must still be on our guard. The very word "penance" can become a source of mis-understanding. The Latin word paenitentia of which our English "penance" is a translation, has been well-chosen and in its real meaning of "sorrow with purpose of amendment" is quite appropriate. But in English we do not think that way. For us "penance" is associated with fasting and disciplines; and even though we have been taught that true interior penance consists in sorrow for our sins, this is not our habitual association with the word "penance." Would that the translating fathers had given us something like "sacrament of sorrow." It would have helped us put the emphasis where it belongs. The emphasis then in this "sacrament of sorrow" should be on sorrow; but a sorrow that is a free and meritorius act. This should immediately put us on our guard against certain counterfeits. It is a free act; hence always in my power. I can make it on Monday; I can make it on Friday. I can make it when I am depressed; I can make it when I am as dry as a stick. Evidently its value does not and cannot depend on emotional inten-sity (which is not in my power). It is a movement of the will detesting sin because of my conviction (intellectua! appreciation) that God's will is above all. Its efficacy measured not by the accompanying emotion or affection. (if there is any) but by the strength derived from my conviction. Now for the fervent religious this conviction has become habitual. It is constantly operative in his daily life as is evidenced by his care in avoiding all that is against God's will. But it can well be that this con-viction has.become so settled in his life that it sets up no emotional resonance. He must not be surprised then when he finds that his sorrow in the confessional reta~ins the same strong voluntary but unemotional tendency that characterizes his daily life. He detests sin and all his failings because he truly loves God and has made will the supreme norm of his life. Here the question of motive enters. It is this that sets the tone to our sorrow and our confession. The faithful religious does not come to God in fear but in love,~,as to his Father. The Little Flower puts it simply: I have long believed that the Lord is more tender than a mother. I know that a mother is always ready to forgive trivial, involuntary misbehavior on the part of her child . Children are always in trouble, falling down, getting themselves dirty, breaking thing~but all this does not shake their parent's love for them. We come to God as His dearest children, sharing His very life, coming with th.e loving sorrow .of asofi; to be reassured that all, all has b&fi forgiven;' to i:eceive the embrace of the Father. Sacrament ol Purification One of the perspectives of the sacrament that opens up a rich vein of thought and deserves to be emphasized by the faithful religious is the aspect of purification-- purification not in the sense of liberation from the guilt of actual sins and faults--but rather a deeper purifica-tion that penetrates to the roots of those faults, to the habitual tendencies which cause them, and to the reli-quiae peccati which are their results. The sacrament be-comes (if you will pardon the expression) a sort of radio-therapy of our deep wickedness. We expose our wounds, visible or not, with a certain reasoned eagerness and joy to the curative influence of the sacrament. We are not so much preoccupied about our past actual faults. We have sorrowed over them and know that they have been wiped out through God's mercy. It is rather the deep of our soul, the roots of the faults, which give promise of bring-ing forth again their fruit of death--it is these roots which disturb us. And here precisely is where the "grace of the sacrament" comes into play--a grace which the Council of Florence describes as a grace of purification, a grace of healing: "Through penance we are spiritually healed" (DB 695). This grace reaches beyond the actual sins, forgiven by the absolution, to reach deep into our nature into the causes of those sins. This purifying influence acts not only on the soul but also on the body. I believe we may find an analogy in the effects of the sacrament of extreme unction which is usually considered as the complement of penance. Its influence in strengthening soul and body during serious sickness should give us some clue to the purifying action of penance. For we may well believe that the effects of this sacrament are but the "finishing touches" to a proc-ess begun and carried on through other sacraments throughout one's life. All the sacraments, even Holy Eucharist, have a purifying influence on the whole per-son, body and soul. Now one of the effects of the sacra-ment of extreme unction is to weaken the effects of con-cupiscence, to restore some part of our original integrity which was lost through Adam's sin. St. Thomas explains our inability to avoid all indeliberate venial sins by concupiscence together with the slowness of our percep- + + + Weekly Con]ession 151 ÷ ÷ ÷ P. W. O'Bden, $.L REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS tion of good, the changeableness of our will, and the frequency of temptation (S. T. 1, q 109, a 8). Now in re-ducing concupiscence, extreme unction restores order to man's strivings, subordinating the sensitive to the spirit-ual and the spiritual to God; it helps put a man in true possession of himself, so that he is able to dominate not only those positive urges of soul and body that escape control but also the oppressive weight of dead inertia by which the sensitive life impedes the striving of the will toward God. From this precious purifying and strengthening action of extreme unction, we may gather some idea of what takes place in the sacrament of pen-ance, not precisely in view of a serious sickness but look-ing rather to the progressive purification of our soul as it weakens concupiscence, counteracts sluggishness, or-ders our passions, and restores us to spiritual liberty. Awareness of Sinfulness Now it is precisely this grace of purification that draws religious to the sacrament of penance. (Perhaps I should say "drives," for there is no question of an emotional attraction, but rather the compelling force of a reasoned conviction based on faith.) It is this that explains the daily confessions of so many saints--St. Catherine of Siena, St. Ignatius, St. Francis Xavier, St. Peter Claver, St. Charles Borromeo, St. A1phonsus Liguori. Surely they were not deliberately sinning nor were they scrupulous. But they understood better the holiness of God. St. Francis Borgia was accustomed to confess twice a day, once in the morning before saying Mass and again in the evening before retiring. By this I do not mean that daily confession, where possible, is a goal to be aimed at. It may be helpful regularly for some persons, or for others at particular times of special grace or difficulty. This is a problem to be determined with one's confessor. I merely mention these examples to illustrate one of the great motives of frequent confession--the desire for pu-rity. This desire of the saints for purity is shared by ,~11 faithful souls according to their grace. For as the reli-gious strives to lead his life more generously, avoiding as far as he can all deliberate failings, he participates more abundantly in God's light. The effect is twofold: he be-gins to understand more clearly who God is, and in the same measure he becomes more aware of his wretched-ness. He finds himself in an attitude of soul similar to that of Eliphaz, one of Job's friends, who tells .us that his hair stood on end when in vision a spirit passed be-fore him. "I heard the voice as it were of a gentle wind: Shall man be justified in comparison with God, or shall a man be more pure than his Maker? Behold. in his angels he found wickedness." (Jb 4:15 ft.). Isaiah re-cords a similar state of soul, the result of his great vision of the holiness of God. "Woe is me because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people that hath unclean lips and I have seen with my eyes the King, the Lord of hosts" (Is 6:l-5)~The religious~in~tlle light of God s hohness becomes painfully consc,ous, I will not say of "sin," but of sinfulness. He longs to bring his sins to the confessional, but what sins? Here precisely is the trouble. The sins that are clear have long since been sub-mitted to the sacrament in sorrow. He knows that they are forgiven and blotted from the sight of God. But the daily failings? Truly they are not deliberate sins. He would rather do anything than displease God. He cannot pin down his failings. And yet he is painfully conscious of a mass of selfishness, insincerity, sensuality, but deep in the soul where he cannot reach. He realizes that this wickedness penetrates all that he does, but it is not in acts where it can be grasped. And he also realizes that this is not an illusion; the wickedness is really there. This creates a problem for him--a problem that per-haps increases with the fidelity of the soul--and which often accounts for much of the difficulty experienced in approaching the sacrament. It seems such hypocrisy to have nothing to say. And yet no matter how long the ex-amination of conscience is prolonged, nothing more spe-cific is discovered. He has only wasted precious time that could have been more profitably spent on deepening his loving sorrow. Nor is this due simply to negligence of the soul. Perhaps most natures do not have the per-spicacity to analyze and draw out into the clear these deep tendencies of the soul. The light that is given them is not so sharp. Nor need it be; for its purpose of hu-miliation and purification is equally accomplished by the confused and painful acceptance of what the soul perceives confusedly. According to One's Light Fortunately, in this type of confession, the accusation is one of the least important parts. Hence very little time should be spent on the actual examination of conscience. The daily examination of conscience faithfully made will guarantee the religious against negligence, and a quick glance will usually reveal where he has displeased God. Hence if within a few minutes nothing specific is dis-covered, he should stop his inquiry and be satisfied with a general accusation: "I accuse myself of all the sins of my past life, especially for my sins of pride, sensuality, or against some commandment." Father Saint-Jure, S.J., gives this directive: Those (venial sins) which we should seek out and confess Weekly ¢onlesslon VOLUME Z2o '1'963 153 4. 4. 4. P. W. O'Brien, $.1. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ]54 with more c~ire are those which weigh most heavily on us, and those which cause us more embarrassment and shame, pro-vided that we are able to confess them with honesty a~d de-cency; likewise those which ~hinder us most from attaining the perfection to which God calls us, or which are contrary to the virtue to. which we are particularly devoting our efforts for that week or month. And since among venial sins there are some which arise from mere weakness, which escape us as by surprise, and others from malice, which we commtt with full knowledge, coldly, understanding what we are doing and with full consent, of these latter none should be omitted in con-fession. As for the others, one should leave them to the mercy of God, and confess them in general, all-inclusive terms: If the soul is sufficiently. . .pure so that it commits only these sins of weakness, let zt ~ndzcate some of them" (On the Knowledge and Love of our Lord Jesus Christ, Bk 3, c 10, ~9). Hence we may give as a practical rule: I may accuse myself of whatever God gives me the light to see as dis-pleasing to Him (no matter how trivial it may seem in itselD. If I see specific failings clearly, it is well to accuse myself at least of some of them; if I see them only.in a confused way, as tendencies, I should be content to ac-knowledge them in this general way (paying particular attention to one or another of them for a few weeks at a time)--adding, however, a general accusation of past forgiven sins to insure the validity of the confession. This awareness of sinfulness and inability to reach it through our own efforts is often given by spiritual writers as a reason for God's intervention through the passive purification of the soul. We read of "dark nights of the soul" in which God's purifying action goes deep where the active effort of the soul cannot penetrate, purifying the roots of our evil inclinations, attacking the basic self-ishness of the soul. This, type of purification is usually associated with trials in prayer that fall to the lot of con-templatives. We know, however, that God's purifying action can take many forms, that his apostles are often purified through the trials inherent in their apostolate. Surely a most powerful means of purification and one which is often overlooked is the very sacrament of purifi-cation instituted by Christ, which accomplishes in the soul much the same work as the "dark nights" and apos-tolic trials: namely, the progressive submission of our lower nature to the higher and the higher to God, the liberation of our soul from the weight of its wicked in-clinations and its consequent gradual transformation in God. Building up the Body oI Christ As the religious grows in his vocation, he should grow also in a sense of his solidarity with the Churcli, the Mystical Body. He begins to see his sin and sinfulness in their social aspect. While clearly realizing that his sin is his own, for which he alone is responsible, he is more aware of the consequences of his sin on the organism of which he is a member--and this apart from the harmful effects that may come through bad example, coopera-tion, and so forth. He understands that the life that is in him is a shared lif~e; ~w, eakened with 'his'.~weakness, strengthened with his strength. It.is true that our liturgy today does not give such prominence to the social aspect of penance as in the old days when the penitent, after a period of public penance, was restored on Holy Thurs-day to the family life of the Church so that he might share the Paschal Bread of life with the other members of his family, the Church. Nor is there question of our religious being "restored" to the Church. But he begins to feel deeply his corporate responsibility, He is ashamed of the sinfulness that he brings to the immaculate Spouse of Christ. Aware of the lessening of love, as sin drains this Body anemic, he strives to replenish the blood ;stream with his love. He understands the general disappearance in the world of a sense of sin and rushes with his loving sorrow to make amends. If he be a priest whose mission it is to destroy sin in the world, he finds an added joy both in receiving and administering the sacrament. He offers God a soul in which He may work more purity, and thus "build up the Body of Christ" (Eph 4.9). And with this consciousness of his unity in the Mystical Body, a new dimension is added to his examination Of con-science, or rather a more acute awareness of his already existing obligation: his duty of charity; his responsibility for the spread of God's kingdom; his sins of omission through cowardice, selfishness, love of ease; the primacy of love. Meeting with the Three One beautiful but rarely stressed aspect of this sacra-ment is our meeting with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. While it is true that the glorified humanity of Jesus is the instrument of all our grace, it is still the Word of God who takes away sin. "Who can forgive sin but God alone?" (Lk 5:21), Every sacramental absolution is then the action of Jesus, the great high priest, acting through His representative, a man chosen from amongst sinners. And in receiving that absolution, I come in vital contact with Jesus. Here He bestows on me the grace of redemption. Jt is for this that He came into the world, as He prolongs into my soul the efficacy of His redemp-tive sacrifice. -The life that He gives, He won in His blood. It is this that causes such joy in heaven, more than over the ninety-nine just, this prolongation of the rich mysteries of His death and glorification, for me a new 4- 4- 4- Weekly Conlession VOLUMF 22, 1963 155 + ÷ ÷ P. W. O'Brien, SJ. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 156 baptism, as plunged into His death, I rise to a new or richer life. But often we are inclined to forget the part of the Father and the Holy Spirit. If there is pardon in the sacrament and grace of purification, it is because the Father loves us beyond all telling. "God [the Father] so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son." (Jn 3:16). In the pardon of the Son, I meet the love of the Father. And if there is life in the sacrament, it is because the Father, in giving His Son, gives us also the Holy Spirit who pours forth the charity of God into our hearts (Rom 5:5), this Spirit who cleanses, who burns away the impurities of our soul in the fire that He is. All this is brought out strikingly in the very institution of this sacrament of peace. It is as though the glorified Christ can hardly wait to begin pouring out the effects of His loving sacrifice. The very eve of Easter Sunday, He must come to His frightened Apostles in the upper room to give them power to forgive sin, First He shows them His wounds, the price of the sacrament, and the proof that it is really the glorified Christ in His human-ity. And then: " 'Peace be to you. As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.' When He had said this, He breathed upon them and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit; whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained' " (Jn 20:21- 23). The Father is there, prolonging in Jesus and through Jesus in the apostles, the love that fathered the redemp-tion. The Son is there, in His glorified humanity, com-municating the fruits of His redemptive offering. But first the Spirit must be given, for it is in the Spirit that the soul is led through the Son to the Father. What happiness for the faithful soul is this meeting in the sacrament with the ThreeI ]oy to the Heart of ]esus But if there is joy to the soul on meeting the Three, there is joy in the Three as They enrich the soul. For the eagerness of the soul to meet its God can never begin to match the love of God that goes out to meet the soul. "I have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly" (Jn I0:10). The entire life of Jesus, with all its sufferings, has been aimed precisely at moments such as these, when meeting with the soul, He can com-municate the graces won on Calvary. If love that is frus-trated and refused can be such a torment, Love that gives and is received can be immeasurable joy. It is this joy that is ours to give to Jesus as we open our hearts in sorrow to His purifying love. JACQUES LECLERCQ The Priest Today In a preceding article? on active lay people, I men-tioned the confusion of priests when they ask themselves what their purpose is since now in meetings of fill kinds lay persons make meditations and in general ~ssume a spiritual role. And yet. The Presence o] the Priest And yet the laity cling to the presence of the priest. It seems that something essential is missing if a priest is not present--this priest who does nothingl Things now are entirely different from what they used to be. For one thing, previously there were no meet-ings that resemble the ones of today. Formerly when the priest .took his part by preaching a sermon, the faithful listened and then left. Or at the time when study clubs began to be organized, the priest presided and directed, trying with more or less success to make the various mem-bers speak; and frequently he was the only one to do any speaking. Today, however, he is neither presiding officer nor director. He is rather a chaplain; he assists--in Italy he is called the assistente ecclesiastico [the ecclesiastical assistant]. At times one may have the impression that everything happens without him, but in reality there is nothing that happens without him. Everything happens with him; but this "with him" is something other than "under his direction." All of this is disconcerting for those who are accustomed to the authoritarian conceptions of former times. The priest does nothing, and yet he is indispensable. When lay persons form a spiritual group of some kind, one of their first concerns is always to have a chaplain; for without a chaplain it would seem that the group is unable to suc-ceed. Is there any way in which we can point out pre-cisely what it is that the priest provides? x In La revue nouvelle, a Belgian periodical, during 1962,. Canon Leclercq published a number of articles on the laity in the Church today. The present article is translated with permission from La revue nouvelle, September 15, 1962, pp. 171-84. 4. 4. 4. Canon Jacques Le- ¢lercq fives at 102, rue de Li/~ge; Beau-lays, Belgium. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS lacqu~s Le¢l~rcq REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 158 The matter is a real puzzle, and it is being investigated from almost every angle. It is not a question of the sacra-merits. As is evident, it is the priest who distributes these. But the Christian life, as it is conceived today, is some-thing other than the sacraments. It is based on the sacra-ments; it is nourished by them; yet Catholic Action meet-ings, or meetings of workers or of managers, of students, of scotits and their leaders, have a purpose entirely other than that of receiving the sacraments; they are not even spoken of. Nor is it expected that the priest give an in-struction or a sermon. It is only expected that he be there, participating in the meeting with the rest. It would seem that from the Christian viewpoint some-thing is lacking to lay persons when they are left to them-selves., And yet it is a question of their own life, for it is they who must put into practice what they discuss. But at the same time it is a question of their own life insofar as it is Christian. From this point of view, it is necessary to have a priest in the midst of them. And I think that this expression "in the midst of them" is the exact one. A French priest, who works among the working class, has made the following remark on this point: I think that the people need a founder, someone who ~'will unite them in the charity of Christ. Lay persons can do some things, but they cannot be centers. Hence they need Someone who will be a religious center, a kind of church, for them. They do not only need Christians who are the presence of the Church, but they need above all a church in the sense of the Church realized in this community; they need someone who unites them and who is the head in the sense of being a father, not someone who commands but one who assembles and who is first ("T~moignage de M. Lelubre" in Etudes sur ,le sacre-merit de l'ordre [Paris: Cerf, 1957], p. 432). When this is reflected on, one sees very clearly the ap-pearance of the reality that is the Church. Christ continues His presence and His action by the Church. The Church is the people of God; and the people of God is constituted first of all by lay persons. In order to avoid giving the impression of tending towards laicism --which consists of excluding the clergy--let me say at once that the Church is both lay persons and priests, all of them together. But priests--all of them, even the bishops and the pope---exist for the laity, for the service of the laity. When it is said that they exist for the laity-- the pope himself is entitled the servant of 'the servants of God---this means that the people of God is essentially the laity, that it is to them that the divine life flows and that it is through them above all that it manifests itself. If the Church, according to the words of Scripture, is like a lamp that one lights and puts on a lampstand, this is the laity--Christian life in the family and in daily occupa-tions, The clergy, priests, religious are at the service of this. The result of their work is not that an elite may en-close itself within monasteries in order to live in God, nor even that Christian people in more or less great numbers may gather in churches to. ce,lebrate divine~worship; rather the result of their "dork is that through Christians Christ lives and acts in families and in the world. Priests and religious must sanctify themselves per-sona! ly in order to create a climate of holiness in the Church; but the result of the Church's holiness must be found in homes and in the world. When we use the word "world" [citd] here, we are envisaging professional, politi-cal, and social activities--all that can be called public life. It is to this that the life of Christ in the Church tends. Hence the Church is above all the laity; and it is through the laity that she first manifests her dynamism. But it is priests who form the laity in a Christian way. Priests :are men of the Church and men of God. '.Their function is to represent the Church; they exist only for this. ~ The lay person must be entirely Christian and at the same time something else besides; this shows forth the character of the Incarnation, that reality which is found only in Christianity. The Incarnation consists in this that the work and supernatural action of God is accomplished in and through nature. It has been frequently remarked that the supernatural is above the natural, but not contrary to the natural; it does not. suppress nature but elevates it; it transforms the natural, but it takes the natural into account. It constructs from, above; this can never be repeated too often if one wishes to comprehend what Christianity is. The kingdom of God, then, must be built up among men by taking due account of their nature. The Spirit of God transforms this nature to its depths; this is mani-fested exteriorly by the intention that animates action and by the choice which is made among various actions; .never-theless, these actions retain their .human character, and this must be remembered by those who are concerned with them. The Priest is Leaven Christ compared the kingdom of God to leaven that makes the dough rise; good bread can not be made with-out yeast. But yeast alone is not sufficient to make bread. Flour is needed, and the baker must be careful to secure good flour. It is necessary to knead the bread carefully. It must be baked in a good oven at the right temperature and for the right length of time and so forth. If the 4. 4. 4. The Priest Today VOLUME 22, 139 Jacques l.eclercq REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 160 kingdom of God is like the leaven in bread, one can say that the priest is the depositary of this leaven; but it the laity who are like the bakers who must be occupied with all the conditions for the preparation of the bread. Moreover, it is they who must make use of the yeast. If the priest remains alone with his leaven, there will never be any bread; and if the bakers do not have the yeast, once again there will be no bread. Both are neces-sary. Now let us transpose all this into the entirety of life. The laity found homes and give life to the world. This obliges them to think of many things that in themselves are independent of the kingdom of God. It is to be noted that I have said "in themselves," for nothing is a stranger to the kingdom of God when one places it in the entirety of life. For example, parents must be concerned with the health of their children, their nourishment, their cloth-ing, their studies. The kingdom of God takes part in all this as a kind of preoccupation that orientates this activ-ity ir,.~ a certain measure, but only in a certain measure. And the same is the case with employers, workers, farmers, students, and so forth. But the priest is the man of God. He recalls the king-dom of God by his mere presence; one can say, by his existence, for he has no other purpose for existing. Theo-retically it should be sufficient that a priest be present for one to think of the kingdom of God. The word "theo-retically" is used because men are not perfect, and both priests and the laity are men. Nevertheless, this is the way reality is, and it is this that the laity perceive even when they cannot express it; it is this that leads them, when they are concerned with the kingdom or the way in which God should penetrate their life, to unite themselves around a priest. In brief, all the matters which.form the tissue of the llfe of the laity.are of importance for the kingdom of God; but they are not the kingdom of God. If, when they wish to discuss the repercussion of the kingdom of God on these matters, people gather together without a priest, the discussion easily slips over into the purely human condi-tions of activity; the presence of a priest, however, centers it upon the kingdom. Hence the laity need to have a priest present in their life. This also explains the desire of families to have times a visit from a priest. This is especially true in towns; but it differs from one locality to another, for we are discussing here the case of fervent Christians who desire that their faith influence their lives. In places where such Christians do not exist, the matter is quite different and needs to be discussed further. But to return to our subject, the visit of a priest to families is not a matter of giving a sermon or even of speaking principally about religion. It is a presence. Christian families enjoy having a priest in their homes. They want the priest to know them, their children, and their way of life. And this contributes to the general at-mosphere which reigns iri.~th~. home; th~"~ '6hversation spontaneously takes a vein different from the conversa-tion that is had with colleagues or with friends. And the fact that the priest is involved in their life permits all kinds of questions to be directed to him. The problem of the visit of a priest to families arouses a great many questions which can not be treated here, for they deserve an article to themselves. For the present, let us limit ourselves to pointing out these aspirations of good Christians. We are concerned with good Christians. As we pointed out previously, the Church cannot reach bad Christians or non-Christians except through the laity. The laity must be active or the Church will not take hold of the world; in the terms of the Gospel, she will be a light under a basket or leaven apart from the dough. But these active laity need the priest. Left to themselves, they are liable to be routed even in their interior life. In order that they may be united under the standard of Christ and that they may attack in an orderly way the problems of their interior life and of their Christian action in the world, the priest must be in the midst of them. In conclusion, let us note that in the Church at the beginning of this century the priest was occupied with a good many other things which were often profane; by reason of a tradition which dies away only slowly, many priests today are still taken up to a large extent by ad-ministrative and other activities which the laity would be better occupied with. The result is that priests are ab-sorbed by activities which are not suited to them; at the same time they are unavailable for groups of active Christians or they find it impossible to visi~ families. In any case, this new role of the priest is so important that there can be no Church without him. And the activ-ities that correspond to this role are so numerous and pressing that good priests are crowded with such activ-ities. And there is even the complaint that there are not enough priests. And yet what we have discussed so far is but one of the activities of a priest. Spiritual Action The action of leaven can not be seen; this results in difficulty for some because man has a body and is highly dependent on it. Man needs to see, and yet the soul and action on souls cannot be seen. ÷ ÷ ÷ The Priest Today VOLUME 22, ~.963 161 lacques Leclercq REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS There are, first of all, the older priests of whom we have already spoken; for these the pastoral ministry is ex-pressed by material activities and they can not conceive any other type. Moreover, they do not conceive of any other priestly intervention than the authoritarian form of formal congregational meetings composed of a sermon and a greeting. Today, all this has become secondary, if indeed it has not been completely abandoned. Formerly when the priest spoke authoritatively, he gave directions in many matters (politics, for instance) which touched religion only very indirectly. At the present time, there is a growing agreement that priests are not to in-terest themselves in the temporal. However, many priests formerly were interested in nothing else. To the extent that this remains true, one can understand that they have the impression of no longer knowing what to do. This outmoded spirit dies out only slowly; in semi-naries as well as in houses of study of religious orders clerical formation likewise becomes transformed only slowly. One even finds young priests who think that, when they are with the laity, their role should be one of teaching and that they alone should do the talking. They find themselves ill at ease when persons are not disposed to listen to them first of all. Others still think that they must do everything themselves~determine the place, day, and hour of the meetings and issue the announcements. Again they feel discomforted when a group of active Christians organize everything without them and then come to invite them. We are living in an age of transformation. The older attitude with its way of doing things is gradually giving way. But some priests still retain the older attitudes and do not conceive the possibility of allowing the laity to act. On the other hand, many of the laity retain a purely passive conception of their role; not only do they leave everything to the priest, but they will do nothing if they are asked to take over a work. "Adult" lay persons (of whom I have been speaking) and priests adapted to such are still but few in number. Nevertheless, when one compares today with the be-ginning of the century, the transformation is unmistak-able. The essential thing is that this evolution continue and that the priest should more and more return to. the spiritual; that is, to the domain that belongs to him. But is "return" the correct word? He should rather aspire to it. But man is material, and the older conception gives satisfaction to a kind of unconscious materialism. Collaboration Formerly, one spoke only of authority and obedience. The faithful should obey, and nothing else was asked of them. Today, however, as we have seen, they are asked to think and to act for themselves. The meetings of active Christians have as their purpose a united program to enable the realization of the Christian ideal in the actual circumstances of life. Accordingly, the pri~est.is, no longer '~oncerned only with teaching; he listens and he invites the faithful to make their own personal contribution. This can be seen even in the matter of worship; the Mass has ceased to be a sacrifice offered by the priest alone at an altar distant from the people and in front of a congregation uncon-cerned with what he is doing, Now the Mass has become the community sacrifice offered by the priest an'd the faithful together, the priest being the spokesman of the community, the representative of the Church and of Christ, the celebrant of a sacrifice which belongs to the entire community. This is a profoundly changed state of affairs. Priests and laity act together. The Church is a single body and all of its members are active. This is a true resurrection. And by this very fact the priest has been strikingly ennobled, for he is no longer limited to being the shep-herd of a passive flock but has become instead the ani-mator of an active community. This change is to be found on all levels of the Church. The last and highest is that at the very center of the ChurCh, the See of Rome. Vati-can Council II gives witness to this transformation; and it is clear how John XXIII envisages the matter. His man-ner is not one like this: "Let the bishops say what they want, I shall do only what I want"; rather, his attitude is this: "I am deeply concerned to know the opinions of the bishops in order that I may take their advice into account." No one can derive from this the impression that pontifical power has thereby been lessened; but every-one does get the impression that the. Church forms one living body, animated by a movement of the whole. The role of the clergy is essential for the Church. When Catholicism is compared with Protestantism and with Orthodoxy, this role of the clergy is one of the most striking characteristics of the Church. Perhaps this ex-plains the retreat of the laity after the Reformation which placed the clergy in the background and in many cases even suppressed the priesthood and the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Now, however, the Church has recovered from this crisis; Christian life is now developing in its com-plete totality. Henceforth the Church will no longer be divided into the active Church composed of the clergy and the passive Church composed of the laity. The Church is a body ÷ ÷ ÷ The Priest Today VOLUME 22, 1963 ]63 ÷ ÷ ÷ Jacqo, es REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS I6,t of priests and laity together, living together, thinking together, acting together. As Cardinal Suhard put it: "The true achiever of evangelization is not the simple faithful nor the priest by himself; it is the Christian com-munity." The laity are fulfilling their role; the priest turn is free to be himself. Spiritual Counselor The direction of conscience has enjoyed a large place in the modern Church; it has been one of the principal instruments in the formation of a Christian elite. Never-theless, it has been especially concerned with women. When one reads the letters of the great spiritual directors, it is seen that they have been addressed almost exclusively to women. These women belonged to the higher levels of society. Today, however, as a result of the general spread of education and of the rise of active Christians, those who are concerned with the spiritual life are becoming more numerous and are to be found at all levels; they are found among workers and in the country as well as among the intellectuals. If it is necessary to practice direction of souls as it was formerly conceived, the clergy will be un-able to cope with it. But here once more, does not the spirit of collabora-tion profoundly transform conditions? Christians gather together with a priest to reflect on their Christian life; together they confront most of the questions that were formerly treated by individual conferences between the director and his spiritual child. In these conferences those seeking direction used to speak to their director not only of their interior life but of everything that con-cerned themselves. They asked their director's advice with regard to their relations with their husbands, with their children, and with their friends. They discussed the amount of freedom to be given their children, the amount of money to be given them, their clothes, companions, activities. Now all this is discussed in groups and in a way that is far more effective. Formerly, the person seeking direction would describe a situation to the director and he would decide the matter. The one consulting would act as though the director were omniscient, and he in turn would decide everything as though in fact he were. It was even taught as a received doctrine that the word of the director, was the word of God, that the director had the required graces of state, and that one should obey him blindly. Now it is realized that this was a false mystique, foreign to the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation; neverthe-less, it formed a coherent system. Christians concerned with the exigencies o[ morality would consult their con[essor on the matter o[ all their reading. No priest, however, can be acquainted with everything that is being published. The con[essor, i[ he believed himsel[ obliged to answer--and [ormerly the majority believed themsel~ces so obliged h~d~0 answer by guessing or had to make use o[ a systematic severity in order to avoid all risk o[ danger . And thereby/ other dangers were [allen into. From another viewpoint, there were husbands who op-posed the idea o[ their wives having a director o[ con-science on the grounds that they did not want between themselves and their wives a secret authority which the latter obeyed absolutely. Moreover, the women who con-suhed a director were usually women who were not mar-ried or who were unhappily married. This meant that spiritual direction had mixed in with it a purely human desire [or masculine support, and this in a proportion that is difficult to determine. All this has passed, and we have arrived at a much sounder state o[ affairs. All the matters that we have men-tioned are taken up today in groups. In [amily groups there are discussed today the problems o[ conjugal intimacy, o[ prayer in common, and the prayer o[ each o[ the spouses. In all kinds o[ groups, there is discussion o[ diversions, o[ entertainments, o[ reading, o[ the time to be given to recreation and to apostolic work, and o[ the problems o[ pro[essional li[e. Since the dil~erent kinds o[ groups are highly diversified, the questions that are confronted also differ greatly; nevertheless, the great part of matters that were [ormerly treated by individual direction is now considered by groups, each member con-tributing the results o[ his own experience; the priest has only to contribute his own element. The result is that while the number o[ Christians de-sirous o[ a Christian life that will dominate their entire existence is growing, the number of those who want direction o[ conscience in the individualistic sense of former times is diminishing. Even the phrase "spiritual director" is vanishing; the expression tod~y is that of "spiritual counselor." Everything is simplified; every-thing is developed in an atmosphere of collaboration that befits adult li[e. Hence, [or example, when a [amily group discusses the liberty to be given to children o[ different ages or the amount of money to be given them, solutions are reached that are more balanced and more realistic than those [ormerly obtained when the one consulting was limited to accepting the word of a director who was a stranger to the li[e o[ the [amily. Some Christians, however, still have recourse to a spiritual director after the older method, but they are The Pr~st ToOa~y VOLUME 22, 1963 165 ]~que, Leclegcq REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS in general those who are slow to be caught up by the strong current that is sweeping through the Church and reanimating Christian life. Unfortunately they are still numerous, for a great many Christians as well as a great many priests remain immobilized in older conceptions. The movement that stresses the laity touches only a cer-tain sector and certain levels of the population. There are even entire regions where it is unknown. We are seeking here to emphasize the signs of this renewal, for we are sure that it is in this renewal that the future of the Church lies. That which is merely a prolongation of the past will fall as the world progresses. Undoubtedly, there will always remain certain ele-ments of the old direction of conscience, certain needs (more or less occasional) that will require personal, in-dividual contacts. In most of these cases confession will be sufficient. It is impossible to predict what will eventu-ally happen, but it is clear that everything is being sim-plified as the Christian animation of life grows. The Word Today much consideration is given to the ministry of the word; this again is a reaction against the past. Formerly, it was taken for granted that society was Christian. Children were instructed in religion, but no attention was paid to adults. Certain traditions, peri-odically restated by councils, obliged to a preaching directed to the instruction of the people; but actual practice had stifled the rule. One has only to recall what the state was of the ministry of the word. Now the word lives again; the most significant sign of this rebirth is undoubtedly retreats. The development of the spiritual life of active Christians has been accom-panied by the multiplication of retreats and periods of recollection. These have become so numerous that or~e can speak accurately in this connection in terms of a spiritual explosion. Retreats and days of recollection are organized in every walk of life: workers, business men, engineers, physicians, young persons of every category. Every time a group with a spiritual character is founded, retreats are organized. At the very time I am writing these lines, I have before me the bulletin of the Association of House-keepers for Priests, an organization that exists in France and Belgium; they, too, organize retreats and days of recollection. Moreover, undifferentiated retreats are also multiplying; these are directed towards all Christians and include without distinction both men and women, priests and laity. Once more we can note that formerly there were some retreat houses maintained by the Jesuits who pioneered them and by convents of women imbued by the Jesuit spirit; there was also a small number of persons who went to these houses for retreats. Today it is an immense move-ment. There are parishes which have retreat leagues com-posed of persons who make a retreat each- y.ear. In certain regions these leagues are systematically organized; in cer-tain dioceses of The Netherlands they are a regular insti-tution of every parish. And I am not speaking now of women, for women retreatants are even more numerous. Hence it is not a matter for astonishment that retreat houses are constantly being opened everywhere and that there are always too few of them. Rooms must generally be reserved in advance; and it can happen that a retreat must be canceled for lack of an available retreat house. But there is also need for priests. Preaching is par excellence a priestly duty. At the present moment the number of priests conducting retreats is legion. Formerly retreats were largely reserved to certain religious orders; but now many diocesan priests (pastors, chaplains, teach-ers) give them. Nevertheless, the number of retreat masters is still not sut~ciently large. As a general rule, it is very easy to find retreatants; retreat houses are more difficult to find; but hardest of all to find are priests. At the beginning of these articles, I recalled those who asked what was left for a priest to do now that there are active lay persons; the answer is that priests are needed for things that are genuinely priestlyl The Christian people have a hunger and thirst for the word of God, and those who can dispense it to them are not numerous enough. This is a matter of the priestly ministry par excellence. The tendency of today's priest is to occupy himself by preference in such ministries, for he feels himself the apostle of Christ in the strongest sense of that term; and he prefers to leave to lay persons the care of administra-tion. I have known a pastor who had to build a church; he appointed a committee of lay persons to raise the money while he himself conducted retreats. Perhaps the building of the church progressed a little more slowly than it would have had he devoted all his time to raising money, but he was at work shaping souls. All this also supposes a transformation in the clergy; for the majority of older priests, administrators of parishes, teachers of profane subjects, have been completely held back from conducting retreats. If they left this matter to religious, this was not without good reason. Today the importance of religious has not diminished, but retreat masters now come from every ecclesiastical sector. The Priest Today VOLUME 22, 167 $acques Leclercq REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 168 Collaboration Once More Together with divine worship, preaching is un-doubtedly the chief priestly activity; and yet even here there is to be found an interchange of priests and laity. Retreats differ greatly. In some the retreatants are plunged into an absolute silence; the director gives them talks throughout the entire day. In this case the renewal of Christian life is marked by the radical character of the retreat--more contemplative, more silent than could have been borne before. But there are also retreats where with-out any lessened preoccupation with the spiritual an hour a day is reserved for an exchange of views; in this period each one can present his problems as he discerns them in the particular situation in which he finds himself. Persons of an older form of mind find it indiscreet to expose one's state of soul to the whole world. Formerly in a retreat one listened to the director who was the only one to speak; then purely profane recreation pe-riods were had, and the retreatants who desired it could consult the retreat master personally and individually. Often retreatants would bring up the same questions; the retreat master would always give the same answer. In general, the matters discussed were such that there was no compelling reason to keep them secret; hence it often happened that the retreatants told each other what the re-treat master had told them. Today all this is treated in a community session; every-one profits by it, and it produces a community spirit in the group. The retreatants feels themselves engaged in a common work. The divine life in us, our work for the service of God, are problems that interest all Of us to-gether. We no longer go to heaven alone; we go there with our brethren; indeed it is impossible to go there alone, for we depend on those who surround us. The king-dom of God is a community enterprise to which we belong and which we ought to undertake together. Even a re-treat is a community enterprise. In addition to this, it is now customary to have lay persons speak during a retreat. Retreats are par excellence a priestly work; nevertheless, it does happen that a layman is invited to speak of an aspect ofthe Christian life which he knows. One of my friends was invited by a teacher to speak to his students during the retreat at the end of their studies; the subject was the role of the Christian in the world; after the talk the teacher told him: "It does them much more good to hear all this from a layman." Likewise lay persons are invited to speak in seminaries. In a Canadian magazine I found a letter from Rome con-cerned with the matter expressed by Cardinal Sali~ge as "making use of the layman." The correspondent described how some theological students in Rome had invited a father of a family to speak to them of his Christian life. ¯. Montreal, Rome, Toulouse, and now this article which is to appear in Brussels and Buenos Aires--the problems are everywhere the same. Lay persons are eve~:ywher~e.;,~so also are,priests. They are together, shoulder to'~hourder. We cannot do without the one more than the other. What About the Others? The reader will have noticed that the lay persons dis-cussed here are the active la!ty who have grown into Christian maturity. What has been said is concerned only with the activity of a priest in relationship to such laymen. But what about the others--who compose the vast major-ity of men? Clearly, the groups of which we have spoken, the aware-ness of the exigencies of Christian life, and the giving of retreats are giving to Christians a shape and a form very different from that which they previously had. As we have already remarked, we are seeing a new Christian people appearing. But if these Christians remain among them-selves and if the clergy is concerned only with them, what changes will there be in the world as a whole? Whatever else may be said about this problem, it is true that they will always be there in the world. They are not isolated from the world: they are shopkeepers with a neighborhood store; they are factory workers and en-gineers; they are white-collared workers; they are physi-cians and druggists. They are everywhere. They come to-gether to arouse their Christian awareness; but afterwards they disperse and return to the mass. This is a slow work which one can judge only over long intervals. One can see, for example, that the position of Catholic literature in the world is today far different from what it was a hundred years ago. The same can be said for the position of Catholics in philosophy, in art, in politics. This is true, someone may say; but this is only a matter of a few leaders. To this I would answer that the remark is true; but every leader supposes a body of followers. If Catholic writers and artists today show both a talent and a conformity to the aspirations of the times which were not shown a hundred years ago, then this has happened be-cause the environment must have changed. And it is the same if Catholic philosophers are able to speak to the men of today. Such persons are perhaps the flower of Christianity; but the flower supposes the stem, and the stem in turn supposes the root. If I am the root, I need not be humiliated by the 4. 4. 4. The Priest Today VOLUME 2Z, ~.963 169 ÷ ÷ ÷ Jacques Leclercq REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS fact that I am not seen; it is owing to me that the flower can charm the eye. The position of the Church in the world is, then, pro-roundly changed. And in the examples given above, it will be noted that this transformation has been achieved by lay persons. Writers like Claudel, Chesterton, Bernanos, Ger-trud yon le Fort have undoubtedly done more to attract men to Catholicism than any theologian and perhaps more even than any priest. But they have been in relation with a priest. In short, the role of the priest is exercised on the interior of the Church, on those who are united in the Church; it is these latter who thereupon go out to speak to the world. At times the complaint is heard ~that Christians barri-cade themselves within a ghetto, living by themselves without contact with the outside. The complaint is well founded; if they dose themselves up with each other, the salt will not be able to give its flavor. And it is true that there is a dangerous exclusivism, a fear of leaving a Christian background. This fear is a debilitating thing, for of all the emotions fear is the one that is most debasing. The spreading of ideas, and especially the Christian spreading of ideas, is done by the osmosis of personal con-tact; it is to be noted, however, that this notion of per-sonal contact is a wide one extending to the books that are read and the films that are seen. The action of Chris-tianity proceeds from the fact that the Christian environ-ment reflects Christ. A great many who were born and raised Christian turn from Christianity because they do not find Christ in the Christianity which has been pre-sented to them. What they need is for active Christians to give them an exact image of Christianity. Others, also educated as Christians, turn from Christianity when they perceive the demands it makes on them. The Church loses nothing when such quit her, for they discredit her in the measure that they are believed to represent her. This is the case with cei'tain governments which declare them-selves Catholic. This, then, is a question of the large numbers of Chris-tians who are lukewarm and indifferent. But there is an-other group, larger still, those who are not Christian:; at all. Among these the seed must be sown. Here, too, the role of the priest is essential. Father Vinatur in the text cited above remarked that the priest is a founder. It is true; Christianity is founded only by a priest. This is seen from the very beginning; in the Acts of the Apostles there is related the ministry of St. Paul; he is seen taking up his residence in a city, making some converts, and then leaving when Christianity has been set up and a member of the community--the priest--has been established as head. This is a permanent condition of things. Active lay persons can prepare the soil; they can arouse sympa-thetic interest; but a Christian community is.formed only when a priest comes. This.i~ true on all, levels of the Church. When Catholid Action was constituted with its appeal to assume a genuinely religious activity, it was priests who took the initiative in the matter. So also when the family movement was founded to concern itself with the Christian life of married persons, it was begun by priests. Lay persons came afterwards; in a certain sense, they ended by doing everything. But the priest remains, and he will never be able to be dispensed with. This, then, is the design of the new Church, animated by a Christian life which has not been known since early times, a Church of Christians all sharing in the life and action of Christ. This Church is but sketched in the reality before us at the present time; but this sketch is the image of what is being formed. The confidence which we can have for the future comes from the fact that Christ is living in this Church in a way that He has not since her early centuries. ÷ ÷ The Priest Today VOLUME 22, 196,~ 171 LADISLAS M. ORSY, S.J. From Meditation to Contemplation ÷ ÷ ÷ Ladislas M. Orsy, S.J., is professor of canon law at the Gregorian Univer-sity; Piazza della Pilotta, 4; Rome, Italy. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS The aim of this article is both practical and doctrinal: it is to give practical help for the difficult period of tran-sition from meditation to contemplation and to show the theological background of the change that takes place in the soul. Meditation in these pages means prayer with the help of concepts, images, and more or less enforced acts of will. Contemplation means silence before God, prayer in which the soul is transformed under God's powerful ac-tion. In meditation the accent is on activity, in contem-plation on passivity. In meditation the soul tries to reach God by thoughts, feelings, and desires; in contemplation God has reached the soul and works on it without thoughts, feelings, or desires. In meditation the soul fights its way towards God; in contemplation it should stand before God in poverty. Passivity and poverty are then the foundations for a new type of activity and for new riches that have their source in God's powerful ac-tion. Such a deep change in prayer affects the whole man: it is a change in personality. It is not without difficulties; Saint Teresa remarks that there is no time in the spirit-ual life when it is so easy to give up prayer altogether as the time when contemplation begins. God's Work in the Soul God is eternally present in the soul: it is His presence that gives it life and being, it is His presence that sancti-fies it. He is not only present, He is working in the soul, infusing light and love into our mind and love into our will power. His final aim is to take possession of our person so that we should be united to Him and be His adopted children for an eternity. God is eternally present in the soul. He was there since the moment of our creation; but at the moment of our baptism He came again, not in majesty but as a good friend, and made our soul His own dwelling house where He likes to remain. He brought sanctity and holiness with Him and transformed the soul. As when fire is made in a cold and dark r0on~ ~th~ place be~ome~ ~¢arm and full of light, so when God comes into the soul it is filled with warmth and light. It is clothed with immortality, it belongs to God's family, in a way it becomes divine. The new life the soul receives is called sanctifying grace, the new light in the mind faith, and the infused love in the will power hope and charity. They are all fruits of the presence of God; should He leave the soul, there would be dark and cold again. God works in the soul. There is not one moment of rest for Him. He is supremely good and happy, and He wants to share His rich goodness and happiness with others. Consequently, His sanctifying presence is in fact a work of continuous sanctification. Light and love are given to mind and will in abundance: light that we may see and better understand things divine,-.love that we may go towards God at a better pace. This action of God is peaceful and quiet: He does not like noise and agitation. It is this action that ought to be the source of all our thoughts and deeds; unless they proceed from God they will be empty and they will not bear any fruit for eternal life. God's aim is to take possession of our person. He is not satisfied with partial sanctification of His family. He wants to bring them into the very centre of His own life where the Father and the Son and the Spirit are one and where They know and love each other without end. To say that one does not want to be more than an ordinary good Christian (meaning by it that one does not want to be perfect) is to betray a lack of generosity and to show a great ignorance of God's intention who wants all His children to grow continuously and reach their full maturity in Christ. The extent of the necessary trans-formation is indicated by the distance (which each one easily realizes for himself) between God's purity and our impurity, between His charity and our own obscurity. Nevertheless, it is this complete transformation that is God's aim and nothing less. He has the means to achieve it: by the gentle action of His love in this world and by Purgatory in the other. No person who wants to see God can escape this cleansing process; and those who are generous will want to get through it soon, if possible, in this life. Such desire is not a presumption: it is no more than conforming our will to God's will. 4. 4. 4. Meditation to Contemplation VOLUME 22, 196~ 173 4. 4. 4. L. M.'Or~y, S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ]74 Meditation When God comes into the soul of man and wants to sanctify him, He encounters a great obstacle which is man's fallen nature with all that it entails: sin, attach-ment to worldly things, false judgments, and selbwill as hard as steel. Purification is necessary. It is mainly done by God, but man has his part in it as well. Meditation is one of the first steps in this cleansing process. Man has heard the voice of God and wants to obey Him and be near Him. But man's mind is not clear and clean enough to perceive the light that comes from God living in his soul, his will is not sensitive enough follow the inspirations of grace. It is literally embedded in mortal and perishing things, it is ruled not by God but by the senses. Training is necessary for both mind and will in order to lift them from the visible into the in-visible, from the tangible into the intangible, from the sensitive into the spiritual. Part of this training is what we call meditation. The mind has to be trained. It should be a training in divine truth so that our thoughts, ideas, judgments correspond to those of God and thus that the two minds be united as far as possible into one. This training is done by the soul in an active and discursive way when it meditates on the words of our Lord, on the mysteries of His life, on the Church. What the person does is to fill his mind with God's thoughts instead of his own. He is really trying to m~ike his mind a better instrument for the perception of God's inspirations, an instrument more adapted to receive God's light. It is a tuning-up or warm-ing- up process. The mind is bathed in the divine truth so that it may become divine. This is done in an active way, by reasoning, by considering the call of Christ our Lord or God's beauty in nature, or by imagining the Holy Family. Man is working his way towards God. The will has to be trained as well. The attraction of things eternal is fine and delicate, and our selfish will does not easily notice it. In order to become more sensi-tive to the action of grace, the selfishness of our nature and of our will in particular ought to be broken by con-tinuous exercise in mortification. The aim is that our will should become soft and flexible, attached to nothing, so that it may follow the will of God in everything. To attain that aim, one has to work hard and in an active way. One has to do penance, one has to give up many things, many of his likings, one has to be humble; and there is no dispensation from this work. Since the mind and will are active, activity predomi-nates at this stage of the spiritual life. But sometimes it may happen that a longing awakens in the soul after God Himself, a desire to meet the living God without any human speech, image, or idea. Words and pictures are created things; they do not satisfy the soul that has been created to see God face to face. The desire to meet God without passing through created images all the time may be a sign of better things to come. Transition Thoughts, perception, and feelings are all created things. If we are called to union with God, there must be a moment when they have to disappear since no hu-man person can be satisfied with looking at the picture of somebody he loves when personal contact is possible. Besides~ those acts may fulfill their purpose in the puri-fication of mind and will. Their nature being limited, their efficacy is limited too. I can penetrate the mind of God to a certain extent by meditating on the Gospel; I can follow the will of God to a great extent by trying to do what I think the best. But neither my meditations nor my good deeds have the power to cleanse my soul so well that I may truly say that God has taken possession of me and that I am no more than an instrument in His hand. The true cleansing is reserved to God. It is He who transforms the soul by infusing light and love into it in a more than ordinary measure; it is that light and love that sanctify and purify the whole man. 1. External Signs. The first sign to indicate that a per-son might have a "vocation" to contemplative prayer is that he does not find any more "taste" in meditation: he does not enjoy it any more in the best and spiritual sense of the word. Before, he was able to collect a great va-riety of fruit in his meditation: words and images paci-fied his soul and helped him to formulate good resolu-tions. Now he finds that his meditation is more like a dried-up fountain which does not contain fresh water. But not to have any "taste" in meditation is a purely negative sign: it might well be the indication of careless-ness or of drifting towards the world. Hence, a more posivite sign is needed to confirm that it is God who brought about the change. The positive sign will be a deep longing in the soul for God and a sincere desire to follow Christ our Lord in everything and to be con-formed to His image. A sincere desire that is manifest in deeds. The loss of "taste" in meditation and the longing for God are always coupled with a turning away from this created world. This loss of interest in created things, even if they are very good in themselves, is the third sign; and it is a natural consequence of what has taken place: 4. 4. Meditation to Contemplation VOLUME 22, 1963 ]75 ÷ 4. 4- when the soul is not satisfied any more with created con-cepts in its prayer, it cannot be satisfied with created things either. The change may be astonishing for the person concerned: he used to enjoy music and art, litera-ture and human company, and now he notices that they all leave him dry and empty. When all these signs are found together, loss of "taste" in meditation after it has been practiced for a fairly long time (which may vary from person to person), longing for God in solitude (the longing being confirmed by solid virtues in practice), and the consequent loss of good and legitimate pleasure in created things, then the person concerned may have the vocation to a simpler form of prayer. If these signs are not there, any attempt to leave be-hind meditation and practice another form of prayer, namely the prayer of simplicity, may be poisonous for the soul; it may weaken its spiritual life and it may even ruin the soul altogether. 2. An Explanation. The signs just described are ex-ternal, but what is happening internally in the soul? What is it that brought the change about? The answer is that gradually and in a hidden way God is taking possession of the soul and its facilities. As mind and will have been purified to a reasonable degree, though by no means perfectly, God's work on them~be-comes more intense. Light and love are being given in a larger measure than ever before, and the hand of God begins to shape the new man, the new creature of St. Paul, out of the old. It is as if the hand of God had touched the soul from behind and in the dark. The soul recognised the touch instinctively but could not see the person. It turned away from all creatures, whether con-cepts, images in prayer, or works of art, and conceived a longing for its Maker and Creator. Hence the loss of "taste" in meditation, longing for God, and the feeling of emptiness in the presence of created objects. God comes near enough to awaken a deep desire in the soul but not near enough to let the soul perceive something of God's beauty. It follows that for a while (and it may be a very long while) one may remain in the dark: all consolation from this world is lost, but no sen-sible consolation from the other world is coming. Per-haps it would be truer to say that though the heart is pure enough to feel the obscure touch of God, as yet it: is not able to receive the light in its fullness because of the many impurities that it still has. The result is darkness; and if one does not know what is happening it is easy to lose confidence and even to give up prayer altogether. In truth, it is a time of grace for the soul. 3. Some Practical Advice. If the signs for contempla-tion are there, it would not be wise to force oneself to make meditations in a strict and methodical form. One cannot turn the clock back, not even in the spiritual life. The time of predominantly active prayer, is over; now one has to learn how to~follow~the lead The first step towards more passivity should be the simplification of prayer. Intellectual considerations dur-ing prayer time should be left out as much as possible. Their place should be taken by simple acts of faith, hope, and love, which are the beginning of any prayer and the fruit of the best of prayers. The soul should .learn how to come back to the same idea again and again and find peace, joy, and "taste" in it. Also there should be a tend-ency towards greater receptivity, but with prudence and wisdom. God likes to take His time; He likes to build slowly and gradually. Our duty is to follow the move-ments of His grace: we should not try to go any faster than He wants us to go nor should we lag behind. The adaptation to this new way of life in which it is God who holds the initiative is bound to be a long process. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is a change in our personality. It is bound to affect everything in our life, our way of thinking, working, and our relations with other persons. A likeness to Christ our Lord is being formed in us. After the initial difficulties a long period of peaceful development may ensue. Prayer will be a mixture of ac-tivity and passivity; but if the soul is faithful, it may reach the stage in which the main rule is passivity. A passivity that leads to a readiness to do the will of God and to a very practical love of God and our neighbour. One final remark is necess